Eric Singer recalls fearing KISS reunion would leave him behind

Eric Singer used a packed fan-expo weekend to revisit one of the most uncertain stretches of his KISS career, saying the band’s 1996 reunion era made him wonder if he would ever play with KISS again. Podcast Rock City Live uploaded the full April 12 question-and-answer session from the Indy KISS Fan Expo, giving fans a clear view of how Singer described the uneasy wait that followed as the original lineup moved back to center stage.

The setting matched the subject. The Indy KISS Fan Expo took place at the Embassy Suites by Hilton in Indianapolis and Plainfield, Indiana, and the schedule listed Singer’s Q&A from 5:15 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., followed by Eric Singer & Friends from 7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. The hotel was marked sold out, a reminder that KISS history still pulls a crowd when one of its long-serving drummers is on stage telling it straight.

Singer’s comments landed with extra weight because of the band’s 1996 reunion tour, the Alive/Worldwide Tour, which opened on June 28, 1996, at Tiger Stadium in Detroit and ran until July 5, 1997, in London. It was the first tour with Peter Criss and Ace Frehley since the Dynasty Tour in 1979, and for Singer, who had become KISS’s drummer in December 1991 after Eric Carr’s death, that shift created real uncertainty. The reunion was a triumph for the band’s mythology, but it also showed how quickly a legacy act can redraw the map underneath the players who kept the machine moving.

That tension was part of what made Singer’s appearance resonate. He was not only talking about history, he was still playing it. Setlist.fm records for the expo performance list Beth, Flaming Youth, Sweet Pain, Detroit Rock City, Jane, Take Me, Lick It Up, King of the Night Time World, God of Thunder, Hotter Than Hell, Black Diamond and Shout It Out Loud, with Detroit Rock City noted as featuring Paul Stanley. The set made the point in real time: Singer has spent years standing in the middle of KISS’s later-era live identity, even while the band’s lineup story kept changing around him.

For KISS fans, that mix of vulnerability and durability is the whole story. Singer’s recollection showed that even a drummer inside one of rock’s biggest brands can feel the floor move when reunion politics take over, and it underscored how much of KISS’s live legacy still rests on the players who lived through its pivots.