Kiss Music Group

They might be pint-sized performers onstage, but offstage they're in a giant-sized dispute. Joey Fatale, the 4-foot, 4-inch New Yorker who heads the all-dwarf KISS tribute band MiniKiss, is denying published reports that he tried to sneak past security last month at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas to confront a rival band leader, 4-foot "Little" Tim Loomis of Tiny Kiss, for allegedly ripping off his idea for such a group.

Former KISS guitarist Vinnie Vincent lost a Supreme Court appeal Monday in a dispute over royalties with his former bandmates. Justices declined to consider lower court rulings dismissing Vincent's claim that he is owed royalties for his contributions to the heavy metal band's 1983 album, "Lick It Up."

Not much bothers Gene Simmons, whose cartoonish rock band KISS has shrugged off critics' barbs for two decades while selling some 75 million albums worldwide and inspiring countless young musicians--from Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor and Hootie & the Blowfish's Darius Rucker to Courtney Love and Garth Brooks. But as the fortysomething bassist sits poolside at a West Hollywood hotel eating a lunch of Chinese chicken salad and iced tea on a bright, breezy day, he shifts uncomfortably in his chair.