Gene Simmons is a de facto Satanist.

Yes, he's cropped up in conversations on LttD a few times. I couldn't agree more that he's a de-facto.

Very intelligent and shrewd man.

Obviously, you've never met a Jew. They like Capitalism, what can I say?

But in all seriousness, the man does have many Satanic qualities. I think it's entertaining how he points out the difference between his delusion regarding his self image versus the delusion musicians have that they aren't in a business.

Musicians would be much better off mentally if they just accepted monetary reward without a second thought. After all, the more money you make, the more money can go into the product, the greater potential there is for the product to be better, and even more money you can make off of it.

I like Capitalism a lot, too.

Haha, I love Rollins's nervous laugh whenever Simmons mentions money.

Simmons is very good!

Henry Rollins is a worthless cunt.

I have heard (granted it was back in the 90ies) Rollins complain about the selling out of musicians. A bit of a hypocrite considering that he acts in movies and does TV shows. But hey, everyone has to have their limelight.

Just as Simmons says in the movie Extract, "Just let me put your balls here and I will slam the door on them like THIS!"

The only thing I'll ever agree with him on is his pro-free speech stance. Other than that, yes, very much a worthless cunt.

I remember listening to Black Flag, and some kid gave me a Henry Rollins tape. Some of his "comedy" stuff is ok, but for the most part he espouses the same bullshit that every other "rock star" (with the exception of Gene, of course) does.

Black Flag was good until Rollins started with the "spoken word" shtick. Greg Ginn was the selling point of that band.

I've never been a fan of KISS's music, but I've enjoyed every interview I've ever seen from Gene Simmons. This was was no exception.


I've actually gotten a few requests over the years to play his stuff on my show. But the way I see it: "spoken word" is for entertainers who aren't talented enough to sing, witty enough to do stand-up comedy, expressive enough for poetry, focused enough to deliver a speech, or coordinated enough to juggle.

Feel free to quote me on that.

Bingo! Also, BF lost something special when Dukowski quit in '83. Much of the band's early philosophy came from him.

Yeah, he and Jello Biafra, and Lydia Lunch, and the lot of whining 80s "spoken word" and "performance artists" begged to be dropped from the same bridge with cinder blocks wired to their necks. I remember wishing Reagan would send them to some kind of underground death camp in El Salvador or something.

I remember seeing Rollins do a number of spoken word performances in the late 80s. At that time his subject matter was devoted mainly to humorous stories about touring with Black Flag and the like. I never remember him going on about anything even remotely political back then.

I believe his "political awakening" occurred sometime soon after his solo career started to shit the bed.

This is an excellent interview. I especially like the fact that he's perfectly blunt about it all. This is how life should be. No pulled punches, no bullshit. Lay it out there, that's how it is.

Thank you for posting it

YES!

I haven't heard a huge amount of it, but I actually prefer their pre-Rollins stuff to when they got him. Ginn's guitar playing wasn't amazingly weird or anything, but it was extremely different to what other punks bands were doing.

And to Reverend Bill M: KISS' music has always sucked. It isn't about the music. It's about the live show. Plus, as Gene said in this interview, and is obvious to most people, KISS is much more than a band.

I forgot where I heard this, but someone said that while most bands want to be the Beatles, KISS wanted to be Coca-Cola.

They succeeded.

I don't know enough about Rollins himself to go so far as to say he's a "worthless cunt."

Now I mean, that's my kind of straight talk.

I'm not a massive fan either, but I would say from what I have seen he doesn't strike me as a worthless cunt.

I've seen one or two interviews and I've seen him speak intelligently enough about certain issues. A very aggressive and straight talking man himself, in fact.

I hate "spoken word" events and mostly agree with your quote, Rev. Bill.

However, I have heard some of Rollins poetry - and it stands up. Some of it is pretty good, some of it is funny - and his verbal delivery of it effective.