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From: Los Angeles Times As the tongue-wagging singer for the rock band KISS, GENE SIMMONS likes to brag about turning a band into a brand. Behind the garish makeup, Simmons, 56, was the driving force behind a blitzkrieg of KISS-themed products, including lunch pails and caskets. The band's heyday is long gone, but Simmons says he's far from finished. The Beverly Hills-based impresario is starring in two reality TV shows, developing a magazine, running his own music label and launching an entertainment-themed pay-TV show that will feature uncensored music videos and celebrity interviews. Think "Access Hollywood" meets "Girls Gone Wild." Simmons, who calls himself "Disney without the overhead," still occasionally dons his KISS get-up to perform as the Demon. "I'm as ravenous as ever," he said. "I remember when my belly was empty, and I didn't like the feeling." Since January, he and entertainment industry veteran Richard G. Abramson have been marketing the Indy Racing League, the once-dominant auto racing circuit that has suffered since its split from CART, now the Champ Car World Series. Both "open-wheel" leagues lag behind stock-car racing's NASCAR in popularity, although Indy has the sport's signature event in the Indianapolis 500 and an emerging star in Danica Patrick. Simmons got involved with the Indy Racing League after meeting marketing chief Phil Lengyel during a race at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. According to Lengyel, Simmons pointed to an IRL sign and said, "Is that your logo? It stinks." "We started off with a friendly confrontation," Lengyel said, "and we've been brutally honest ever since." A few days after the race, Simmons invited Lengyel and the IRL's top brass to Los Angeles, where he and Abramson pitched an alliance with their company, Simmons Abramson Marketing. To launch the effort, Simmons wrote the foot-stomping anthem "I Am Indy" with the quirky one-man band BAG to serve as the league theme song. "At the racetrack, you could just feel and breathe in the dust," Simmons said during an interview at his Benedict Canyon home, where his sprawling office is packed with KISS merchandise and memorabilia. "It was an old man's game in need of a makeover." Saying "IRL" sounded like a disease, Simmons set out to re-brand the league as "Indy." "These are individual, personalized rocket ships streaking 220 mph," Simmons said. "With 'I am Indy,' you're making a pledge of allegiance to the United Nations of Indy. The phrase knows no bounds - racial, sexual or otherwise. It applies to drivers, fans, sponsors." Simmons Abramson Marketing may help "bring together what has been a fragmented part of the motor sports industry," said David M. Carter, head of consultancy Sports Business Group in Redondo Beach and a faculty member at USC's Marshall School of Business. Still, he said, all a celebrity like Simmons or Jon Bon Jovi, who founded the Arena Football League's Philadelphia franchise in 2003, can do is "whet your appetite. It's then up to the sport itself to turn you into a customer." Simmons and Abramson are uncharacteristically mum when it comes to their pay-television venture. It's known as NGTV, short for No Good TV, and will feature profanity-laced interviews and nudity. The TV operation plans a public stock offering in the spring and is now in the "quiet period" required by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Simmons is chairman of the Beverly Hills-based company and Abramson is a board member. Segments taped so far feature conversations with Ben Affleck, Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry and other celebrities, as well as appearances by musicians such as the Black Eyed Peas and Pink, the IPO filing says. "The timing is right for this sort of leading-edge, uncensored programming in the pay-per-view business," said Alan L. Jacobs, chief executive of Capital Growth Financial, the Boca Raton, Fla., investment bank underwriting the deal. Financial analyst Tom Taulli, author of "Investing in IPOs," advises investors to tread gingerly, noting that Capital Growth Financial has managed only a handful of obscure public offerings. |
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