A decade on from first proclaiming that “rock is dead”, former KISS vocalist/bassist Gene Simmons stands firm on his opinion. A recent appearance on The Zak Kuhn Show saw the hard rock legend reaffirm his position on the genre he helped to popularize.
Simmons of course has at this point at least tripled down on the matter, reasserting his claim numerous times over the years since first making it in 201, He most recently did it again on the aforementioned show. When asked by Kuhn if he still felt rock is dead, Simmons responded:
“It is. And people don’t understand how I can say that when we all have our favorite songs and we love our favorite bands, you and I and everybody else. But what I mean is that — well, let’s play a game, and I’ve done this before. From 1958 until 1988, that’s 30 years. Thirty years. So what came during that period?
Well, we had Elvis, we had the Beatles, the Stones, Jimi Hendrix, all that, Pink Floyd, the solo artists, David Bowie and just music that lasts forever, we’d like to think. In the disco world, you had Madonna, more heavy guitars, you had — oh, God — AC/DC and everybody else, Aerosmith and on and on.
And you had Motown at the same time. You had Prince. It was a very, very rich musical menu. It could go up and down. You had prog bands, you had Yes, Genesis, Gentle Giant, and you had the heavy bands, Led Zeppelin and so on. And from 1988 until today — it’s something like almost 40 years, certainly 35 years — who are the new Beatles?”
Upon Kuhn suggesting grunge legends Nirvana, Simmons went on to add:
“Stop. We are blinded. I’m a major fan. If you walked down the street and asked a 20-year-old, ‘Who’s the bass player in Nirvana?’ they wouldn’t know what you’re talking about. Or, ‘Can you sing a Nirvana song?’ No, no. The Beatles — and, to a slightly lesser extent, the Stones and Elvis — everybody knew the Beatles.
If you hated rock music, you knew about them. By the way, I’m delusional enough to believe some market reports about how the Kiss faces are the most recognized faces on the planet. And I’ve tried this before: You walk down the street, randomly ask people, ‘Who’s on Mount Rushmore?’ They’ll say, ‘Uh, Elvis.’ They won’t get it, but they know those four faces anywhere you go. They may hate the band, but you can’t deny that.”
The 75-year-old Simmons‘ opinion on the state of rock was recently echoed by another individual who had some perhaps more modest fame in heavier genres: former Megadeth bassist David Ellefson.
In a recent conversation with Border City Rock Talk, Ellefson sided with Simmons‘ assessment, offering [transcribed by Blabbermouth.net]:
“Rock is dead in America — it really is. And I know people will lambaste me for saying that, but it is. When Gene Simmons said it, everybody hated him for it, but he’s right. Unless you’re an established band, unless you’re Linkin Park and Metallica and KISS and Slayer, whatever, to start a new rock band — kids aren’t into that shit. They’re into Facebook and Tesla. Yeah, their lives are on their phones. Being a rock star is not cool anymore, like it was for us growing up. So, if you’ve got it established, you can keep it working.
So, for me, I enjoy South America, Latin America, [where] they love rock and roll. Asia, Australia. So you leave America and, man, rock and roll is very much alive and well. They champion the legacy stuff, they like new stuff. There’s a lot more… I did a record for Napalm Records, and they had a bunch of new groups.
Jinjer had just come out. There’s all this cool new stuff, as well as me and K.K. Downing, and legacy artists were putting records out. So I just find that it’s more supportive. And you look at the statistics, like the Spotify numbers, you look at that globally, outside of America, and it’s just stronger. It’s just a different culture. It is what it is.
So I play here in America, of course, too, but I find that outside of the USA, sadly, is where kind of the bread and butter is for that, as far as the bigger interest and the abilities to still keep playing and touring. And they appreciate it.
Especially going to a lot of these places in Eastern Europe, the bigger bands, even Megadeth, you’d play Warsaw, you’d play Bucharest, but you can’t go kind of deeper into the interior to some of these smaller places.
And so when I do some of these smaller things, like ‘Bass Warrior‘, I can be a lot more nimble and I can kind of go through the cracks and crevices and really go. People, yeah, they love it, man. Where we are here in North America, you get in your car, you drive down a freeway, you go to another town far away to see a concert. It’s not that easy for other people in other cultures. So I feel a privilege to be able to take my music to them.”
