If there’s one thing Gene Simmons won’t do, it’s shut up. The man’s got opinions and, luckily, he’s not shy about unleashing them in a slow-rolling monologue that steamrolls over questions and takes detours into his opinions on the Grateful Dead, Broadway, Jerry Garcia, Kermit-voiced frontmen, and supermarket economics.
“The music industry? It’s gone,” he says without flinching. “Imagine going into a grocery store, taking all the fruits and vegetables, and putting a penny in the till. That’s what streaming is.”
We’re here, technically, to talk about the 50th anniversary of Dressed to Kill, the KISS album that gave us the studio version of “Rock and Roll All Nite” and a photo of four grown men in suits looking like they just robbed a corpse at a glam rock funeral. But Gene is more interested in eulogizing the entire genre of rock music, explaining how Napster killed the business, and reminding us all that the Beatles were “the end-all, be-all.”
“You had Elvis, the Beatles, Hendrix, the Stones, Bowie, Madonna, Prince, Motown, Metallica... and then Napster,” he laments. “Since then, where’s the new Beatles? Where’s Elvis?” (Try telling that to Wet Leg or St. Vincent — but don’t expect him to care.)
To be clear, Simmons isn’t saying there aren’t great new rock bands. He just doesn’t believe they have a shot. “It’s a vicious cycle. You can’t have fans until you have fans,” he shrugs.
Still, it’s not all doom and gloom. These days, Simmons has a movie production company (Simmons/Hamilton Films), restaurants, casinos, vodka, and — of course — the Gene Simmons Band, which is basically what happens when a KISS tribute act gets taken over by the guy they’re tributing.
“I thought I could stay away from the stage,” he says. “But the Gene Simmons Band is just me having fun. I can pull 20 people onstage if I want. I couldn’t do that with KISS. If somebody got onstage at a KISS show, they were a hot dog on a barbecue.”
He’s also planning a “gathering of the tribes” this November in Las Vegas. “We’re not going back on tour. We promised,” he says. “But we’ll jump up and do a few tunes. It’s for the fans. Without them, I’d be asking, ‘Would you like fries with that?’”
And in true Simmons fashion, he’s still slinging merch and reviving deep cuts with titles that would get bleeped in a church basement. “There’s a song I wrote called ‘Shit.’ The label said I couldn’t call it that. So we renamed it ‘Spit.’ But in concert, I stop and point to the audience, and they get to pick what they yell. Freedom of expression.”
As for the makeup, it might be off for the gathering. “We tried taking it off before,” he says. “Didn’t matter. People wanted the makeup and those songs. You’re too close to something, and you start making up rules. But we started a band to break rules.”
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Gene Simmons interview without a few grenades lobbed at the sacred cows. Asked about the legacy of New York rock, he casually torched it: “Other than KISS, no other New York rock band ever did anything.” Then came the real eyebrow-raiser: “The Ramones, who we all love… were really a failed band.” He wasn’t done. “The New York Dolls was a failure. That means they couldn’t earn a living.”
Sure, he offered a half-hearted disclaimer — “That doesn’t mean we don’t love them” — but the sermon was clear: ticket sales or shut the hell up. “Chicago had 22 multi-platinum albums in a row,” he added. “Do they get credibility? No. But I’ll take the sales, buddy. You can’t pay the rent with credibility.”
And yet here we are, five decades on from Dressed to Kill — a modestly selling album from a band that hadn’t yet cracked the charts but was already packing stadiums. “We never had the patience for the studio,” Simmons said. “We weren’t the Beatles.” But somewhere between the pinstripes, the greasepaint, and the soon-to-be-immortal “Rock and Roll All Nite,” they captured something sticky. Something loud, raw, and weird enough to last 50 years — even if the critics still don’t get it.
Watch the full interview in all of it's zaniness above and then check out the track below.
