September 9, 2025 • 36 mins
What was meant to be an hour-long interview with Gene Simmons turned into one of the stranger conversations we’ve had on Broken Record.
As co-founder, bassist, and co-frontman of KISS alongside Paul Stanley, Simmons created one of the most outrageous personas in rock history: The Demon. On stage, he breathed fire, spit blood, and wagged his famously long tongue. Off stage, he and KISS became merchandising pioneers, selling everything from comic books and lunchboxes to KISS-branded coffins.
Now 76, Simmons remains as enigmatic as ever. This November, he’ll headline KISS Kruise XII: Landlocked in Vegas, a three-day fan gathering at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. In the lead-up, he joined Justin Richmond to talk about the Beatles’ unmatched songwriting, why KISS never chased radio singles, and to deliver a few of his trademark off-color remarks.
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from KISS and Gene Simmons HERE.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Gene Simmons is known for his theatrics, and man, did
I get a concentrated dose of that in this episode.
Jean's the co founder, basis and frontman of Kiss Salama
Paul Stanley and built an outrageous, maybe obnoxious persona dubbed
the Demon. Now seventy six years old and retired from touring,
he's finding new ways to keep Kiss fans known as
the Kiss Army, engaged, including a three day event this
(00:42):
November called the Kiss Cruise Landlocked in Vegas. I'd arranged
for an hour interview with Jeane, like I did with
Paul Stanley a few months ago, to talk about the
event and Kiss lore. I was excited to pick his
brain since he has an almost encyclopedic memory for a
certain era of music. But things got off to a
rough start, stayed rocky.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
And an end.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
This may be the strangest interview I've ever done. We
only talked for about thirty minutes, but it's still worth
running to me because it is a pretty good inside
I think into the man they called the Demon, Gene Simmons.
This is broken record, real musicians, real conversations. Here's my
(01:24):
conversation with Gene Simmons.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Can you hear me? Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I hear you loud and clear? Sound great? Okay, docent
tones of Gene Simmons amazing. Wow, i'minating for my own passage.
Are you in la? Oh? I'm straight. I'm so sorry.
(01:51):
We just met. We already want to know, so where
ready to live?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
We're off to the best start I could imagine. This
is This is perfect man, great to meet you.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Thank you, and thanks for trusting for the event. You
look great, Thank you, Thank you. You look much better.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
But would suspect you would always you know, I saw.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
You by the way, speaking of potato chips. Unfortunately, my apologies.
We're going to have to cut it shorter than i'd
like to go because I got the stink of from
one of the guys just says I've got a lawyer
conference thing, So I'll shut up so you can do
the talk. Okay, sounds good.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
You know, I saw you recently talking about Ozzie's death
and being quite verclempt about about it, as many people are.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
But I was I was thinking you.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
You guys obviously must have first met on opening for Sabbath, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
We were both trying to make our mark, you know,
And we came a little bit later than Sabbath, a
year or two after, so they were starting to make
some headway, but we were still in the two three
thousand seater level you know of in the end, you know,
(03:20):
a long time ago, before digital, before anything, you had amplifiers.
You had a chord that connected to your guitar and
you plugged it into the amplifier. There's no ear, no
auto correct nor nothing. You're not just meeting potatoes. And
since neither Sabbath nor Kiss wrote singles, you had to
(03:42):
get in the back of the station wagon, go from
one city to the other and take your case to
the people. So in a lot of ways, it was
a much more honest time.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
You know.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
The bands that became big bands became big bands because
the fans liked what they heard and what they saw.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
When you say neither Sabbath nor Kiss wrote singles, what
do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Well, if we took a look at the lyric, our
first quote single was called Nothing to Lose. I happened
to write it before I had a baby. I tried
every way. She didn't want to do it, but she
did anyway. I thought about the back door and it
(04:31):
was about you know, the six from the backside, but
radio didn't pick up on it.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
But that's what it was about.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
And you know, Sabbath came on sort of more darker, perhaps,
but even we dabbled me as a demon and gout
of thunder and all that. Later on, I did some
darker stuff, unholy stuff like that, but until I was
(05:10):
made for loving you, I mean rock and roll All
Night was a single but not really a hit, so
we tended to write about chasing skirt and enjoying life.
We didn't write a song about how cold? How could
I you know, how could I live without you? You know,
(05:32):
all those songs that are directed at chicks. In fact,
even Best, which was a big hit, Best, I hear
you calling, but I can't come home right now because
me and the boys are playing all night. In other words,
what's more important me or the band? Actually bitch the band?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
You know.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
It brings up a point I was curious about, which is,
you know, I feel like your songwriting is so is
unique in the sense if you mentioned nothing to lose,
But if you think about I mean, some of your
later songs seem not better, but they seem almost that
(06:15):
you knew who you were and what you wanted to say.
Your writing became almost more direct and clear. From my perspective.
Could be wrong, I'm happy to be wrong. Then some
of the mid career kiss songs or even some of
the songs from like say Monster, sound like fully flatted,
like this is, you know, Gene Simmons, the demon of Kiss.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Well, I don't know if you feel that way. I
will say that all of us, going back to I mean,
the Brits really started writing their own songs, even though
Sam Cook wrote his songs and Chuck Berry, but predominantly
you have the brill building filled with my people, Labor
(06:55):
Stoler and all that, who wrote all the hit songs.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
You ain't nothing about. How about now, these are not.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
African Americans who wrote They were Jews who wrote all
this you know on broad with all the sort of
blues tinged new Et, nonbud Hound, Libre Stoller to New York.
Jews wrote that because they loved black music, So artists
of the previous time, previous generations, lined up. They came
(07:26):
to the studio and they were given the music that
somebody else wrote. They had hits written for them, specifically
by other writers and the Monkeys is probably the pre
eminent example. You show up in the studio and you
have great writers, Boys, Boys and Heart, Neil Diamond. You know,
all the best writers would write hit songs for them.
(07:48):
But when the Beatles came along, it changed everything. These
guys started writing and performing their own songs, playing all
the instruments. As opposed to the Temptations, one of my
favorite bands, didn't play instruments. They just sang and you know,
did stage movements. They had full bands, and the Beatles
(08:10):
were fully contained. They play their own instruments, wrote their
own songs, and in a lot of ways, crafted and
designed their own you know. It's like a sculptor who's
got a big block of rock. He's got, you know,
a hammer and a chisel, and you know, kind of
bangs his way through it and finds the form that
(08:33):
he sees in his mind. But I want to say
that all of us, Henrik Optega whoever, and of course
they are much higher life form, are self taught. Nobody
studied music theory. Nobody to this day who's popular can
read or write music. Nobody's trained in music theory.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Nothing.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
We're just you know, deaf and dumb, just bumbling through
a forest of musical notes and trying to find that
thing that you know appeals to us, versus real songwriters
who knew exactly how to craft a hit song. Max Martin,
(09:20):
you know, the more modern who wrote Britney Spears, Christine Naguilar,
all that stuff. He sits there, Okay, what kind of
and they craft, you know, this kind of song. The
rest of us are just bumbling our way through it.
It's actually quite an interesting enigma of how we get
from I didn't know how to play a chord, teaching
(09:44):
myself that first chord, and then I'm talking about all
of us figuring out how to write songs because nobody
sat down and said, okay, here's how you write a song.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
We'll be back with more from Jean Simmons after the break.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
For you.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
You know, you go from playing that first chord to
writing that first crap songs nothing to lose and co
writing some stuff obviously with Paul strutters your song. But
then you know, you bring it to Paul, he adds
some stuff one hundred thousand years. But then and then
you move along and it's like, you know, you mentioned
holy unholy Domino love it loud, young and wasted. Uh,
(10:27):
you know Russian Roulette even or The Devil Is Me
like these are songs like we're now getting much later even.
You absolutely not only did you figure out songwriting, but
it seems as if over the arc of your career
you didn't lose it where some people maybe did. You
maintained it, perhaps even got better, would be my estimation.
(10:48):
What then, have you learned about songwriting? And obviously all
into it, you intuited it along the way, but you must've.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Learned songwriting is a trip where you never get there,
definitely do. I mean I know Elton well, and all
of a sudden you know great songwriters and they're always uh.
I mean Elton must have written hundreds of songs, three
hundred maybe maybe more. You're never there. You're always looking
(11:15):
for that thing. And maybe that's the magic of that thing.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
I don't care.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
If you went through the Renaissance Mozart, Beethoven, Might you
know Rockman and off Hide and Chopin, all those guys
they kept writing searching for that elusive butterfly. Bob lind
you might wake up some morning before your time. Elusive
(11:41):
Butterfly a smash hit which barely had any rhyme in
the In the verses, you might wake up some morning
to the sound all of a sudden so blowing in
the wind. There's no rhyme. The words just flowed nicely.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
So watching. Hey.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Look, I come from a time when you had more
serious songs. You had ballads, you had blues, you had
country rockabilly. Country artists were having hits right down the middle,
and you had novelty songs. And the first rap so
I ever heard was well, even before Wild Thing, which
(12:31):
don't kids yourself is spoken word goes like this wild Thing,
you make my hearts. There's no melody, it's just the
chords and background. In a lot of ways it's rap.
But before then we had a song by number one
Napoleon the fourteenth.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah, yeah, it goes like.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
This, They're coming to take me a work, They're coming
to take me away out to the funny farm, and
the guy talks for you know. It's about a guy
who's crazy, I guess, and they're coming to take him away.
That's it totally. On the cover, there's a guy with
a Napoleonic hat with his hand and his thing, and
(13:13):
that was it. And then there was Dicky Goodman, who
would string together pieces of hit songs. This isn't before sampling,
because it was sampling. They'd take eight miles high by
the birds and you know, wild thing and so little
snippets and he'd craft the story, Well, there's a flying
saucer landing over there.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
I wonder where it came from.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Eight miles Uh, well, it can't be, you know, my goodness,
it looks like a big fish coming out of the water. Bump,
bump ump. In fact, one of his hits was Mister Jaws,
about a guy going fishing who catches a big thing
and they string together hits, some big hits.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
So what chan.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Well, the larger point is that you have, though you
did not go to school to study music, you clearly
have an incredible ear for music, have an incredible given.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Incredible incredible is overused.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
There's a wonderful movie called Amadaeus about Salieri, who was
the King's composer, did operas and stuff, and well well
known historically as a you know, fine melody craftsman during
the Renaissance. And he was a childhood friend somewhat of
(14:42):
Mozart who was a little bit younger, and he was
tortured his entire life by how Mozart would sit down
and he would write full pieces, full symphonies and operas
and everything like as if he's just putting it down
because it had already been written. The rest of us,
(15:04):
poor mortals. You know, you take a piece from here, now,
I got to fix this. Then you go back to it.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
You know, it's like.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
It's like even even da Vinci would paid something. Now
I don't like that. Then he's got to go back
and do that thing. Nope, not most are to go
from right to left. And when he was done, that
was that was you know, some something happens that is
a prodigy. That's the word incredible. And Beethoven was actually deaf.
(15:33):
He wrote music in his mind, and he had wrote
the entire symphonic arrangement, every single notation, the bassoons and
the you know, what every instrument was doing is a
countermlley and everything in his mind. He never heard any
(15:55):
of the compositions he wrote. That's incredible. Wow. I would
almost argue it's miraculous more than incredible. Okay, these these
are semantics, But I'm not anti semantics.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I'm pleased to hear that. I mean, no, but it's
your point. I mean that is, that's clearly a gift.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
There's no explanation for it.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
It just is.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
You know, it's like an idiot savant. There was a
wonderful movie called Rainman, and I was at the studio
liaising with some guys and developing my own stuff as
Rainman was being developed into a movie basically about I
don't want to use the term, but an idiot who
in life didn't know where.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
He was going, bumbling.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
He would cross the street and not pay attention to
red light, green light and stuff. But the first hint
that there's something else going on happened when he was
in a restaurant and he went over to reach for
a toothpick, and the toothpick holder fell off the table
and all these toothpicks were, you know, on the floor,
(17:04):
Tom Cruise, Dustin Hoffman, And when they were walking out
of the restaurant, Cruise tells Hoffmann's character, don't worry about it.
You know those toothpacks, you know, it's fine. I'm sure
you put all that in. They said, yes, two hundred
and thirty seven.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
And Crusad what.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Two hundred and thirty seven, Yeah, two hundred and thirty seven.
I picked up when it was two hundred and thirty six,
and when I put mine and it became two hundred
and thirty seven because it was two hundred and thirty siven,
are you talking about? So he went back in. How
many toothakes were in there? He says, well, sir, let
me count them. Two hundred and thirty seven. You and
based on a real person, there was a idiot savant
(17:46):
and they asked him, could.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
You name that that day? You know what day was?
Speaker 1 (17:52):
You know, July third, eighteen forty eight, Friday? Without thinking
about it that people go and they check it. Sure
enough it is. There's no explaining what that is. So
an idiot savant is a genius in one area and
helpless in others. I mean, the mystery of the brain.
I don't know how we got off to this tangent,
(18:12):
but as you can barely see, clearly see, I love
the sound of my own voice. Well you were demure, Well,
in fact, you're being a bit demure. I would say,
that's a big word, like dramasium. I haven't met another
human being in real life. I use that word, not
the straight guys. Anyway, Well, we're on zoom.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
So not yet.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
You have still yet to meet someone in real life
to use that who uses that word to you. But
what I was saying is you have an incredible recall.
And we could argue if it's incredible or just good
or good.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
I have a good recall.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
It helps not to use drugs or alcohol or cigarettes.
And that way I can put my hand in front
of my face and it doesn't do this. I'm turning,
turning seventy six in three weeks. You look incredible. I
was saying that to myself, I said, self, looking good.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
But I mean you're talking about a song, songs like
you know, I mean the Bob linds On it's what
sixty five sixty six?
Speaker 1 (19:12):
So even is right? Yeah, so even if he.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Even as a kid, though you proceed so long before
you would have even gotten into could have gone well.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
But I had an advantage because I wasn't born in America,
so everything was so vivid. You know, I came from Israel.
I'm sure you can tell. I wasn't born in Sweden,
and so I came here with my mother when I
was eight. As a matter of fact, I was eight
before I was nine. See what I did there eight
(19:43):
before I was it's rain Man with the numbers, that's really.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
What the dumpers.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
And so one of the first music I heard was
black music, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Little Richard. I was
fortunate enough to know Little Richard and spent time with
him and introduced my young son at that point to Richard,
I said, you know, we went to see Richard play live,
(20:09):
and I took my son because I wanted him to understand,
you know what some of this stuff was on backstage,
young man. You know, I I in rented rock and roll,
you know all this stuff. I'm only three am. I
don't know what's going on.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
You know, it was hilarious.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Strangely, life is what happens to you while you're busy
making your plans. And sadly, I seemed to be the
only one of note on some level who did the
eulogy for Chuck Berry's funeral. I was at the open casket,
you know, where the whole family and friends and family
(20:45):
were there in an auditorium and I was in the back.
And the Barry family found out I was in the back,
and there were no beending on McCartney, Keith Richards. They
were not there. I don't know why, because without Chuck Berry,
they wouldn't be the Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, you know, any
of these guys that was the backbone. And I was
(21:06):
just there out of respect and they came up, Would
you step up and say a few words about Chuck
As a matter of fact, you can google and smoogle
it and all that button pushing stuff that tortures me.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
And I was.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
I became so overcome by emotion because when I first
came here as an eight and a half year old
kid with my mother and hearing that music and not
understanding the words, I just, you know, felt the feelings.
I didn't know what the words were, and I tried
to maybe you know, I didn't know what I was saying,
(21:45):
but the feeling of it made me move the way quote.
White music didn't, you know, torn between two lovers. It
doesn't make you want to Yeah, you know that feeling
that's in the groin, under the belt buckle, that down there.
White music just didn't do that. Da da da da
(22:07):
da da da. Oh yeah, I'm feeling it dead. No,
it doesn't.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
That's head stuff.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Black music was all like down there kind of stuff,
which is why you move your hips and your butt
and do all that. That's the magic of black music.
And again, nobody took music theory. It's all self taught,
and it came from the heart and from the soul,
and that's why that music continues to resonate. But American
(22:36):
music really was founded on the backs of creative former
slaves who could barely play guitar. And somehow these melodies
came out of I mean, blues, jazz and then rock
and roll and rap, all that came from black music.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Yeah, most certainly, Well, Night's break and we'll be back
with Gene Simmons. Some of the funkiest kiss songs of
your song almost Human from love Gun. I mean, so
that's a monster as a bass player, as a songwriter.
(23:17):
You know, obviously beatles, I know are paramount for you,
the Beatles, But there was there was that other layer,
there was another there was something else you.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Were I didn't I didn't have a uh. I didn't
come from a genre because I first picked up a
guitar and tried to strummer a few chords. Because it wasn't.
I literally have never taken a lesson. I don't know why.
The smart thing would have been to sit down with
(23:46):
somebody who could play how do you play a sea chord?
And so on and what does that mean? But I
never did, and that goes all the way down to
that e Van Halen, like all the best players taught themselves,
and well, I didn't start playing bass. I started strumming
(24:07):
those stupid songs My Uncle is a Raft and Stanley
the Parrot, which became Strutter and all that. There's just
strumming CG D and coming up with my own melodies
and then hearing hit songs House of the Rising Son
and so and trying to figure out what those chords
were and of course getting it wrong. But then I'm going, well,
(24:30):
wait a minute, I just these are my chords now,
and I can do my own melodies. Here's a song
called Spice Islands. I don't know where that came from.
And making up melodies, but I didn't have a genre
because I grew up on Chuck Berry, Little Richard, you know,
black music. And then the Beatles hit, which was like
a kick in the nuts.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
It was like, what is that?
Speaker 1 (24:52):
You know, she loves you? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, and then
you get that harmony that minor nine, yeah, you know
that thing with I never heard that in popular music
to this day. It's not easy to do. It's easy
to sing the root and then the you know, do
re me? Do you know that kind of the triad thing,
(25:15):
which sounds very nice, it sounds good, but that thing
was like on another level when you started to hear
those Beatles harmonies. So, you know, I digress. It is
interesting that the most successful songwriters of all time, Paul
McCartney single handedly, by the way, is the most successful
(25:38):
songwriter of all time. Just Yesterday on its own has
been covered by over a thousand different recording artists on
their own, which is unheard of.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
But all the other songs too.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I used to manage Liza WESAMNELLI went to see Sinatra
at the book and he comes out and introduces, I've
got Sam Riddle on the man. I've got to do
a song for you. It's one of the finest songs
ever written. It's called something, and then it goes into
a Beatles songs like yeah, And it's worth noting again
(26:16):
those guys didn't know how to play. When they started
to pick up. They were doing what it was called skiffle,
and then Buddy Holly and then the Everly brothers, and
then you know they self taught. And the fact that
all these amazing writers came from a place called liver Pool.
You couldn't come up with a crazier name. Now it's
(26:37):
all poetic. Oh Liverpool, No, No, it's liver Pisca River.
You know, it just makes When I first heard that,
I thought that's disgusting. A Liverpool, yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
The other day, but even hard Day's Night. That opening
chore that is so strange and it's amazing, but they
never returned to it.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
It's like.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Serious, it's like, let's do open with this and never
come back to it.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Genius, genius.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
They heard a sound in their head and they did it.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Just genius. As a matter of.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Fact, if I felt follows opera in a way that
rock and roll does not popular music. If I fell
in love with you, would you promise it'll be true?
And ilpe he understand because I've been in love before
and I found that love was well than just holding hands.
(27:31):
Then the song takes up. If I give they never
come back to that intro. That's what opera does. Opera
has this kind of mood setting, melodic intro, and then
the material starts and you never come back to it,
And the genius of these guys is still unequal.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Here.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
I'm one of the beatles in your dream Simmons. And
you say, so you got a new song? Yeah, got
a new song?
Speaker 3 (27:57):
How's it?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
What's it called? It's called help? Okay, how's it going?
It goes like this help? I need some bad But
there's a pause. It's the song title, which is the
first thing you hear up. Pause, I need somebody help,
not just it, there's a pause. It's not help, I
need somebody.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
No.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Do you have another that's really good? You got another one?
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Well, what's it called?
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yesterday? How's it go? It goes Yesterday? Pause?
Speaker 1 (28:24):
All my trouble seems so far? It's you got another one? Yeah,
it's called Michelle.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
How's it go?
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Me?
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Shechell?
Speaker 1 (28:33):
You got any more?
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Got one called she loves You?
Speaker 3 (28:35):
How does it go? She loves You? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:37):
It's crazy if you're right, If you're right, And they've
written hundreds of songs like that, Paul, do you have
a song? Yeah, it's called Penny Lane and Penny Lane
there what so if you write songs, or you try
the hardest thing to do is to write a really good,
(28:58):
simple song that hits the nail on the head right away.
We love the stares with satisfaction as much as we
love it doesn't touch that because you got to get
through and we love the rip. You gotta wait about
forty seconds until satisfaction comes in the title. Is there
(29:19):
a Stone song to you that approaches the Beatles?
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Like?
Speaker 1 (29:22):
If there were one, would it be satisfaction? Or is
there another that you think? I love the Stones, but
they don't approach that songwriting. In point of fact, you
may like the Stones more, but that's taste. In fact,
the first hit the Stone Side was written by Lennon McCartney.
(29:44):
I want to be Your love a baby, I want
to be oh man. They gave it to the Stone
that they didn't write songs at that point. They were
doing you know, blues covers, John Lee Hooker, stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Well you know the lessons of that stuff. Is it
unconsciously in your mind as you're writing? Is it top
of your mind as you write? I think, I mean
even a song this is a little the Beaten Path,
but it it felt always felt a bit beatlesque to
me in a sense, I confess from Carnival of souls.
You know, it's just a really it's kind of it's
(30:21):
it's it's really experimental and abstract in its way, like
are you thinking, like, let's try to do something out
or is it just coming?
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Oh? It just comes.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
So I wish I had the talent of the Bill
Street building, all those guys that wrote hit songs, even
Phil Spector and all these guys. It's a very it
was a very strange building because all those writers, will
you Still Love Me Tomorrow? Carol King, who was Carol Kleinb.
They were all of a certain persuasion. They were all
(30:56):
members of the tribe Neil sedaka Carol Kleinb, Neil Diamond.
You know, they all americanized their names. Carol King, No,
they were my tribe. Uh. Phil Spector genius, No, him too.
And they knew how to write hits. And that just
(31:20):
comes with talent. The rest of us, you know, just
bubbling our way through it. And if you come up
with something that people like, certainly doesn't have to be
a hit. Certainly one of the biggest fans of all
time didn't write hit songs.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Led Stepplin.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
The hits. The astonishing thing about Page Who over the
years I'm proud to see has become a friend. Are
those amazing riffs? This guy who played on Donovan Records
and every British artists who had hits had Jimmy Page
(31:56):
playing guitar, but he himself has come up with more
classic riffs than all the other English guitar players put together.
And it's instantly recognized.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
You know that is you know.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
It's not air supply.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
I want to ask you once to go back to
something we were talking about the top of our conversation.
Then I just want to quickly ask you about the
Kiss Cruise and you can.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Well, this is a fan run event. This ain't a
Kiss concert or anything that's being held in November in
Las Vegas. We're just trying to stay in touch with
the fans because since Pophouse bought Kiss, we are. In fact,
we had a conference call this morning. There's a movie
coming and the Kiss Avatars and a cartoon show and
(32:45):
I'm awful lot of stuff, if anything, since Pophouse came
into the picture, we're really ramping up to big, big stuff,
the kind of stuff that hasn't been done respectfully by
other bands. Just because you know, while you're alive, try
you know, reach for the stars and so the fans.
(33:07):
This is a different kind of stuff, not like a tour,
so we're sort of we're not seeing the fans so
you can talk touch. So this is more of a
chance for us to stay in touch with the fans.
Open to only a few thousand fans. It's going to
be at the Virgin Hotel. No, you don't have to
be a virgin to a ten.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
See what they just did there.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
And it's going to include Q and A and photos
and you know, all that kind of stuff, and we'll
get up and we'll you know, strum and do stuff
for shits and giggles. But there's not going to be
a kiss show. It's not like going to blow up
the Virginal Hotel. I just got the stink guy from
the other side of the room. Yeah, yeah, okay, I
(33:53):
got it.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Well, you know, I thought I had longer, but I'll
tell you what. We wrapped everything we could possibly wrap it.
I got made fun of, I got lectured. We had
a great talk some kids, we talked to kids. Cruise
no charge, beatles, we did it all no charge. You know,
we we we we.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
We can conclude. Well, I had fun. Thanks so much,
and I wish you well. And by the way, when
did you quit modeling? I never did, I never did.
I don't know, man, I never did. Yeah, well, I
have a I have a sneaking suspicion.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
You would be very popular in jail. Well, let me
let me go.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Maybe let me go try some blue collar crime or
white collar crime.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
It's all.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
You won't need to do anything. They're going to bring
you hot tea in the morning and tuck you in
at night. Don't you worried.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
That's a that's a real I'll wear that with the
badge honor everywhere I go.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Just don't tell what happens in jail stays in jail.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
You don't have to.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
You know, if you don't tell, it doesn't count. Man,
it's incredible. I hope, I hope we get the chance
to speak again. It was real real, I mean, you know,
you have a real You demurred.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Here's the word again, you demurred, But you really interesting
musical mind and it's appreciated.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
And hopeing you to speak again. Thank you, I wish
you well. Bye Bye.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
An episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist
of our favorite Gene Simmons sung or written kiss tracks.
Be sure to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken
Record Podcast to see all of our video interviews, and
be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken
Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with
marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
(35:41):
is Ben Holliday. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider
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(36:02):
Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Gene Simmons is known for his theatrics, and man, did
I get a concentrated dose of that in this episode.
Jean's the co founder, basis and frontman of Kiss Salama
Paul Stanley and built an outrageous, maybe obnoxious persona dubbed
the Demon. Now seventy six years old and retired from touring,
he's finding new ways to keep Kiss fans known as
the Kiss Army, engaged, including a three day event this
(00:42):
November called the Kiss Cruise Landlocked in Vegas. I'd arranged
for an hour interview with Jeane, like I did with
Paul Stanley a few months ago, to talk about the
event and Kiss lore. I was excited to pick his
brain since he has an almost encyclopedic memory for a
certain era of music. But things got off to a
rough start, stayed rocky.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
And an end.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
This may be the strangest interview I've ever done. We
only talked for about thirty minutes, but it's still worth
running to me because it is a pretty good inside
I think into the man they called the Demon, Gene Simmons.
This is broken record, real musicians, real conversations. Here's my
(01:24):
conversation with Gene Simmons.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Can you hear me? Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I hear you loud and clear? Sound great? Okay, docent
tones of Gene Simmons amazing. Wow, i'minating for my own passage.
Are you in la? Oh? I'm straight. I'm so sorry.
(01:51):
We just met. We already want to know, so where
ready to live?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
We're off to the best start I could imagine. This
is This is perfect man, great to meet you.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Thank you, and thanks for trusting for the event. You
look great, Thank you, Thank you. You look much better.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
But would suspect you would always you know, I saw.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
You by the way, speaking of potato chips. Unfortunately, my apologies.
We're going to have to cut it shorter than i'd
like to go because I got the stink of from
one of the guys just says I've got a lawyer
conference thing, So I'll shut up so you can do
the talk. Okay, sounds good.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
You know, I saw you recently talking about Ozzie's death
and being quite verclempt about about it, as many people are.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
But I was I was thinking you.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
You guys obviously must have first met on opening for Sabbath, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
We were both trying to make our mark, you know,
And we came a little bit later than Sabbath, a
year or two after, so they were starting to make
some headway, but we were still in the two three
thousand seater level you know of in the end, you know,
(03:20):
a long time ago, before digital, before anything, you had amplifiers.
You had a chord that connected to your guitar and
you plugged it into the amplifier. There's no ear, no
auto correct nor nothing. You're not just meeting potatoes. And
since neither Sabbath nor Kiss wrote singles, you had to
(03:42):
get in the back of the station wagon, go from
one city to the other and take your case to
the people. So in a lot of ways, it was
a much more honest time.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
You know.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
The bands that became big bands became big bands because
the fans liked what they heard and what they saw.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
When you say neither Sabbath nor Kiss wrote singles, what
do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Well, if we took a look at the lyric, our
first quote single was called Nothing to Lose. I happened
to write it before I had a baby. I tried
every way. She didn't want to do it, but she
did anyway. I thought about the back door and it
(04:31):
was about you know, the six from the backside, but
radio didn't pick up on it.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
But that's what it was about.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
And you know, Sabbath came on sort of more darker, perhaps,
but even we dabbled me as a demon and gout
of thunder and all that. Later on, I did some
darker stuff, unholy stuff like that, but until I was
(05:10):
made for loving you, I mean rock and roll All
Night was a single but not really a hit, so
we tended to write about chasing skirt and enjoying life.
We didn't write a song about how cold? How could
I you know, how could I live without you? You know,
(05:32):
all those songs that are directed at chicks. In fact,
even Best, which was a big hit, Best, I hear
you calling, but I can't come home right now because
me and the boys are playing all night. In other words,
what's more important me or the band? Actually bitch the band?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
You know.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
It brings up a point I was curious about, which is,
you know, I feel like your songwriting is so is
unique in the sense if you mentioned nothing to lose,
But if you think about I mean, some of your
later songs seem not better, but they seem almost that
(06:15):
you knew who you were and what you wanted to say.
Your writing became almost more direct and clear. From my perspective.
Could be wrong, I'm happy to be wrong. Then some
of the mid career kiss songs or even some of
the songs from like say Monster, sound like fully flatted,
like this is, you know, Gene Simmons, the demon of Kiss.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Well, I don't know if you feel that way. I
will say that all of us, going back to I mean,
the Brits really started writing their own songs, even though
Sam Cook wrote his songs and Chuck Berry, but predominantly
you have the brill building filled with my people, Labor
(06:55):
Stoler and all that, who wrote all the hit songs.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
You ain't nothing about. How about now, these are not.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
African Americans who wrote They were Jews who wrote all
this you know on broad with all the sort of
blues tinged new Et, nonbud Hound, Libre Stoller to New York.
Jews wrote that because they loved black music, So artists
of the previous time, previous generations, lined up. They came
(07:26):
to the studio and they were given the music that
somebody else wrote. They had hits written for them, specifically
by other writers and the Monkeys is probably the pre
eminent example. You show up in the studio and you
have great writers, Boys, Boys and Heart, Neil Diamond. You know,
all the best writers would write hit songs for them.
(07:48):
But when the Beatles came along, it changed everything. These
guys started writing and performing their own songs, playing all
the instruments. As opposed to the Temptations, one of my
favorite bands, didn't play instruments. They just sang and you know,
did stage movements. They had full bands, and the Beatles
(08:10):
were fully contained. They play their own instruments, wrote their
own songs, and in a lot of ways, crafted and
designed their own you know. It's like a sculptor who's
got a big block of rock. He's got, you know,
a hammer and a chisel, and you know, kind of
bangs his way through it and finds the form that
(08:33):
he sees in his mind. But I want to say
that all of us, Henrik Optega whoever, and of course
they are much higher life form, are self taught. Nobody
studied music theory. Nobody to this day who's popular can
read or write music. Nobody's trained in music theory.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Nothing.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
We're just you know, deaf and dumb, just bumbling through
a forest of musical notes and trying to find that
thing that you know appeals to us, versus real songwriters
who knew exactly how to craft a hit song. Max Martin,
(09:20):
you know, the more modern who wrote Britney Spears, Christine Naguilar,
all that stuff. He sits there, Okay, what kind of
and they craft, you know, this kind of song. The
rest of us are just bumbling our way through it.
It's actually quite an interesting enigma of how we get
from I didn't know how to play a chord, teaching
(09:44):
myself that first chord, and then I'm talking about all
of us figuring out how to write songs because nobody
sat down and said, okay, here's how you write a song.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
We'll be back with more from Jean Simmons after the break.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
For you.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
You know, you go from playing that first chord to
writing that first crap songs nothing to lose and co
writing some stuff obviously with Paul strutters your song. But
then you know, you bring it to Paul, he adds
some stuff one hundred thousand years. But then and then
you move along and it's like, you know, you mentioned
holy unholy Domino love it loud, young and wasted. Uh,
(10:27):
you know Russian Roulette even or The Devil Is Me
like these are songs like we're now getting much later even.
You absolutely not only did you figure out songwriting, but
it seems as if over the arc of your career
you didn't lose it where some people maybe did. You
maintained it, perhaps even got better, would be my estimation.
(10:48):
What then, have you learned about songwriting? And obviously all
into it, you intuited it along the way, but you must've.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Learned songwriting is a trip where you never get there,
definitely do. I mean I know Elton well, and all
of a sudden you know great songwriters and they're always uh.
I mean Elton must have written hundreds of songs, three
hundred maybe maybe more. You're never there. You're always looking
(11:15):
for that thing. And maybe that's the magic of that thing.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
I don't care.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
If you went through the Renaissance Mozart, Beethoven, Might you
know Rockman and off Hide and Chopin, all those guys
they kept writing searching for that elusive butterfly. Bob lind
you might wake up some morning before your time. Elusive
(11:41):
Butterfly a smash hit which barely had any rhyme in
the In the verses, you might wake up some morning
to the sound all of a sudden so blowing in
the wind. There's no rhyme. The words just flowed nicely.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
So watching. Hey.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Look, I come from a time when you had more
serious songs. You had ballads, you had blues, you had
country rockabilly. Country artists were having hits right down the middle,
and you had novelty songs. And the first rap so
I ever heard was well, even before Wild Thing, which
(12:31):
don't kids yourself is spoken word goes like this wild Thing,
you make my hearts. There's no melody, it's just the
chords and background. In a lot of ways it's rap.
But before then we had a song by number one
Napoleon the fourteenth.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah, yeah, it goes like.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
This, They're coming to take me a work, They're coming
to take me away out to the funny farm, and
the guy talks for you know. It's about a guy
who's crazy, I guess, and they're coming to take him away.
That's it totally. On the cover, there's a guy with
a Napoleonic hat with his hand and his thing, and
(13:13):
that was it. And then there was Dicky Goodman, who
would string together pieces of hit songs. This isn't before sampling,
because it was sampling. They'd take eight miles high by
the birds and you know, wild thing and so little
snippets and he'd craft the story, Well, there's a flying
saucer landing over there.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
I wonder where it came from.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Eight miles Uh, well, it can't be, you know, my goodness,
it looks like a big fish coming out of the water. Bump,
bump ump. In fact, one of his hits was Mister Jaws,
about a guy going fishing who catches a big thing
and they string together hits, some big hits.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
So what chan.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Well, the larger point is that you have, though you
did not go to school to study music, you clearly
have an incredible ear for music, have an incredible given.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Incredible incredible is overused.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
There's a wonderful movie called Amadaeus about Salieri, who was
the King's composer, did operas and stuff, and well well
known historically as a you know, fine melody craftsman during
the Renaissance. And he was a childhood friend somewhat of
(14:42):
Mozart who was a little bit younger, and he was
tortured his entire life by how Mozart would sit down
and he would write full pieces, full symphonies and operas
and everything like as if he's just putting it down
because it had already been written. The rest of us,
(15:04):
poor mortals. You know, you take a piece from here, now,
I got to fix this. Then you go back to it.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
You know, it's like.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
It's like even even da Vinci would paid something. Now
I don't like that. Then he's got to go back
and do that thing. Nope, not most are to go
from right to left. And when he was done, that
was that was you know, some something happens that is
a prodigy. That's the word incredible. And Beethoven was actually deaf.
(15:33):
He wrote music in his mind, and he had wrote
the entire symphonic arrangement, every single notation, the bassoons and
the you know, what every instrument was doing is a
countermlley and everything in his mind. He never heard any
(15:55):
of the compositions he wrote. That's incredible. Wow. I would
almost argue it's miraculous more than incredible. Okay, these these
are semantics, But I'm not anti semantics.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I'm pleased to hear that. I mean, no, but it's
your point. I mean that is, that's clearly a gift.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
There's no explanation for it.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
It just is.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
You know, it's like an idiot savant. There was a
wonderful movie called Rainman, and I was at the studio
liaising with some guys and developing my own stuff as
Rainman was being developed into a movie basically about I
don't want to use the term, but an idiot who
in life didn't know where.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
He was going, bumbling.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
He would cross the street and not pay attention to
red light, green light and stuff. But the first hint
that there's something else going on happened when he was
in a restaurant and he went over to reach for
a toothpick, and the toothpick holder fell off the table
and all these toothpicks were, you know, on the floor,
(17:04):
Tom Cruise, Dustin Hoffman, And when they were walking out
of the restaurant, Cruise tells Hoffmann's character, don't worry about it.
You know those toothpacks, you know, it's fine. I'm sure
you put all that in. They said, yes, two hundred
and thirty seven.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
And Crusad what.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Two hundred and thirty seven, Yeah, two hundred and thirty seven.
I picked up when it was two hundred and thirty six,
and when I put mine and it became two hundred
and thirty seven because it was two hundred and thirty siven,
are you talking about? So he went back in. How
many toothakes were in there? He says, well, sir, let
me count them. Two hundred and thirty seven. You and
based on a real person, there was a idiot savant
(17:46):
and they asked him, could.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
You name that that day? You know what day was?
Speaker 1 (17:52):
You know, July third, eighteen forty eight, Friday? Without thinking
about it that people go and they check it. Sure
enough it is. There's no explaining what that is. So
an idiot savant is a genius in one area and
helpless in others. I mean, the mystery of the brain.
I don't know how we got off to this tangent,
(18:12):
but as you can barely see, clearly see, I love
the sound of my own voice. Well you were demure, Well,
in fact, you're being a bit demure. I would say,
that's a big word, like dramasium. I haven't met another
human being in real life. I use that word, not
the straight guys. Anyway, Well, we're on zoom.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
So not yet.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
You have still yet to meet someone in real life
to use that who uses that word to you. But
what I was saying is you have an incredible recall.
And we could argue if it's incredible or just good
or good.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
I have a good recall.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
It helps not to use drugs or alcohol or cigarettes.
And that way I can put my hand in front
of my face and it doesn't do this. I'm turning,
turning seventy six in three weeks. You look incredible. I
was saying that to myself, I said, self, looking good.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
But I mean you're talking about a song, songs like
you know, I mean the Bob linds On it's what
sixty five sixty six?
Speaker 1 (19:12):
So even is right? Yeah, so even if he.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Even as a kid, though you proceed so long before
you would have even gotten into could have gone well.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
But I had an advantage because I wasn't born in America,
so everything was so vivid. You know, I came from Israel.
I'm sure you can tell. I wasn't born in Sweden,
and so I came here with my mother when I
was eight. As a matter of fact, I was eight
before I was nine. See what I did there eight
(19:43):
before I was it's rain Man with the numbers, that's really.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
What the dumpers.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
And so one of the first music I heard was
black music, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Little Richard. I was
fortunate enough to know Little Richard and spent time with
him and introduced my young son at that point to Richard,
I said, you know, we went to see Richard play live,
(20:09):
and I took my son because I wanted him to understand,
you know what some of this stuff was on backstage,
young man. You know, I I in rented rock and roll,
you know all this stuff. I'm only three am. I
don't know what's going on.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
You know, it was hilarious.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Strangely, life is what happens to you while you're busy
making your plans. And sadly, I seemed to be the
only one of note on some level who did the
eulogy for Chuck Berry's funeral. I was at the open casket,
you know, where the whole family and friends and family
(20:45):
were there in an auditorium and I was in the back.
And the Barry family found out I was in the back,
and there were no beending on McCartney, Keith Richards. They
were not there. I don't know why, because without Chuck Berry,
they wouldn't be the Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, you know, any
of these guys that was the backbone. And I was
(21:06):
just there out of respect and they came up, Would
you step up and say a few words about Chuck
As a matter of fact, you can google and smoogle
it and all that button pushing stuff that tortures me.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
And I was.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
I became so overcome by emotion because when I first
came here as an eight and a half year old
kid with my mother and hearing that music and not
understanding the words, I just, you know, felt the feelings.
I didn't know what the words were, and I tried
to maybe you know, I didn't know what I was saying,
(21:45):
but the feeling of it made me move the way quote.
White music didn't, you know, torn between two lovers. It
doesn't make you want to Yeah, you know that feeling
that's in the groin, under the belt buckle, that down there.
White music just didn't do that. Da da da da
(22:07):
da da da. Oh yeah, I'm feeling it dead. No,
it doesn't.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
That's head stuff.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Black music was all like down there kind of stuff,
which is why you move your hips and your butt
and do all that. That's the magic of black music.
And again, nobody took music theory. It's all self taught,
and it came from the heart and from the soul,
and that's why that music continues to resonate. But American
(22:36):
music really was founded on the backs of creative former
slaves who could barely play guitar. And somehow these melodies
came out of I mean, blues, jazz and then rock
and roll and rap, all that came from black music.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Yeah, most certainly, Well, Night's break and we'll be back
with Gene Simmons. Some of the funkiest kiss songs of
your song almost Human from love Gun. I mean, so
that's a monster as a bass player, as a songwriter.
(23:17):
You know, obviously beatles, I know are paramount for you,
the Beatles, But there was there was that other layer,
there was another there was something else you.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Were I didn't I didn't have a uh. I didn't
come from a genre because I first picked up a
guitar and tried to strummer a few chords. Because it wasn't.
I literally have never taken a lesson. I don't know why.
The smart thing would have been to sit down with
(23:46):
somebody who could play how do you play a sea chord?
And so on and what does that mean? But I
never did, and that goes all the way down to
that e Van Halen, like all the best players taught themselves,
and well, I didn't start playing bass. I started strumming
(24:07):
those stupid songs My Uncle is a Raft and Stanley
the Parrot, which became Strutter and all that. There's just
strumming CG D and coming up with my own melodies
and then hearing hit songs House of the Rising Son
and so and trying to figure out what those chords
were and of course getting it wrong. But then I'm going, well,
(24:30):
wait a minute, I just these are my chords now,
and I can do my own melodies. Here's a song
called Spice Islands. I don't know where that came from.
And making up melodies, but I didn't have a genre
because I grew up on Chuck Berry, Little Richard, you know,
black music. And then the Beatles hit, which was like
a kick in the nuts.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
It was like, what is that?
Speaker 1 (24:52):
You know, she loves you? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, and then
you get that harmony that minor nine, yeah, you know
that thing with I never heard that in popular music
to this day. It's not easy to do. It's easy
to sing the root and then the you know, do
re me? Do you know that kind of the triad thing,
(25:15):
which sounds very nice, it sounds good, but that thing
was like on another level when you started to hear
those Beatles harmonies. So, you know, I digress. It is
interesting that the most successful songwriters of all time, Paul
McCartney single handedly, by the way, is the most successful
(25:38):
songwriter of all time. Just Yesterday on its own has
been covered by over a thousand different recording artists on
their own, which is unheard of.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
But all the other songs too.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I used to manage Liza WESAMNELLI went to see Sinatra
at the book and he comes out and introduces, I've
got Sam Riddle on the man. I've got to do
a song for you. It's one of the finest songs
ever written. It's called something, and then it goes into
a Beatles songs like yeah, And it's worth noting again
(26:16):
those guys didn't know how to play. When they started
to pick up. They were doing what it was called skiffle,
and then Buddy Holly and then the Everly brothers, and
then you know they self taught. And the fact that
all these amazing writers came from a place called liver Pool.
You couldn't come up with a crazier name. Now it's
(26:37):
all poetic. Oh Liverpool, No, No, it's liver Pisca River.
You know, it just makes When I first heard that,
I thought that's disgusting. A Liverpool, yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
The other day, but even hard Day's Night. That opening
chore that is so strange and it's amazing, but they
never returned to it.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
It's like.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Serious, it's like, let's do open with this and never
come back to it.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Genius, genius.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
They heard a sound in their head and they did it.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Just genius. As a matter of.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Fact, if I felt follows opera in a way that
rock and roll does not popular music. If I fell
in love with you, would you promise it'll be true?
And ilpe he understand because I've been in love before
and I found that love was well than just holding hands.
(27:31):
Then the song takes up. If I give they never
come back to that intro. That's what opera does. Opera
has this kind of mood setting, melodic intro, and then
the material starts and you never come back to it,
And the genius of these guys is still unequal.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Here.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
I'm one of the beatles in your dream Simmons. And
you say, so you got a new song? Yeah, got
a new song?
Speaker 3 (27:57):
How's it?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
What's it called? It's called help? Okay, how's it going?
It goes like this help? I need some bad But
there's a pause. It's the song title, which is the
first thing you hear up. Pause, I need somebody help,
not just it, there's a pause. It's not help, I
need somebody.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
No.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Do you have another that's really good? You got another one?
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Well, what's it called?
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yesterday? How's it go? It goes Yesterday? Pause?
Speaker 1 (28:24):
All my trouble seems so far? It's you got another one? Yeah,
it's called Michelle.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
How's it go?
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Me?
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Shechell?
Speaker 1 (28:33):
You got any more?
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Got one called she loves You?
Speaker 3 (28:35):
How does it go? She loves You? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:37):
It's crazy if you're right, If you're right, And they've
written hundreds of songs like that, Paul, do you have
a song? Yeah, it's called Penny Lane and Penny Lane
there what so if you write songs, or you try
the hardest thing to do is to write a really good,
(28:58):
simple song that hits the nail on the head right away.
We love the stares with satisfaction as much as we
love it doesn't touch that because you got to get
through and we love the rip. You gotta wait about
forty seconds until satisfaction comes in the title. Is there
(29:19):
a Stone song to you that approaches the Beatles?
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Like?
Speaker 1 (29:22):
If there were one, would it be satisfaction? Or is
there another that you think? I love the Stones, but
they don't approach that songwriting. In point of fact, you
may like the Stones more, but that's taste. In fact,
the first hit the Stone Side was written by Lennon McCartney.
(29:44):
I want to be Your love a baby, I want
to be oh man. They gave it to the Stone
that they didn't write songs at that point. They were
doing you know, blues covers, John Lee Hooker, stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Well you know the lessons of that stuff. Is it
unconsciously in your mind as you're writing? Is it top
of your mind as you write? I think, I mean
even a song this is a little the Beaten Path,
but it it felt always felt a bit beatlesque to
me in a sense, I confess from Carnival of souls.
You know, it's just a really it's kind of it's
(30:21):
it's it's really experimental and abstract in its way, like
are you thinking, like, let's try to do something out
or is it just coming?
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Oh? It just comes.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
So I wish I had the talent of the Bill
Street building, all those guys that wrote hit songs, even
Phil Spector and all these guys. It's a very it
was a very strange building because all those writers, will
you Still Love Me Tomorrow? Carol King, who was Carol Kleinb.
They were all of a certain persuasion. They were all
(30:56):
members of the tribe Neil sedaka Carol Kleinb, Neil Diamond.
You know, they all americanized their names. Carol King, No,
they were my tribe. Uh. Phil Spector genius, No, him too.
And they knew how to write hits. And that just
(31:20):
comes with talent. The rest of us, you know, just
bubbling our way through it. And if you come up
with something that people like, certainly doesn't have to be
a hit. Certainly one of the biggest fans of all
time didn't write hit songs.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Led Stepplin.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
The hits. The astonishing thing about Page Who over the
years I'm proud to see has become a friend. Are
those amazing riffs? This guy who played on Donovan Records
and every British artists who had hits had Jimmy Page
(31:56):
playing guitar, but he himself has come up with more
classic riffs than all the other English guitar players put together.
And it's instantly recognized.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
You know that is you know.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
It's not air supply.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
I want to ask you once to go back to
something we were talking about the top of our conversation.
Then I just want to quickly ask you about the
Kiss Cruise and you can.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Well, this is a fan run event. This ain't a
Kiss concert or anything that's being held in November in
Las Vegas. We're just trying to stay in touch with
the fans because since Pophouse bought Kiss, we are. In fact,
we had a conference call this morning. There's a movie
coming and the Kiss Avatars and a cartoon show and
(32:45):
I'm awful lot of stuff, if anything, since Pophouse came
into the picture, we're really ramping up to big, big stuff,
the kind of stuff that hasn't been done respectfully by
other bands. Just because you know, while you're alive, try
you know, reach for the stars and so the fans.
(33:07):
This is a different kind of stuff, not like a tour,
so we're sort of we're not seeing the fans so
you can talk touch. So this is more of a
chance for us to stay in touch with the fans.
Open to only a few thousand fans. It's going to
be at the Virgin Hotel. No, you don't have to
be a virgin to a ten.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
See what they just did there.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
And it's going to include Q and A and photos
and you know, all that kind of stuff, and we'll
get up and we'll you know, strum and do stuff
for shits and giggles. But there's not going to be
a kiss show. It's not like going to blow up
the Virginal Hotel. I just got the stink guy from
the other side of the room. Yeah, yeah, okay, I
(33:53):
got it.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Well, you know, I thought I had longer, but I'll
tell you what. We wrapped everything we could possibly wrap it.
I got made fun of, I got lectured. We had
a great talk some kids, we talked to kids. Cruise
no charge, beatles, we did it all no charge. You know,
we we we we.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
We can conclude. Well, I had fun. Thanks so much,
and I wish you well. And by the way, when
did you quit modeling? I never did, I never did.
I don't know, man, I never did. Yeah, well, I
have a I have a sneaking suspicion.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
You would be very popular in jail. Well, let me
let me go.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Maybe let me go try some blue collar crime or
white collar crime.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
It's all.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
You won't need to do anything. They're going to bring
you hot tea in the morning and tuck you in
at night. Don't you worried.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
That's a that's a real I'll wear that with the
badge honor everywhere I go.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Just don't tell what happens in jail stays in jail.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
You don't have to.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
You know, if you don't tell, it doesn't count. Man,
it's incredible. I hope, I hope we get the chance
to speak again. It was real real, I mean, you know,
you have a real You demurred.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Here's the word again, you demurred, But you really interesting
musical mind and it's appreciated.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
And hopeing you to speak again. Thank you, I wish
you well. Bye Bye.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
An episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist
of our favorite Gene Simmons sung or written kiss tracks.
Be sure to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken
Record Podcast to see all of our video interviews, and
be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken
Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with
marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
(35:41):
is Ben Holliday. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider
subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription
that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four
ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple
podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show, please remember
to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app.
(36:02):
Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.
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