Joh Fortt | CNBC
Gene Simmons is the most outrageous member of one of the most outrageous bands of all time: KISS.
There’s a lot more to KISS than shock. It’s the number-one gold-record-earning group of all time, at 30—when you include the four solo albums that band members released on the same day in 1978. Fourteen albums went platinum.
This is a band that’s known for its hits: “I wanna rock and roll all night, and party every day” seems like it’s a phrase as old as rock itself. The band is known just as much for its look. There’s the black and white face paint, the pyrotechnics, and a few details that are signature Gene Simmons. There’s the blood-spitting, the axe guitar, and of course the tongue so long it’s almost a fifth band member. And guess what: They’re still touring.
Fortt Knox sat down with Gene Simmons at the Studio Hotel in New York, to talk business and marketing. Simmons is a guy who not only managed to launch an iconic brand in his early 20s, he and co-founder Paul Stanley remade it several times along the way with different band members, different looks—and a voracious appetite for merchandising.
Simmons also managed to become a brand on his own.
He has had more than one turn on reality TV. He was on the “Celebrity Apprentice” with then star (and now president) Donald Trump. Simmons also had had his own show, “Gene Simmons Family Jewels,” that featured wife Shannon Tweed, and his kids Nick and Sophie.
Here’s a sampling of some of the wisdom he shared with Fortt Knox, in typically colorful fashion.
Gene Simmons is the most outrageous member of one of the most outrageous bands of all time: KISS.
There’s a lot more to KISS than shock. It’s the number-one gold-record-earning group of all time, at 30—when you include the four solo albums that band members released on the same day in 1978. Fourteen albums went platinum.
This is a band that’s known for its hits: “I wanna rock and roll all night, and party every day” seems like it’s a phrase as old as rock itself. The band is known just as much for its look. There’s the black and white face paint, the pyrotechnics, and a few details that are signature Gene Simmons. There’s the blood-spitting, the axe guitar, and of course the tongue so long it’s almost a fifth band member. And guess what: They’re still touring.