The Backstory: The Origin of the Most Famous Tongue in Rock and Roll

We all wonder where the larger than life rock and roll stars of the mid 20th century originated. But the demon of Kiss, Gene Simmons, has had an unbelievable journey. And he credits one person with his inspiration.

Feel free to DM me if you have a story you’d like me to cover . . on Facebook it’s Patty Steele and on Instagram real patty steele

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So if you think about the wild rock stars of
the twentieth century, one guy has to be near the
top of your list. He's the Demon of Kiss, Gene Simmons,
the most famous tongue in rock and roll. But his
backstory is a gut wrenching yet really inspiring story representing
a whole different life. I'm Patty Steele, a poor but

(00:22):
determined single mom helps her kid reach for the stars.
That's next on the backstory. The backstory is back. We've
all heard stories of folks who came from a hard
look background only to make it big, but some stories
are just larger than life. Hiam Wits was born in

(00:44):
nineteen forty nine in Haifa, Israel. By the time she
had Hiam Flora was only twenty four, but she had
survived Hell on Earth. When she was eighteen, she and
her family in Hungary had been packed into cattle cars
and transported to a Uschwitz Burkanau, the Nazi extermination camps
and occupied Poland, where the regime had an industrial murder

(01:07):
complex targeting humans. Between May and July of nineteen forty four,
almost four hundred and fifty thousand Hungarian Jews were taken
to Auschwitz Most were murdered within hours of arrival, including
Flora's parents, all but one of her siblings, and her aunts, uncles,
and cousins. Flora barely survived the starvation and the torture.

(01:31):
Her brother Larry also survived, but everybody else was gone.
After she was rescued from the camps, Flora married. She
had her little boy a few years later, but pretty
soon she was unhappy with the marriage, so when Higham
was eight, his mom, searching for a better life, moved
them to New York City. They settled in Queen's but Higham,

(01:55):
now called Eugene Klein, faced a new challenge. He barely English.
Later on, he said he learned the language mostly from TV,
especially his favorite western. The Lone Ranger America fascinated him.
It was larger than life. Cowboys, superheroes, rock stars. Everything

(02:16):
felt bigger than the world he had left behind, and
it was bigger than the world he lived in. They
had almost no money, and his mother's scrounched just to
keep them fed. Slowly, though, he began to believe that
maybe he could become something bigger too. Like a lot
of future musicians, Jean had one defining moment. It was

(02:37):
nineteen sixty four when he saw the Beatles perform on
the Ed Sullivan Show. He was thrilled with the screaming fans,
the wild excitement, and the power those four artists had
over the crowd. In that moment, the sixteen year old
boy realized something important. You didn't have to be an
athlete or an actor to get the world's attention. You

(02:59):
could do it with music. From that moment on, Gene
wanted to be in a band, and his mother was
his inspiration. He says she taught him two things. The first,
nothing is impossible, and the second you survive by working
harder than everybody else. He practiced obsessively. Eventually he became

(03:21):
a bass player and a songwriter. But there was one
more obsession he had growing up, comic books. Now the
thing is superheroes fascinated him, characters with hidden identities and
dramatic costumes, and that idea would actually later shape the
look of the band he helped create. Now it's the

(03:41):
early nineteen seventies and Gene is now using the last
name Simmons as a tribute to some artists he admired
rockabilly singer Jumpin Jeene Simmons as well as the mid
century actress Geene Simmons. In nineteen seventy three, Jean teamed
up with Paul Stanley and they formed Within the band.

(04:02):
He was the bass guitarist, one of the main songwriters,
and the creator of the band's most famous character, the Demon.
On stage, he transformed into that character with black and
white face paint, towering in giant boots, and doing theatrical
stunts like breathing fire and spitting fake blood. While Paul

(04:23):
Stanley became the charismatic frontman, Simmons provided the darker theatrical
energy for the band. He also sang lead vocals on
major Kiss songs like rock and Roll, All Night, Calling,
Doctor Love, and God of Thunder. His deep voice and
demonic stage persona helped define the band's identity, but Jean's

(04:44):
rolling Kiss went way beyond playing bass. He helped turn
the band into one of the most recognizable brands in music.
Those childhood lessons about survival and money showed up in
his approach to the music industry. Kiss did and just
sell albums. They sold everything, comic books, action figures, pinball machines,

(05:06):
lunch boxes, even Kiss branded coffins. How crazy is that
hardly any rock bands in those days ever turned themselves
into a merchandising empire the way Kiss did, and Jane
was a major force behind that strategy. Despite the wild
onstage persona, Gene always said his drive came from something simple.

(05:27):
He never wanted his mother to struggle again as the
son of a Holocaust survivor. He wanted absolute financial security
for both of them, and he did it from a
poor immigrant kid in Queens to a founding member, bassist,
and creative force in one of the biggest rock bands
in the entire world. Now, when people see Gene Simmons

(05:49):
in full Kiss costume, they see the Demon, But the
story behind the makeup is something very different. It's the
story of a little boy who arrived in America not
speaking the language, a mother who survived unimaginable pain and hardship,
and a kid who watched the Beatles on TV and
decided he wanted to change his life. That kid didn't

(06:12):
just join a band. Gene Simmons helped create one of
the most theatrical and successful rock acts in music history
as Kisses Bassis, co founder, songwriter, and the unforgettable Demon.
As for Flora, she died in December of twenty eighteen,
surrounded by her family. She was ninety three years old.

(06:33):
The most important thing about her though, She was just
eighteen years old in a cattle car headed to Auschwitz,
and she survived. She rebuilt her life in New York
City with a young son, no English, and no money.
She worked hard because she knew what it was like
to have nothing, no food, no safety. She knew that

(06:55):
work was the one thing that was essential. Gene Simmons
says she's the only explanation for his success. Her legacy
is that of a woman who survived the unsurvivable and
taught her son that nothing is impossible. I hope you
like the Backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave a review.

(07:15):
I'd love it if you'd subscribe or follow for free
to get new episodes delivered automatically. Also feel free to
DM me if you have a story you'd like me
to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram
Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a
production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis Durand Group, and

(07:38):
Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer
Jay Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.
Feel free to reach out to me with comments and
even story suggestions on Instagram at real Patty Steele and
on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the
Backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces of history you didn't

(07:59):
know you needed to know.