Last Friday evening, Paul Stanley posted on his X/Twitter account, “I recently got turned on to Lamont Landers. If you love R&B like I do you’ll LOVE him. No, he doesn’t look what you expect but just goes to show ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’. LOVE him.”

High praise from one of hard-rock’s best and most enduring frontmen. In his post, Stanley, fresh off Kiss’ latest farewell tour, even included Landers’ website and Instagram handle.

Landers’ supple soulful vocals are as Stanley noted, incongruous with his bookish, red-headed and fair-skinned looks.

If you’re wondering how the guy who yelped songs like “Love Gun” and “Lick It Up” with Kiss for decades could be into R&B, dig deeper. In 2015, Stanley launched Soul Station, a band covering vintage gems like “The Tracks of My Tears” as well as original R&B tune “I, Oh I.”

A Decatur native now based in Huntsville and in his early 30s, Landers first rose to big stages in spring 2018, when he and his tight band impressed on Fox TV’s “Showtime at The Apollo.” The next summer, Landers appeared on top-rated NBC show “America’s Got Talent.”

Kiss’ Paul Stanley, whose X/Twitter followers number more than 718,000, isn’t the first music star to become a Lamont Landers fan. “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and The Roots drummer Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson follows Landers on Instagram. As do rap superstar Snoop Dogg and “Ocean’s Eleven” actor Andy Garcia.

All told, more than 223,000 people follow Landers on IG, where he posts clips of him covering classic songs like “The Rubber Band Man” By The Spinners. Meanwhile over on TikTok, Landers is followed by almost 400,000 and his videos have received around 2.3 million likes.

The live music industry is noticing, too. He’s signed on with premier booking agency High Road Touring, whose roster includes the likes of Wilco and Phoebe Bridgers. Landers also acquired management, in the form of Tom Gimbel, the former general manager of “Austin City Limits.”

New opportunities are rolling in. Landers, who in addition to singing plays bluesy guitar, is booked to perform at this year’s Atlanta music festival Shakey Knees, amid big names like Foo Fighters, Billy Idol, Arcade Fire and Weezer.

In December, Player’s Club — Landers’ new band with Alabama Shakes/Brittany Howard bassist Zack Cockrell — made their local live debut with a much buzzed-about show at Gold Sprint, a coffee shop that’s evolved into Huntsville’s best place to see indie shows. Players Club has also recorded a yet-to-be released debut EP.

“All these little things,” Landers told me in our December interview, “have kind of come into place.”

AL.com has followed Landers’ music for years. His pop-funk track “Into the Fold” was one of our “50 songs by Alabama musicians from 2018 to know.” Most recently, slinky Landers single “Piece Of Me” topped AL.com’s best 2023 songs by Huntsville musicians list.

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