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TSHIRT_1067 Officially Licensed KISS Merchandise
KISS Burning Hot T-Shirt
Stanley came up with the name; as he, Simmons, and Criss were driving around New York City. Criss mentioned that he was in a band called Lips, so Stanley said what about KISS (Reminisced by Simmons on the KISS video Exposed).
Frehley created the now-iconic logo (making the "SS" look like lightning bolts) when he went to write the new band name over Wicked Lester on a poster outside the club where they were going to play.
The runic letters happened to look similar to the insignia of the Nazi SS, or Waffen-SS, a symbol that is now illegal to display in Germany. Therefore, in Germany, after 1979, all of the band's album covers and merchandise used a modified version of the logo, in which the "SS" looks like a backwards "ZZ." Ironically, Frehley, Simmons, and Stanley are all of Jewish origin.
The band's name has been rumored to have many hidden meanings, among them an acronym for Knights In Satan's Service or acronym for Keep It Simple Stupid. None of these rumors have any basis in fact, and the band has consistently denied them.
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