Danny Ross | Forbes

Danny Ross: You famously said, “Rock is dead.” Did you mean that artistic integrity is dead in the millennial generation?

Gene Simmons: No. There’s more talent than ever before. But there aren’t trains moving because the railroad tracks have been eaten away by the fans. Fans have decided not to pay for downloading and file sharing. If there’s a grocery store, and you grab milk and eggs without paying for them, how long will the farmer, the trucker and the grocer stay open?

Ross: But do you think file sharing is the only thing responsible for the downfall of the industry?

Simmons: Yes. Legislation is far behind. It’s like someone coming into your home and taking your stuff. Washington understands invention and patents, but copyright they’re oblivious to.

Ross: How does an emerging artist succeed in today’s music environment?

Simmons: My heart goes out to them because it’s almost impossible. There’s a handful of YouTube stars, but you don’t see the hundreds of thousands of carcasses that are littered, the failures. So you see one kid with 30 million followers, but you don’t see the other people who have never made it. Whereas when there was a record industry, you could have hundreds of bands with platinum records.

Ross: So why is it so hard?

Simmons: Because everything’s free. It’s the Wild West. Prices and value depend on how scarce something is. It’s capitalism. When something is plentiful, it has no value. When content is free, it has no value.

Ross: And streaming is insufficient?

Simmons: I think it’s a crime. Everybody’s making money on some level, and the people that create the thing itself are making 1/100th of a penny. My daughter had 10 million streams of a song, and she made $214. I blame the record companies. They should have sued the pants off of Napster. It doesn’t affect me, I’m rich. The heartbreak is that the next KISS will not get the chance I did. Not a chance in hell.

Ross: If you were 25 and trying to make it with KISS in today’s modern music industry, what would you do?

Simmons: I wouldn’t quit my day job, and I’d pursue music as a hobby. In Wall Street parlance it’s “Spread the risk.” In Las Vegas parlance, it’s “Don’t put all your money on 38 Black.” Spread the risk and always have a cushion. If you have a car, you need five tires. It’s not a question of if, but when you’ll get a flat tire. You have to treat life that way.

Ross: Do you follow the charts these days?

Simmons: There’s no connection between downloading, file sharing and charts. No one knows what it means anymore. The biggest song of all time used to be “Gangnam Style” and now it’s “Despacito.” So where’s the money? How many billions of times have people played the song? The writers and creators of that song should have made fortunes on top of fortunes.

Ross: But what do you make of Top 40 music in 2017 and songwriters like Max Martin?

Simmons: Well, Max grew up on KISS. Great songs are great songs, whether or not there are electric guitars. I remember when I heard the jingle-jangle mixed up front on those Beatles records. There’s no such thing as old school or new school. There’s either music that moves you or not. Classic is classic.

Ross: How do you think The Beatles managed to be both a commercial and artistic success?

Simmons: I don’t think they did anything but be themselves. The best way to run a race is just to look straight forward and be the best you can be. If you keep looking over your shoulder to see what your neighbor’s doing, you’ll be second best, because then you’re just a copycat. I’m here to champion the idea that all expression is great if it doesn’t hurt anybody, whether you get it or not. Opera is great — I don’t personally get it but I admire it. Rap is great — it doesn’t speak to me because I’m not from the ghetto. But I applaud it. Go rap! Go Indian music! Go martian music! The fact that I don’t get it doesn’t mean that it’s bad.

Ross: KISS made its name thinking about image. So what do you make of the Instagram era?

Simmons: I’m not sure, but I’ll tell you the Kim Kardashian phenomenon is a breath of fresh air. Andy Warhol said everyone is a star for 15 minutes. He understood the nature of celebrity. We Americans don’t have royalty, but our royalty is celebrity itself, which is worshipped around the world. So I applaud Kim Kardashian and others like her who do nothing — she doesn’t paint, sing, dance. She herself is the art, and she’s as valid as a Jackson Pollock painting. I find it uplifting that she and others like her are positive message-givers.

Ross: But in this Kardashian world, what role is there for art and music?

Simmons: Until recently, music had many roles. Some of it was to seduce women, march to the beat like Chopin’s Revolution Etude or join a baseball stadium singing “Rock And Roll All Nite.” Music is the soundtrack of life. It can make you feel sexy, like you belong, or tribal. In that way, it hasn’t changed much from when we used to beat on logs and howl at the moon. Rock and roll — yes, it’s that old.

But there’s a lot of sugar-coated stuff, and that’s good too, because there are 12-year-old girls and they don’t want to sing “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen. It doesn’t mean anything to them.

Ross: What do you make of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Simmons: When rappers and disco artists want to creep into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I raise my hand and say, “I object.” They say, “Well, it’s the spirit of rock and roll.” No, it’s not. Rock and roll is a specific thing. Run-DMC and NWA are amazing artists who should be admired and respected, but it ain’t rock. Or let me know when AC/DC is getting inducted into the Hip Hop Hall of Fame. If you want to argue with me, look at the genres used by Apple and Spotify.

Ross: Speaking of the rock genre, what is it about your vocals in KISS that fans are gravitating toward?

Simmons: That’s actually a unique question I’ve never been asked before. But it’s worth noting that if I or Bob Dylan walked into American Idol, do you think we’d make it? No, we wouldn’t. Springsteen or Hendrix weren’t great singers in the classical sense. They couldn’t sing opera. On the other hand, I don’t want to hear an opera singer sing “Yesterday” or “Purple Haze.” There’s something to say about individuality.

The TV show The Voice misses the point that the voice is an extension of personality. The rap world is interesting because people are talking, but it still involves the tone of the voice. They say KISS sold 100 million albums, but can I sing as well as Tony Bennett? I couldn’t shine his shoes! Could Mr. Bennett sing “Rock And Roll All Nite?” No.

Ross: You have a distinct style as a bass player, and KISS has a certain feel for rhythm. Can you describe that process?

Simmons: I’m not a classic bass player, in the sense of Motown or Carol Kaye. McCartney was a guitar player before playing bass, which is why he could write songs. So when McCartney played bass in the Beatles, he didn’t play like a bass player, it was more like a string quartet. And so that’s how I played in KISS. In other bands, bass locked in with the drums. But I’d hear melodies in my head, and that’s where the riffs in KISS come from. Guitars would join me almost like horn parts. Like “Black Diamond.”

Ross: Sounds like that’s the foundation of the KISS sound.

Simmons: To a large extent, yes.

Ross: How did you come up with the name KISS?

Simmons: I did not. It was Paul who threw it out there. I wanted to call us F*CK. I thought it was the forbidden word that everyone used anyway. The first record would be You, second record would be It, then Us, and the last record would be Off.

Ross: Wrapping up, what parting advice do you have for emerging indie artists and songwriters?

Simmons: I think when people call themselves artists it’s self-serving and self-aggrandizement. Art should be the name of a guy. It’s up to the people to say whether you’re an artist or not — including me. And ultimately there is only emotion, whether you’re a rock star, politician or religious leader. It’s about moving people. There’s a beauty in E=mc ² but is it art? When you put it on a t-shirt, that’s when it turns to art.

And to thine own self be true. KISS has always been KISS, fashion and style and fads be damned. We ain’t this year’s fashion. And it made me richer and richer. Because there are very few things in life you can count on. There are a few other bands who have stayed true to who they are and remained very successful — AC/DC, Metallica. Or you can be one-hit-wonders like Men Without Hats. What kind of name is Men Without Hats?