Gene Simmons has never been short of opinions, and he unleashed a few more during a recent appearance on the Legends N’ Leaders podcast. Subjects covered included the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, hip-hop, house music and more.
He started off by decrying the fact that Iron Maiden have not (yet) been inducted into the Hall Of Fame and Grandmaster Flash has. “Ice Cube and I had a back-and-forth (on this subject], and he’s a bright guy and I respect what he’s done,” he began. “It’s not my music. I don’t come from the ghetto. It doesn’t speak my language. And I said in print many times, hip-hop does not belong in the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame – nor does opera, symphony orchestras.
“How come the New York Philharmonic doesn’t get (inducted into) the Rock & Roll (Hall Of Fame)? ‘Cause it’s called the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame’. But he shot back and said, ‘No, it’s the spirit of rock and roll.’ OK, fine. So Ice Cube and Grandmaster Flash and all these guys are in the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. I just wanna know when Led Zeppelin‘s gonna be in the Hip-Hop Hall Of Fame. ‘Oh, you can’t do that?’ Oh, really?”
Next, he goes on a splendidly bonkers rant about dance music.
“The hardest thing to do is to write a simple, memorable song. Much easier is to do EDM. And by the way, I’m a fan of it,” he pointed out. “I love anything that makes people happy. But in terms of talent? … There are no tribute bands to Skrillex. Nobody covers those songs. And by the way, when you go to an EDM concert, I love the passion and the fans taking crack and sticking it up their ass, whatever they do. I’ve never been high. You’re 19. You’re trying to get laid. You can’t form a sentence. So you take some medicine and then all of a sudden you’re fluent and things happen. I understand the ritual. It’s tribal. There’s not a garage band, a new band that goes, ‘Fuck. The Swiss Mafia [presumably he’s referring to Swedish House Mafia here] have got this thing that I love. Let’s try to do a version of it and play it in the club.’ Nobody does that.”
Turning his attention to other modern music, he decides – unsurprisingly – that it was all much better in his day.
“Where’s that pivotal artist that shakes the rafters? You have popular artists. Taylor [Swift] has been the most popular artist, perhaps of all time. That does not move the needle. New bands don’t form and say, ‘Let’s do 10 Taylor songs.’ No, that’s fame versus something deeper. So when you go to see a bar band, they’re gonna be playing the song. They’ll play Freebird, they’ll play Satisfaction, they’ll play the songs that have stood the test of time.”
He didn’t address the question of whether Kiss are completely done. The band played their Landlocked In Vegas fan event in November and in a MusicRadar interview before Christmas, guitarist Tommy Thayer said he could “definitely see” something similar happening again. Then there are the avatar shows, which back in 2023 were promised as starting in 2027 (ie, next year). Presumably, details about those will be revealed in due course…
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