A Conversation with KISS’ Gene Simmons – HuffPost 8.18.14

Mike Ragogna: Gene, what does KISS mean to you right now?

Gene Simmons: I tell you, living well is the best revenge. Over forty years, we’ve been stubborn. When you really think about it, we’ve lost our senses from day one, when we decided to put on more makeup and higher heels than your mommy ever wore, when we decided to ignore critics. We’ve been around longer than The Huffington Post, we’ve been around longer than cell phones, MTV, VH1, the digital age. We started in the Stone Age, but we’re here bigger and better than ever. And size does matter, your girlfriend’s been lying to you. The idea that forty years on we would have the pride — yeah the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall Of Fame is nice, yeah the Hollywood Star Walk Of Fame is nice, yes the KISS Cruise is nice, the KISS Golf Course is nice, the KISS limo service is night, KISS, KISS, KISS, KISS, KISS, but at the end of the day, above and beyond the hooplah and the five thousand licensed products and the movies and the cartoon show, it begins and ends on stage. In essence KISS has always been a live act. We’ve never really had enough patience to stay in the studio long enough unfortunately to do our own Sergeant Pepper or Tommy or whatever. Intrinsically, KISS has always been a live band, no tapes, no secret musicians backstage, all one hundred percent live. Can’t say that about many other bands. There are some, and I believe those bands should hold their heads up high because the integrity and honesty of what you do is utmost as far as I’m concerned. People are paying over a hundred dollars a ticket. The least you could do, God damn it, is to not play a tape. Or if you are going to be playing a backing track, be honest and let people know. And we’ve never rested on our laurels. The past is the past and that’s great, there have been amazing years and decades and all that, but for the fan who’s buying a hundred plus-dollar ticket that night is where it begins and ends, which is why we continue to throw down the gauntlet in front of ourselves and introduce ourselves with a kind of pretty crazy introduction. You wanted the best, you got the best. The hottest band in the world, KISS. If we weren’t deadly serious about our take-no-prisoners attitude of getting up there and really kicking everybody’s nuts in — even the girls — it’s a source of price. The money’s nice, the fame is nice, all that stuff’s nice. But when you get up on stage and you sweat real sweat, that’s the only thing that matters.

MR: I hear you have a couple of veterans as roadies and you’re directly involved with an organization that employs them. What brought KISS and Hiring Our Heroes together?

GS: The only heroes we have is our military. Think about it. Politicians want to get reelected, they make a good living, they get fame, they get to be on TV. Our military is volunteer. They don’t get praise, they don’t get rich, in fact when they come back to America battered and worn — if they come back — there’s not even a guaranteed job waiting for them. So we’re dedicated and have been for a long time to giving back. It’s the least we could do. Two or three shows ago we gave away a house to a deserving veteran. Last tour a dollar out of every ticket went to Wounded Warriors. We have our own restaurant chain Rock & Brews, we hire vets. We have our own football team, LA KISS. Guess what we do? You’ve got to give back. Who else are you going to be nice to? Politicians? The two most hated jobs in America are? Lawyers and politicians. We hate them.

MR: I think there are many well-intentioned ones, but many of them do give us good reason to.

GS: Well, of course, because many of them lack integrity. But imagine somebody who’s got an entire life in front of them, “Yeah, we can have a nice, comfortable life in America,” no, you’re going to volunteer to risk life and limb and go overseas in countries that hate you and risk your life for an ideal called America. That’s beyond. Our military, anybody in uniform, whether they’re in the military or a cop or a fireman is a better person than I will ever be.

MR: Given your fame, you do have an opportunity to bring awareness to the problems veterans face.

GS: Okay, but I don’t risk my life. I mean, yes I do on stage, but nobody’s taking a pot shot at me.

MR: Gene, you’re in the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall Of Fame. How did that hit you?

GS: Well, after forty years, it is interesting as you and I are talking, my twenty five year-old son is actually a writer for The Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington made a deal with him so he writes long articles about all kinds of interesting stuff. We have our Hollywood Star on the Walk Of Fame and the imprints of musical this and the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall Of Fame and all kinds of stuff. It’s appreciated but I will tell you, it begins and ends with the fans. Our validation and the only reason we try to do this is for the fans. The KISS Army. It’s proud, it spans generations, it brings families together, it doesn’t separate them. When we do concerts and we blow stuff up and play the songs and fly through the air … You’ve got a five year-old grandson sitting on top of his dad’s shoulders who’s there with his dad and all of them are wearing makeup. That feeling puts a lump in my throat. Sometimes, I have to turn my head so that they don’t see the Big Bad Wolf tearing up. It is an emotional tsunami that comes over me when I realize what a profound effect this band has had on people all over the world. It’s not just music, damn it, there is this greater calling. There are all kinds of songs we like when we turn on the radio, but when something hits you and is a part of your life it’s big. So KISS fans tattoo their bodies with our faces, they have KISS conventions, and in honor of that, we have KISS Cruises. Every Halloween, we get together with thousands of our fans on one of these superliners and we go to the Bahamas together.

MR: Going back to the very first time you played together as KISS, did you even have a hunch of how huge this would become?

GS: Well, personally, I knew it would succeed, but I didn’t understand on what level. You’ve got to remember, when we first started out, there wasn’t even voicemail. We didn’t have cable, there was no VH1 or MTV, none of that existed. There were hardly any guitars on radio. It was a lot of pop stuff, which is fine. We knew it was going to succeed, but did I imagine that within a year and a half of us starting, we’d be headlining Anaheim Stadium in California without the digital age or hit songs or anything? No. Since then, with all due respect to everybody else, we’ve gone where no band has gone before. A KISS golf course in Las Vegas, KISS cruises, KISS VIP service … We basically decided over forty years ago to ignore the pundits and the peanut gallery and just do whatever the f**k we wanted to, pardon my French. Our rule was, “We want to be unique.” With all due respect to country and rap and all the other fine musical forms, you can take one cowboy hat and put it on another guy and I don’t think there’s a difference. They’re all wonderful and talented but you wouldn’t sit up and go, “Hey, wait a minute, that cowboy hat does not belong on that guy there!” It’s a generic kind of thing. Say what you want about KISS, “I hate that band,” “I love that band,” there’s nobody like us, period.

MR: Gene, what advice do you have for new artists?

GS: I’m sad for new artists because the next Beatles or the next KISS or the next Prince is not going to happen because there’s no record industry. It’s complete chaos. What you’re going to have is a lot of people who think the only thing they need to do is to be on American Idol or X-Factor and just sing, never mind learning how to play an instrument or learning how to write songs. You know that first freckle-faced college kid who was a law-abiding citizen and went to school and all that but decided to file share and download was a leak that eventually sank the whole boat.

MR: It’s horrible, but could it also be some of it is due to record companies abandoning maturing acts to keep hold of the eighteen to twenty-five demographic?

GS: Not really, because you always had Sub Pop and the other labels that launched Nirvana and other bands that the major labels didn’t, and that worked as well. But now you’ve got complete chaos, and that didn’t come because we were invaded by Martians. Our kids did that. They destroyed an entire support system for new bands. Nowadays, how do you launch a band? How do you become a professional musician and do it all the time?

MR: Then what in your opinion is good advice? Like, what would you tell your kid if he decided to become a musician?

GS: Good Lord. Well if you’re a pop act it’s different. My daughter Sophie is recording her first record, she writes, she sings, all of that stuff, Universal is involved, and Nick has got his band, but that’s not the only think they’re doing. She’s got the clothing line, the jewelry, she’s writing a book called I’m Not A Size Two and she wrote a script called Sh*t Girls Say, she also wrote a script called Boy Who Cried Wolf, Nick writes for The Huffington Post. When I started, I was just in KISS, because there was a support system. Nowadays, that’s not enough.

MR: Could it be that is the natural evolution of things?

GS: No, I don’t think it was natural at all.

MR: From the fifties to the seventies, there also were a few giant leaps that changed everything.

GS: I’m going to show you what I mean, and it’s pretty telling. From 1958, for twenty-five years after that, into 1983, name even just one hundred super stars that will stand the test of time. Okay, Elvis, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Motown, you can just go on and on and on. That also includes Madonna and Prince and everybody. AC/DC, Aerosmith, you can just go down the line in all genres of music. That also includes U2, by the way. Now, from 1984 until today, just give me ten stars that will stand the test of time. How about just one. You know what’s interesting? I was having a discussion downstairs and I said, “Kurt Cobain” and nobody in the room had a clue what I was talking about.

MR: Never thought of it like that, that is amazing.

GS: Why is it amazing? The masses have no idea what that is.

MR: They’ve moved on to other music? Maybe the pedestal went away?

GS: But everybody knows who Elvis and The Beatles are.

MR: But other than sports, a limited amount of TV stations and movies, wasn’t music the only other major entertainment back then?

GS: It’s not fair because the advantage that post-’83 had was MTV, VH1, digital age stuff, you had that imagery and that music much more in your face. The first generations were barely known because there was so little technology. If you became big, you were really big, because the masses decided you were big. You still have yet to give me one star that the world knows. Everybody. That means your mother, your grandmother, your candlestick maker, the garbage man … I’m not making a value judgment on it, I’m just saying it ain’t The Beatles and Elvis and Motown and all that. It’s just not, and I think it goes to the record industry. With a record industry, you have a mom and dad who give tour support and give you money. You never had to give back the money, even if the record bombed. Now you’re a new act and there are very talented bands out there that will never get a break. You have the same seeds every year, but without rain and sunshine, they’ll die in the ground.

MR: What do you think is the answer?

GS: The answer is to reinstate a commercial model. Anything that’s given away for free is worthless. Or make a distinction — this is charity, this is commerce. How do you expect a band to be able to write and record quality material if they also have to go work for a living, wash dishes, drive trucks and stuff? There’s just no time to devote to your craft.

MR: I guess. But to me it seems there was always an element of having to work and do the other stuff until you broke as a band even with a label involved in a lot of cases.

GS: Yeah, well I don’t see anything happening after ’83. Nothing.

MR: Gene, the future of KISS. Where do you go from here?

GS: We’re going to go where no band has gone before.

MR: Space, the final frontier?

GS: Well, actually we’re talking about that.

MR: That’s awesome.

GS: And the band may not stop with us. We have every intention that ten years, fifteen years down the line maybe there’s going to be a new KISS. Maybe the caterpillar will become the butterfly.

MR: If you have the KISS army, does that make them the KISS reserve?

GS: We’re talking about new generations of fans all the time, remember. At some point, we’ve got to hang up our platform heels, but so far, so good. We’re having a ball. I think you’ll be very impressed and hopefully, you’ll be very proud. There is a connection between the fans and the band that I think goes beyond ticket prices and merchandising and stuff like that. Once there’s enough money and enough fame and all that kind of stuff, how the hell do you want to do it? I will tell you, I want anybody who comes to our shows, whether you’re a fan or not, either during the middle or the end, to nudge somebody with their elbow and say, “Yeah, now that’s a band. That’s my band.” You want that pride. I remember seeing a movie once called The Pride Of The Yankees.

MR: Great movie.

GS: Yeah. Interesting choice of words — The Pride Of The Yankees. Yeah, pride, that’s right. Even above and beyond fame and fortune and all that, you want to impress, and then you want somebody to connect emotionally and say, “Okay, now show me your band.” Just like, “My dad’s stronger than your dad,” you’re proud. I want that. That’s what I fight for.

MR: Is that ultimately the secret of why KISS has been so successful and around so long?

GS: It’s never just one thing. You have to have the right thing at the right place at the right time, certainly. If KISS was around in the 1800s they’d look at us like we were aliens. There is right thing, right place, right time, and then there’s just no substitute for pride. For getting up on that stage and caring enough to give it your best. You’ll see that. I sincerely hope with all my heart that the very last show we will ever play — because one day there will be one — that we will live up to our own declaration, which we have used to introduce ourselves at every concert and will on the last concert, “You wanted the best? You got the best, God damn it, the hottest band in the world: Kiss.”

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne