A year removed from his assertion that “rock is dead” and thousands upon thousands of comments later, Kiss bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons stands true to his opinion. He recently once again expressed his view to The Sound, telling them:
“From 1988 until today… give me the new Beatles and the new Stones. Give me just one. You can’t. Rock is dead. And the reason for that? Downloading and file-sharing. When you stop charging for things, it becomes worthless… And there’s gonna have to be a business model that’s gonna have to change. ‘Cause there are great bands out there, but there’s no support system.”
“You know there’s a 10,000 hour principle—there’s a book about that. Before The Beatles went into the studio to become The Beatles they played clubs for 10,000 hours, that’s years. You have to do something for thousands and thousands of hours before you get any good on it. Nowadays, instant gratification means you can hum in your shower and wind up ‘X Factor‘ and you’re on television and get a recording contract. But almost none of these singers who get recording contracts become huge. And that’s because the taller the tree, the deeper the root that needs to be in the ground to hold up all that weight. So if you have a tree with no roots…”
