Episode 586. We want you to play along with us this week… KISS Albums Either You Love It or Hate It, Greatest Album of All Time, Overlooked Masterpiece, Mental Breakdown, Which Divides Fandom. Let’s hear from you!

Kiss bassist, Demon and fire-breather Gene Simmons picks his records, artists and gigs of lasting significance, and names the “most dishonest” album Kiss ever made

Gene Simmons is the living, fire-breathing embodiment of the American Dream: the immigrant who found fame and fortune, in his case as co-leader of rock superstars Kiss. But when he talks about the music he loves, he is very much the Anglophile.

“For me, England is holy ground,” he says. “The Beatles changed life on Earth! And then you had the Stones, The Who, Queen and so on.” He feels that the cultural exchange between the US and the UK was uneven. “You guys gave us Led Zeppelin, and we gave you the Grateful fucking Dead!” But there is some American music he holds dear. Surprisingly, the God Of Thunder is also a soul boy at heart.

The first music I remember hearing

It was black music. Chuck Berry, Little Richard, James Brown, Ray Charles – all the greats. When I moved to America with my mother, I was eight and I couldn’t speak a word of English. So I didn’t understand the words in songs like Good Golly Miss Molly: ‘She sure likes to ball’ – you know, she likes to fuck! I didn’t know that the term ‘rock’n’roll’ meant sex. I was just moved by this music, even though I didn’t know how to dance.

he first song I performed in front of an audience

When I was thirteen I had a school buddy, Seth Dogramajian, who played guitar and we’d sing harmony like the Everly Brothers. We called ourselves the Missing Links. Our first performance was at Joseph Pulitzer Junior High School in Jackson Heights, Queens, and I think the first song was a Beatles song, There’s A Place.

The songwriter

It’s either Lennon or McCartney. Because for every Eleanor Rigby, every Yesterday, you had Across The Universe, which is haunting like no other song I’ve ever heard. Even a song that Lennon wasn’t fond of, And Your Bird Can Sing, nobody has ever sounded like that before or after. So many great songs. It’s incredible. And let’s not forget George Harrison. He was supposed to be less talented because he didn’t write All You Need Is Love and all those other hits. But then he came up with While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Something and Here Comes The Sun. So it’s like: “Oh, that guy’s a genius too!”

The singer

Roy Orbison had the best voice for rock’n’roll songs. But if you listen to Baby Workout by Jackie Wilson, that voice is just undeniable. And if we’re talking about charisma – not just a singer but a performer – then it’s James Brown. I remember a TV show from the sixties that had the Stones and The Beach Boys and James Brown. The Stones were closing the show, and while James Brown was on stage there was a close-up of Mick Jagger watching him and biting his nails. James Brown was just killing it like nobody I’ve ever seen. It was astonishing how he moved, the way he was contorting his body

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