gene simmons
Gene Simmons on Life After KISS, Battling COVID and What’s Next for Rock
“I shit gold,” says Gene Simmons with a smile. “That’s your headline, SPIN magazine.” The KISS singer-bassist can’t help himself, forever basking in the good fortune he’s enjoyed ever since his band first stormed into pop culture in the 1970s, with flamboyant rock riffs, radio hits and pyrotechnics. Then and now, Simmons was the Demon on stage right, “Dr. Love” in dragon boots and kabuki makeup, breathing fire and flapping a lengthy tongue at fans from behind the mic. There were multiple platinum albums across the 1970s and 1980s, comebacks in the ‘90s and after, and now a final run before KISS retires from live performing, the End of the Road Tour, set to end in 2023. It’s been a decade since the band released a new studio album, 2012’s Monster, but for Simmons and his musical life-partne...
Kiss this: You can buy Gene Simmons’ Las Vegas mansion with crypto
Rock legend Gene Simmons says he will accept crypto payments for the sale of his $13.5 million mansion in Las Vegas. The iconic bassist and co-lead singer of Kiss will accept payments in or a combination of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Uniswap, Polkadot, Aave or Try.Finance according to hard rock news site, Blabber Mouth. Listing broker Evangelina Duke-Petroni from Berkshire Hathaway Home Services told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in a Feb 1 interview that any potential crypto payment for the property would have to be “verified through closing costs, including taxes and commissions.” The three-level mansion sprawls across over 11,000 square feet in the Ascaya luxury community overlooking the Las Vegas skyline. Rock legend @GeneSimmons is selling his home in Henderson’s Ascaya communi...
The 100 Greatest Rock Stars Since That Was A Thing
Three of the 100 are in this picture! The Rolling Stones, in 1964, from left to right: Bill Wyman, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Brian Jones. The problem with lists like this is they are invariably bullshit. So our prime objective was to make sure we didn’t do a bullshit list. I’m not saying we did a scientific one either. Because that isn’t possible — actually, it is, if you wanted some compilation of who sold the most records/concert tickets/has the most fans/got the most death threats, etc., and someone could come up with a bunch of very empirical metrics and create a “heat index” or something, and could deliver an actual scientific ranking! But we, um, didn’t do that. In fact we didn’t even, technically, do the “we...
It’s Alive!: Our 1996 Kiss Cover Story
This article originally appeared in the August 1996 edition of SPIN. With Biography: KISStory airing tonight, we’re republishing the story here. Whoo-hoo, it’s a firehouse inside Gold’s Gym, a Hollywood sweatbox packed with waiters looking to be actors, actors looking to be bodybuilders, and bodybuilders looking at their reflection in the mirrored walls. In one corner, Paul Stanley, singer and rhythm guitarist in Kiss, and at 44 its youngest member, strains against the forces of nature as he hangs from the Gravitron. The man usually seen with a huge star across his face is, this Saturday afternoon, seeing stars. He may be masked for a living, but momentarily, dangling from the Gravitron, Stanley’s face contorts into a mask of pain. “All right, let’s do it!” barks Anton, the offi...
Paul Stanley Pledges to ‘KISS 2020 Goodbye’ With Explosive Sendoff
If music does indeed possess the healing powers so often ascribed to it, who better than four “masked” musical super-heroes to kick the dumpster fire that is 2020 to the curb? Slayer might be louder and meaner, U2 more spiritual, but for a feel-good rock ‘n’ roll all nite and party every day ethos that can help put the last 10 months in the rear-view, it’s KISS for the win. KISS guitarist/singer Paul Stanley promises that “if there’s a way we can kick 2020 in the ass with an eight-inch-heel to say goodbye to it, let’s do it!” Stanley is speaking from pre-Christmas band rehearsals in Los Angeles, conducted under “very strict COVID regulations.” The quartet is readying for a New Year’s Eve show that’s extravagant even by KISS standards. The global livestream concert is taking place at The Ro...
