It’s Monday night in the Voodoo Room at the House of Blues San Diego – a small stage with nowhere to hide and just enough oxygen for a band to either ignite or quietly suffocate. Retro-rocking upstarts Stanley Simmons have chosen this moment to make their live gig debut. Barely a year old, with no album in the wild yet – their forthcoming debut, Dancing While The World Is Ending, is still months out – and they are already under a level of scrutiny most bands spend years avoiding.
And yet Evan Stanley and Nick Simmons don’t arrive with anonymity as cover; they arrive carrying the surnames of Kiss icons Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, and everything that comes with that. This is not a soft launch. It’s a test, and from the first few minutes, it’s clear they intend to pass it.
