To follow up my post above - Its very easy for us to sit here and throw grenades into the room. We aren't a former guitarist of Kiss, we're idiots sat in front of laptops with an opinion. We haven't been through the courts and got screwed over for our royalties by Uncle Gene. We haven't lived through V's personal tragedies. Basically we just aren't him and have no idea what it must be like to carry a similar history on our shoulders.
By way of adding something positive to the debate, one of the things that I'm amazed that hasn't been explored by Vinnie is some sort of regular subscription thing - a way of giving something to the fans and earn an income from it. The OnlyFans platform provides a way of content creators to receive a regular income to a select audience who are willing to pay a small amount each month for access.
So how about doing something similar? For example:
For $5-$10 a month, you get access to a monthly/weekly/bi-weekly hour long stream (which could even be pre-recorded) where VV gives a general update of what's in the works, maybe answers a few selected fan questions from last month, then deep dives a particular song and the story associated with it. There must be a hundred total - plenty of content to hang the whole thing from.
What might that look like?
We'd just come off the Creatures Tour and I was in my hotel room in NY in June 1983. There was talk of taking the makeup off. The phone rang, it was Paul. I played him a riff which became Exciter. let me show you the early chord structure here on this acoustic guitar. Paul loved it so we added a chorus, which goes like this. Notice how it picks up the same chords but differently. Paul then wrote the words. What's interesting about the solo is I used this diminished scale, and what that does is this. Funny, when we recorded it, Gene had trouble with the bass line, so we went back to his apartment and worked on it until 4.00 am - blah blah blah. Rick Derringer played the outro solo on it - I remember watching him record it. He did a good job. But it doesn't really work as a live song, because..... blah blah blah
I've made all that up, but my point is this is
super interesting content that any fan would gladly pay for! No travelling. No meeting fans in person. You're in control. No need to interact live. It's cheap as chips to set up. Logistically easy vs setting up gear at an event, hoping your costs are going to be covered by ticket sales. You can be candid, make a mistake on a song, be loose with your playing, etc. This isn't performing whole songs, just picking out relevant bits (almost learning/trying to remember how it was played as you go - you're
taking the viewer with you as you figure it out). And anyway, you've got plenty of time between streams to re-learn the thing and think about what might be interesting for the fans to hear.
And ultimately, you're building up a body of work, that people are going to want to pay for to see - at a REASONABLE COST. It's behind a firewall (a closed platform) that only subscribers can access. And all of it could lead up to the bigger sell - a book, upcoming Creatures Fest, new t shirts, new music, a live event at SIR, signed CDs, Posters, etc etc.
Get a thousand fans contributing $5 a month for that? Hello!
Of course I'm sure its more complicated than that, but it seems to me you've got to start with a solid base of support and engagement, not this boom bust strategy of high priced merch and closed door events, then months of silence - it doesn't build momentum or credibility.
Anyway, just a thought.