KISS star Gene Simmons is still refusing to backtrack on his “rock is dead” comments that sent the music world into a spin in 2014.
The bassist upset many fans and peers when he told his son Nick rock music had been “murdered” in an Esquire magazine interview.
He said, “It’s that much harder to earn a living playing and writing songs. No one will pay you to do it.”
And, in a new interview, Simmons has defended his three-year-old remarks, stating, “Rock is dead. It’s because of the internet and Napster and all that stuff. Once you download and file-share, then you’re not making it possible for a new band to be able to do this full time.
“There’s every bit as much talent out there as there was when we first started, but the new bands have to live in their mother’s basement because they can’t afford to do this full time, because people are just filesharing and downloading… That’s their prerogative – we allowed it and we haven’t sued everybody’s pants off for doing that.”
He goes on to point out that without traditional record companies “there wouldn’t have been Elvis (Presley), the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix…,” adding, “Even in disco, you got Madonna, you had Prince, U2, AC/DC, us maybe and a few others. And even in pop, you had Michael Jackson… I mean, it’s just endless. Continue reading