HELSINKI (AFP).- It’s called “Hellsinki” for a reason: Finland’s heavy metal fans on Friday placed masks on four giant statues in the capital city to honour hard rock group Kiss.

State-owned railway operator VR invited four fans of the US band to paint black-and-white Kiss masks for the imposing figures that stand guard outside Helsinki’s main railway station.

The statues, officially called “lantern bearers” but better known among Finns as stonemen, were given their makeover to mark the band’s 10th concert next week in the Nordic country, which has one of the world’s highest concentrations of headbangers.

Kiss celebrated the statue tribute in a video post shared on the group’s Twitter account.

One of the four selected, 46-year-old Sannaliina Kuussaari, said she was 13 when she attended her first Kiss concert and she is planning to take her daughter to see the band on May 4.

“I’m a designer (by profession) and usually when I work, I listen to music at the same time. Kiss is very energising for that purpose,” Kuussaari told AFP as she was preparing one of the masks at the railway station.

She has been an active member of the band’s Finnish fan club, Kiss Army Finland, originally founded by the lead singer of Lordi, a Finnish hard rock band.

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Matthew Wilkening | Ultimate Classic Rock

Former Kiss and current Grand Funk Railroad guitarist Bruce Kulick has teamed up with his wife Lisa Lane Kulick to release a brand-new single, “If I Could Show You.”

The song, which you can hear below, marks the first time the couple has released an original composition together. In an exclusive interview, they talk about the challenges of combining their differing musical styles together.

Although Lisa, a longtime Kiss fan who first saw her future husband perform with the group in 1986, fronted a rock and roll band named Phantasy in high school (favorite songs to sing: “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” and “One Way or Another”), her tastes run more toward “standards” artists such as Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland. In fact, she spent three years performing songs like “Over the Rainbow” at one-woman cabaret shows in New York City.

Lisa explains that she was reluctant to perform in front of Bruce at first. “I hadn’t sung in years, and he kept saying, ‘I know you can sing; I’ve heard you sing!’ It took me about a year to sing for him. Since then, we just have fun in our living room. He plays and I sing along. We’ve wanted to do something together for many years.”

As it turns out, the couple’s 2014 wedding provided the spark for their first collaboration together. “She made a suggestion,” Bruce explains. “She played a song for me that Barbara Streisand used at her wedding, called ‘I Dreamed Of You.’” They decided to record their own version to use for the ceremony.

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