KISS frontman Paul Stanley is featured in an intimate interview with the Times-Herald, discussing his love of America, his respect for the military, his career as a painter, Rock & Brews, and his family. An excerpt is available below.

“I didn’t get to where I am overnight. It happens incrementally,” Stanley said. “If someone told me 40 years ago I’d be selling out art shows, have a very success restaurant chain, be in a band that’s in the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame that’s sold 100 million albums and be the star of ‘Phantom of the Opera,’ that would have been a big pig to swallow. It came one step at a time and now makes total sense. I feel incredibly fortunate to be where I am and feel a real sense of obligation to the people who made this possible. Obviously, that includes fans, that includes collectors of my art and that certainly includes the military.”

With KISS — now featuring Stanley, Gene Simmons, Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer — on hiatus until a week in Spain and Portugal in July, Stanley can focus on his other endeavors, especially his wife, Erin, and their three young children, Emily, Sarah, and Colin. Stanley’s oldest son, Evan, 23, recently graduated Magna Cum Laude at New York University.

Evan, said his father, “is a thinker and aware of responsibilities and obligations to other people and to society; things I had no clue of when I was his age. I think I’ve been able to show him in many way to be most effective we can be when we lead by example.”

Stanley said he’ll always admire his son’s academic intelligence.

“The only way I could have gotten into NYU is through the window,” Stanley chuckled.

Read the complete interview here.

In a new interview with Billboard, Paul Stanley discusses his passion for painting, and the future of KISS.

Stanley, who also fronts a 13-piece R&B group called Soul Station, has more time for his visual art in what looks like a light year for KISS. The group has a handful of festival and headlining dates during July in Spain and Portugal but will be spending most of the year off the road.

And Stanley freely acknowledges that: "I don't want to go leave home. I have a family and I have children and, honestly, I think my primary responsibility is to be a dad and I don't want to miss out on that. And certainly as we got older we know that life is finite and I pick and choose what I want to do at this point."

That said, Stanley does expect that "there's a world tour down the pike," though he adds that he's not sure how many more of those he's up for.

"The thought of me not being involved certainly comes to mind," Stanley notes. "I'm not sure about the idea of Kiss coming to an end. We've built something that's so iconic, and I think it transcends any of the members so I can certainly see me not being there, seriously. There was a time where people said it had to be the four of us (Stanley, Simmons, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss) and those people are already 50 percent wrong. So I'm betting (another absence) could be overcome, too."

Read more at Billboard.com.