Gene Simmons Declares Rock Music Dead

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Gene Simmons
Upon glancing at this weekend’s Facebook trends, our blood momentarily ran cold as we quickly glanced the name Gene Simmons alongside the word “dead.”

“This is terrible,” we began to think, before our eyes focused and we processed the full item nearing the top of the social networking site’s trends.

Gene Simmons
Yes, indeed, initial relief gave way to mild annoyance as we realized that the brillo-domed, fake-blood-soaked Kiss bass player — who had adorned our walls in youth — was alive and well, and shooting his tongue-filled mouth off again. But, slow news day we suppose, on this occasion was heavily trending for it.

In a recent interview for Esquire magazine, conducted by his reality show co-star son, Nick, the so-called “Demon” offered;

“The death of rock was not a natural death. Rock did not die of old age. It was murdered. And the real culprit is that kid’s 15-year-old next-door neighbor, probably a friend of his. Maybe even one of the bandmates he’s jamming with. The tragedy is that they seem to have no idea that they just killed their own opportunity — they killed the artists they would have loved. Some brilliance, somewhere, was going to be expressed, and now it won’t, because it’s that much harder to earn a living playing and writing songs. No one will pay you to do it.”

We assure you that we here are just chockablock full of rebuttals, but we’ll allow Mr. Simmons’ words to stand on their own feet for the moment. Apparently back in the late-70s everyone in a band made a living doing it, and there was no other incentive. Now? No one will ever make a living playing music again, as the sale and distribution of recorded music is apparently — to listen to Mr. Simmons, a man who made millions on concert appearances and merchandise (notoriously, in fact) — the only possible way for a musician to make money.

Perhaps yesterday’s young musician would be better off as today’s arena football superstar.

Clicking the highlighted names of Mr. Simmons, and his legendary and well-compensated rock combo, above will lead you to mountains of digital Kiss, strewn across the wasteland of which Mr. Simmons is purported to be the lord.

Below, a 24-year old Gene Simmons — love him though we actually do — kind of makes a jackass out of himself on daytime TV.