Why Paul Stanley Was Heartbroken Over His First Guitar

Paul Stanley admits that his first guitar fell short of his dreams, to the extent that he ignored it for months.

The future Kiss star was initially inspired by Eddie Cochran, whose work he preferred to that of Elvis Presley.

“There was something about him that was rogue and seemed ruthless – a great attitude,” Stanley tells Gibson TV, citing Cochran’s songs “Summertime Blues” and “C’mon Everybody.” “So that was really the start of my introduction to guitar, although I grew up in a family with a lot of folk music – bluegrass and opera and classical music and all.”

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Stanley said he quickly became “convinced I could play the guitar when I had no knowledge of the guitar, just because there was some sort of connection. ... Guitar really is the instrument of the blues, which gave birth to rock ’n’ roll.”

As he entered his teens, Stanley began dropping hints to his parents. “My 13th birthday was coming up, and I kept saying, ‘I really want a guitar, an electric guitar!’ Right around my birthday, my mom said, ‘Look under your bed,’ and I looked under the bed and my heart began to break…

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“I saw this big cardboard case, and I pulled it out and opened it up – and it was a used nylon-string guitar. I was shattered: ‘You can’t play rock ’n’ roll on this!’ And I closed it and pushed it back under the bed.

“A couple of months later, I said, ‘Let me let me give that a go.’ So that was really the start. ... I took to it really quickly. I took a few lessons and I wanted to go faster; for some reason the teacher was like, ‘No, you have to stay at this pace.’ So he went and the guitar stayed!”