Kiss's journey never ends. The hard rock band sold their repertoire, brand name, and IP to Swedish company Pophouse Entertainment Group for almost $300 million, announced Thursday.
Kiss has worked with Pophouse, co-founded by ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus, before. In December, the band's current lineup—founders Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, guitarist Tommy Thayer, and drummer Eric Singer—debuted digitized avatars of themselves at Madison Square Garden on their farewell tour.
In collaboration with Pophouse, George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic developed the cutting-edge technology. The two firms recently collaborated on the London “ABBA Voyage” exhibition, where fans could watch their digital avatars perform a full ABBA concert.
Pophouse CEO Per Sundin said Kiss' avatars will be used in a biopic, documentary, and Kiss experience. Sundin told the that an avatar show will premiere in the second half of 2027, but it won't be like "ABBA Voyage." The North American premiere is expected. Sundin said the purchase will introduce Kiss to new generations, setting Pophouse apart from past music collection acquisitions.
“The three big record companies that are left are doing a fantastic job, but they have so many catalogs and can’t focus on everything,” he says. even though we will hold the artists rights, we work with Universal (Music Group) and Kiss. We bought all rights, which I've never seen explained as clearly."
Gene Simmons tells the AP over Zoom, "I don't like the word acquisition," promising the band would never sell their catalog to an unappreciative entity.
“Collaboration is its purpose. We would be derelict in our inferred fiduciary obligation to the thing we created to abandon it, he said. People may assume, ‘OK, now Pophouse is doing that stuff and we’re here in Beverly Hills twiddling our thumbs.’ Not true. In the trenches with them. We chat often. Ideas are shared. Collaborative effort. Paul Stanley and I, especially with the band, will stick to this. We have a baby.”
That means no more actual live touring. He declares, “We’re not going to tour again as Kiss, period. “We’re not going to put makeup on and go out.” Second Pophouse investment outside Sweden: Kiss Cyndi Lauper partnered with the company in February to sell the majority of her music and create a “immersive theater piece” that brings fans to her hometown of New York.
New performances and live experiences are intended to introduce Lauper's music to fans and younger audiences. “Most suits, when you tell them an idea, their eyes glaze over, they just want your greatest hits,” Lauper told the AP in February at Pophouse headquarters in Stockholm. However, as a multimedia corporation, they want to create something fresh, not merely buy my portfolio.
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