A decade ago Joey Fatale was packing up his record collection for a move when he came across an old friend: A still-sealed copy of
Kiss: Alive!, its lick-on tattoos and band member portraits still untouched. “When I looked at the album,” Joey recalls, “I had this huge thought about having a little people Kiss tribute band.”
That may not have been the first thought of most ambitious rock fans/would-be promoters, but then Joey was different than most―he’s 4’4” tall, for one thing, a stature that limited his range of show biz aspirations. Fatale’s resemblance to
Tonight Show host Jay Leno, for instance, won him a recurring role on
Late Night With Conan O’Brien as―who else?―“Little Jay Leno.”
But after he convinced the manager of New York City’s Lava Lounge to let him try out his unlikely Kiss tribute brainstorm, Fatale soon found his fledgling little act in big demand at local clubs and parties―but with some decided musical, er, shortcomings. “Nobody really knew how to lip-sync the songs," Fatale, the band’s mini Gene Simmons told the
Long Island Press. "We were good as far as going crazy, but we were not in sync as Kiss would be.”
Enter Scott Seidman, a professional physical therapist whose own show biz moonlighting has included 20 stints on Conan O’Brien’s show and other work that’s ranged from the
Radio City Christmas Spectacular to Howard Stern’s
Butt Bongo Fiesta home video. Fatale looked him up and asked two basic questions: Could he sing and was he a Kiss fan? “I've seen Kiss eight times in conce
rt,” Seidman told Fatale. “
I've got a Gene Simmons towel upstairs. I'm small. I love Kiss. I sing Kiss songs. Yeah, I'll take a shot."
Soon after Seidman became the act’s mini Paul Stanley, shock radio poobahs like Opie and Anthony and Howard Stern started giving them exposure and Fatale says MiniKiss found themselves “like a little snowball getting bigger and bigger.” So successful their act eventually won the endorsement of the real Gene Simmons, a network television appearance on the
Jimmy Kimmel Show (see video below) and―of course―spawned a imitator of their imitation, Tiny Kiss, an outfit incongruously fronted by a 300-pound female singer of otherwise normal stature.
But the MiniKiss/Tiny Kiss rivalry also has parallels to the tensions of the real rock world: TK founder Tim Loomis was MK’s original mini Peter Criss before a spat with Fatale effectively cast him as the latter band’s petite Pete Best. In 2006, tensions between the two demi-acts boiled over into a lawsuit and near physical confrontation at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas, where TK was perf
orming in a review. As an employee told the
New York Post, “MiniKiss sneaked past security pretending to be Tiny Kiss, but someone from my team recognized them and had them removed from the Hard Rock. I think they wanted to physically confront (Loomis).” Thus was a potential rumble of mini Kiss impersonators narrowly cut off.
But while the occasional Mini Elvis has swiveled his tiny hips in the past, a veritable flood of mini rock tribute acts is now upon us. Fatale’s entertainment company also offers bookings for LittleCrue, while elsewhere
Mini Britney (Terra Jolé) struts her stuff with a professionalism now arguably lacking in the original. Jolé also takes star turns as mini-icon versions of Cher and Madonna while headlining
Little Legends, a Las Vegas little people impersonator review that also includes downsized versions of Elvis, the Village People, Tina Turner, Sonny & Cher, and an act called Mini Vanilli (we’re assuming they lip sync).
But MiniKiss has few illusions about their place in the scheme of things. “We’re in the business,” says mini Paul Stanley/Scott Seidman matter-of-factly. “We’re a novelty act. People want to see something different. And we’re different.”