In a recent interview, KISS' PAUL STANLEY said that GENE SIMMONS lived five minutes from him . . . and that they were "family."
--Well, he's not that close with former KISS members ACE FREHLEY and PETER CRISS. He says they became, quote, "impossible and intolerable" . . . mainly due to their respective substance abuse problems . . . and he hasn't talked to either of them in years.
--He adds, quote, "I was never really friends with them. The band was never about friendship, [it] was about commitment to a cause, but friendship? We were all very different people.
--"I loved them for what we created together, [but] I certainly don't love them today . . . the band as it is today is far more the embodiment of what we started than what we became . . . I don't miss them."