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Hole lotta love From: calgarysun.com by Jane Stevenson / Sun Media 
It has been 26 years since GENE SIMMONS' previous solo album. And while the public hasn't exactly been clamouring for the followup — in this case, ***hole, released June 8 — Simmons says the time was right for his sophomore solo effort.
"The truth is I've been busy," the 54-year-old blood-spewing bassist for KISS says during a stop in Toronto. "You know I'm in a band that wears more makeup and high heels than your mommy ever did. And we've also been touring along the way." On this day, however, Simmons is in solo mode as he promotes ***hole. "I am concerned that it won't get radio airplay, but here we are talking about it," Simmons says refering to the album's cheeky title. The first single is a cover of U.K. techno band The Prodigy's Firestarter, featuring Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro. Two other collaborators on the new record are big surprises: Bob Dylan and the late Frank Zappa. Waiting For The Morning Light was co-written with Dylan nine years ago, but Simmons only completed the lyrics one month before the album was finished. "I kept asking Bob to write the lyric," Simmons says, "and he kept saying (adopting Dylan's nasal tone), 'No, you do it Mr. KISS.' That's what he calls me." The two music icons initially got together at Simmons' request. "So he came over to the house and we both had acoustic guitars," Simmons says. "And we were trading licks. Initially, I thought I was going to write the melody and the chordal pattern and that Bob would write the lyric because that's why I called him in the first place. You know, the pre-eminent modern lyricist. Melodically, I think The Beatles had it. But nobody touched Dylan lyrically. "And the irony is that he started to strum some chords that got me interested. I don't know where the melody came from, but it came right away based on his chords." As for Zappa's co-writing, guitar and singing credit on Black Tongue — which also features his sons Dweezil and Ahmet, daughter Moon and wife Gail on background vocals — Simmons wound up going to the avant-garde musician's house right before he died. "I met his family then. This was late when he was not feeling well," Simmons says. "And he played me some things and he showed me some of his archives and he passed away." Simmons kept in touch with the Zappa clan and when time came for the second solo album, he asked about using some of the material he'd heard. "Dweezil sent over three bits of music, one of the pieces was a 30-second snippet which wound up being the bed track. And then I put guitars, drums, background vocals, wrote a song around it." Simmons got into the family act as well. His 15-year-old son Nicholas — "He's 6-foot-6, he's got a size-15 foot" — sings on Carnival Of Souls while his 11-year-old daughter Sophie — "She's got the keys to the kingdom, she knows that" — sings on Now That You're Gone, written about Simmons' father who recently passed away. Canadian content also comes from his longtime companion Shannon Tweed, and her mother Louise and sister Tracy, on Whatever Turns You On. "My first solo record, 26 years ago, had this kind of wide spectrum," Simmons says. "I had When You Wish Upon A Star as the last song, and likewise, on this album, I have a song I wrote called 1,000 Dreams, which almost sounds like a Hawaiian country psychedelic song or something. But when you do a solo record I like to think you're doing something different than being in KISS." |
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