Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Gene Simmons

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Gene Simmons · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Gene Simmons is known for his theatrics, and man, did
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I get a concentrated dose of that in this episode.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Jean's the co founder, basis and frontman of Kiss Salama
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Paul Stanley and built an outrageous, maybe obnoxious persona dubbed
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: the Demon. Now seventy six years old and retired from touring,
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: he's finding new ways to keep Kiss fans known as
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: the Kiss Army, engaged, including a three day event this
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: November called the Kiss Cruise Landlocked in Vegas. I'd arranged
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: for an hour interview with Jeane, like I did with
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Paul Stanley a few months ago, to talk about the
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: event and Kiss lore. I was excited to pick his
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: brain since he has an almost encyclopedic memory for a
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: certain era of music. But things got off to a
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: rough start, stayed rocky.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: And an end.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: This may be the strangest interview I've ever done. We
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: only talked for about thirty minutes, but it's still worth
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: running to me because it is a pretty good inside
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: I think into the man they called the Demon, Gene Simmons.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: This is broken record, real musicians, real conversations. Here's my
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: conversation with Gene Simmons.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Can you hear me? Oh?
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I hear you loud and clear? Sound great? Okay, docent
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: tones of Gene Simmons amazing. Wow, i'minating for my own passage.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Are you in la? Oh? I'm straight. I'm so sorry.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: We just met. We already want to know, so where
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: ready to live?
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: We're off to the best start I could imagine. This
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: is This is perfect man, great to meet you.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Thank you, and thanks for trusting for the event. You
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: look great, Thank you, Thank you. You look much better.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: But would suspect you would always you know, I saw.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: You by the way, speaking of potato chips. Unfortunately, my apologies.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: We're going to have to cut it shorter than i'd
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: like to go because I got the stink of from
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: one of the guys just says I've got a lawyer
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: conference thing, So I'll shut up so you can do
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: the talk. Okay, sounds good.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: You know, I saw you recently talking about Ozzie's death
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: and being quite verclempt about about it, as many people are.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: But I was I was thinking you.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: You guys obviously must have first met on opening for Sabbath, right, Yeah.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: We were both trying to make our mark, you know,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: And we came a little bit later than Sabbath, a
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: year or two after, so they were starting to make
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: some headway, but we were still in the two three
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: thousand seater level you know of in the end, you know,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: a long time ago, before digital, before anything, you had amplifiers.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: You had a chord that connected to your guitar and
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: you plugged it into the amplifier. There's no ear, no
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: auto correct nor nothing. You're not just meeting potatoes. And
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: since neither Sabbath nor Kiss wrote singles, you had to
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: get in the back of the station wagon, go from
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: one city to the other and take your case to
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: the people. So in a lot of ways, it was
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: a much more honest time.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: The bands that became big bands became big bands because
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: the fans liked what they heard and what they saw.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: When you say neither Sabbath nor Kiss wrote singles, what
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: do you mean by that?
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Well, if we took a look at the lyric, our
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: first quote single was called Nothing to Lose. I happened
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: to write it before I had a baby. I tried
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: every way. She didn't want to do it, but she
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: did anyway. I thought about the back door and it
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: was about you know, the six from the backside, but
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: radio didn't pick up on it.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: But that's what it was about.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: And you know, Sabbath came on sort of more darker, perhaps,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: but even we dabbled me as a demon and gout
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: of thunder and all that. Later on, I did some
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: darker stuff, unholy stuff like that, but until I was
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: made for loving you, I mean rock and roll All
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Night was a single but not really a hit, so
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: we tended to write about chasing skirt and enjoying life.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: We didn't write a song about how cold? How could
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: I you know, how could I live without you? You know,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: all those songs that are directed at chicks. In fact,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: even Best, which was a big hit, Best, I hear
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: you calling, but I can't come home right now because
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: me and the boys are playing all night. In other words,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: what's more important me or the band? Actually bitch the band?
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: It brings up a point I was curious about, which is,
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: you know, I feel like your songwriting is so is
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: unique in the sense if you mentioned nothing to lose,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: But if you think about I mean, some of your
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: later songs seem not better, but they seem almost that
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: you knew who you were and what you wanted to say.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Your writing became almost more direct and clear. From my perspective.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Could be wrong, I'm happy to be wrong. Then some
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: of the mid career kiss songs or even some of
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: the songs from like say Monster, sound like fully flatted,
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: like this is, you know, Gene Simmons, the demon of Kiss.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't know if you feel that way. I
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: will say that all of us, going back to I mean,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: the Brits really started writing their own songs, even though
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Sam Cook wrote his songs and Chuck Berry, but predominantly
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: you have the brill building filled with my people, Labor
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Stoler and all that, who wrote all the hit songs.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: You ain't nothing about. How about now, these are not.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: African Americans who wrote They were Jews who wrote all
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: this you know on broad with all the sort of
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: blues tinged new Et, nonbud Hound, Libre Stoller to New York.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Jews wrote that because they loved black music, So artists
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: of the previous time, previous generations, lined up. They came
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: to the studio and they were given the music that
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: somebody else wrote. They had hits written for them, specifically
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: by other writers and the Monkeys is probably the pre
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: eminent example. You show up in the studio and you
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: have great writers, Boys, Boys and Heart, Neil Diamond. You know,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: all the best writers would write hit songs for them.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: But when the Beatles came along, it changed everything. These
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: guys started writing and performing their own songs, playing all
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: the instruments. As opposed to the Temptations, one of my
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: favorite bands, didn't play instruments. They just sang and you know,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: did stage movements. They had full bands, and the Beatles
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: were fully contained. They play their own instruments, wrote their
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: own songs, and in a lot of ways, crafted and
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: designed their own you know. It's like a sculptor who's
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: got a big block of rock. He's got, you know,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: a hammer and a chisel, and you know, kind of
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: bangs his way through it and finds the form that
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: he sees in his mind. But I want to say
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: that all of us, Henrik Optega whoever, and of course
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: they are much higher life form, are self taught. Nobody
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: studied music theory. Nobody to this day who's popular can
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: read or write music. Nobody's trained in music theory.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: Nothing.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: We're just you know, deaf and dumb, just bumbling through
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: a forest of musical notes and trying to find that
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: thing that you know appeals to us, versus real songwriters
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: who knew exactly how to craft a hit song. Max Martin,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: you know, the more modern who wrote Britney Spears, Christine Naguilar,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: all that stuff. He sits there, Okay, what kind of
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: and they craft, you know, this kind of song. The
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: rest of us are just bumbling our way through it.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: It's actually quite an interesting enigma of how we get
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: from I didn't know how to play a chord, teaching
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: myself that first chord, and then I'm talking about all
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: of us figuring out how to write songs because nobody
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: sat down and said, okay, here's how you write a song.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: We'll be back with more from Jean Simmons after the break.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: For you.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: You know, you go from playing that first chord to
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: writing that first crap songs nothing to lose and co
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: writing some stuff obviously with Paul strutters your song. But
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: then you know, you bring it to Paul, he adds
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: some stuff one hundred thousand years. But then and then
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: you move along and it's like, you know, you mentioned
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: holy unholy Domino love it loud, young and wasted. Uh,
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: you know Russian Roulette even or The Devil Is Me
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: like these are songs like we're now getting much later even.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: You absolutely not only did you figure out songwriting, but
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: it seems as if over the arc of your career
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: you didn't lose it where some people maybe did. You
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: maintained it, perhaps even got better, would be my estimation.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: What then, have you learned about songwriting? And obviously all
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: into it, you intuited it along the way, but you must've.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Learned songwriting is a trip where you never get there,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: definitely do. I mean I know Elton well, and all
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: of a sudden you know great songwriters and they're always uh.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: I mean Elton must have written hundreds of songs, three
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: hundred maybe maybe more. You're never there. You're always looking
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: for that thing. And maybe that's the magic of that thing.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: I don't care.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: If you went through the Renaissance Mozart, Beethoven, Might you
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: know Rockman and off Hide and Chopin, all those guys
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: they kept writing searching for that elusive butterfly. Bob lind
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: you might wake up some morning before your time. Elusive
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Butterfly a smash hit which barely had any rhyme in
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: the In the verses, you might wake up some morning
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: to the sound all of a sudden so blowing in
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: the wind. There's no rhyme. The words just flowed nicely.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: So watching. Hey.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Look, I come from a time when you had more
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: serious songs. You had ballads, you had blues, you had
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: country rockabilly. Country artists were having hits right down the middle,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: and you had novelty songs. And the first rap so
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: I ever heard was well, even before Wild Thing, which
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: don't kids yourself is spoken word goes like this wild Thing,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: you make my hearts. There's no melody, it's just the
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: chords and background. In a lot of ways it's rap.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: But before then we had a song by number one
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Napoleon the fourteenth.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it goes like.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: This, They're coming to take me a work, They're coming
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: to take me away out to the funny farm, and
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: the guy talks for you know. It's about a guy
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: who's crazy, I guess, and they're coming to take him away.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: That's it totally. On the cover, there's a guy with
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: a Napoleonic hat with his hand and his thing, and
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: that was it. And then there was Dicky Goodman, who
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: would string together pieces of hit songs. This isn't before sampling,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: because it was sampling. They'd take eight miles high by
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: the birds and you know, wild thing and so little
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: snippets and he'd craft the story, Well, there's a flying
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: saucer landing over there.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: I wonder where it came from.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Eight miles Uh, well, it can't be, you know, my goodness,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: it looks like a big fish coming out of the water. Bump,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: bump ump. In fact, one of his hits was Mister Jaws,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: about a guy going fishing who catches a big thing
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: and they string together hits, some big hits.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: So what chan.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: Well, the larger point is that you have, though you
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: did not go to school to study music, you clearly
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: have an incredible ear for music, have an incredible given.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: Incredible incredible is overused.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: There's a wonderful movie called Amadaeus about Salieri, who was
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: the King's composer, did operas and stuff, and well well
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: known historically as a you know, fine melody craftsman during
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the Renaissance. And he was a childhood friend somewhat of
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Mozart who was a little bit younger, and he was
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: tortured his entire life by how Mozart would sit down
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: and he would write full pieces, full symphonies and operas
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: and everything like as if he's just putting it down
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: because it had already been written. The rest of us,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: poor mortals. You know, you take a piece from here, now,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: I got to fix this. Then you go back to it.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: You know, it's like.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: It's like even even da Vinci would paid something. Now
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: I don't like that. Then he's got to go back
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: and do that thing. Nope, not most are to go
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: from right to left. And when he was done, that
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: was that was you know, some something happens that is
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: a prodigy. That's the word incredible. And Beethoven was actually deaf.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: He wrote music in his mind, and he had wrote
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: the entire symphonic arrangement, every single notation, the bassoons and
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: the you know, what every instrument was doing is a
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: countermlley and everything in his mind. He never heard any
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: of the compositions he wrote. That's incredible. Wow. I would
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: almost argue it's miraculous more than incredible. Okay, these these
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: are semantics, But I'm not anti semantics.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: I'm pleased to hear that. I mean, no, but it's
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: your point. I mean that is, that's clearly a gift.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: There's no explanation for it.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: It just is.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like an idiot savant. There was a
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: wonderful movie called Rainman, and I was at the studio
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: liaising with some guys and developing my own stuff as
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Rainman was being developed into a movie basically about I
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: don't want to use the term, but an idiot who
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: in life didn't know where.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: He was going, bumbling.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: He would cross the street and not pay attention to
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: red light, green light and stuff. But the first hint
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: that there's something else going on happened when he was
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: in a restaurant and he went over to reach for
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: a toothpick, and the toothpick holder fell off the table
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: and all these toothpicks were, you know, on the floor,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Tom Cruise, Dustin Hoffman, And when they were walking out
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: of the restaurant, Cruise tells Hoffmann's character, don't worry about it.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: You know those toothpacks, you know, it's fine. I'm sure
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: you put all that in. They said, yes, two hundred
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: and thirty seven.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: And Crusad what.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Two hundred and thirty seven, Yeah, two hundred and thirty seven.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: I picked up when it was two hundred and thirty six,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: and when I put mine and it became two hundred
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: and thirty seven because it was two hundred and thirty siven,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: are you talking about? So he went back in. How
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: many toothakes were in there? He says, well, sir, let
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: me count them. Two hundred and thirty seven. You and
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: based on a real person, there was a idiot savant
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: and they asked him, could.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: You name that that day? You know what day was?
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: You know, July third, eighteen forty eight, Friday? Without thinking
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: about it that people go and they check it. Sure
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: enough it is. There's no explaining what that is. So
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: an idiot savant is a genius in one area and
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: helpless in others. I mean, the mystery of the brain.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know how we got off to this tangent,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: but as you can barely see, clearly see, I love
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: the sound of my own voice. Well you were demure, Well,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: in fact, you're being a bit demure. I would say,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: that's a big word, like dramasium. I haven't met another
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: human being in real life. I use that word, not
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: the straight guys. Anyway, Well, we're on zoom.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: So not yet.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: You have still yet to meet someone in real life
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: to use that who uses that word to you. But
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: what I was saying is you have an incredible recall.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: And we could argue if it's incredible or just good
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: or good.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: I have a good recall.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: It helps not to use drugs or alcohol or cigarettes.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: And that way I can put my hand in front
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: of my face and it doesn't do this. I'm turning,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: turning seventy six in three weeks. You look incredible. I
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: was saying that to myself, I said, self, looking good.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: But I mean you're talking about a song, songs like
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: you know, I mean the Bob linds On it's what
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: sixty five sixty six?
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: So even is right? Yeah, so even if he.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Even as a kid, though you proceed so long before
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: you would have even gotten into could have gone well.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: But I had an advantage because I wasn't born in America,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: so everything was so vivid. You know, I came from Israel.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you can tell. I wasn't born in Sweden,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: and so I came here with my mother when I
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: was eight. As a matter of fact, I was eight
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: before I was nine. See what I did there eight
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: before I was it's rain Man with the numbers, that's really.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: What the dumpers.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: And so one of the first music I heard was
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: black music, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Little Richard. I was
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: fortunate enough to know Little Richard and spent time with
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: him and introduced my young son at that point to Richard,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: I said, you know, we went to see Richard play live,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: and I took my son because I wanted him to understand,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: you know what some of this stuff was on backstage,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: young man. You know, I I in rented rock and roll,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: you know all this stuff. I'm only three am. I
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: don't know what's going on.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: You know, it was hilarious.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Strangely, life is what happens to you while you're busy
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: making your plans. And sadly, I seemed to be the
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: only one of note on some level who did the
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: eulogy for Chuck Berry's funeral. I was at the open casket,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: you know, where the whole family and friends and family
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: were there in an auditorium and I was in the back.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: And the Barry family found out I was in the back,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: and there were no beending on McCartney, Keith Richards. They
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: were not there. I don't know why, because without Chuck Berry,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: they wouldn't be the Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, you know, any
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: of these guys that was the backbone. And I was
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: just there out of respect and they came up, Would
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: you step up and say a few words about Chuck
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, you can google and smoogle
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: it and all that button pushing stuff that tortures me.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: And I was.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: I became so overcome by emotion because when I first
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: came here as an eight and a half year old
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: kid with my mother and hearing that music and not
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: understanding the words, I just, you know, felt the feelings.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: I didn't know what the words were, and I tried
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: to maybe you know, I didn't know what I was saying,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: but the feeling of it made me move the way quote.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: White music didn't, you know, torn between two lovers. It
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't make you want to Yeah, you know that feeling
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: that's in the groin, under the belt buckle, that down there.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: White music just didn't do that. Da da da da
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: da da da. Oh yeah, I'm feeling it dead. No,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: it doesn't.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: That's head stuff.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Black music was all like down there kind of stuff,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: which is why you move your hips and your butt
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: and do all that. That's the magic of black music.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: And again, nobody took music theory. It's all self taught,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: and it came from the heart and from the soul,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: and that's why that music continues to resonate. But American
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: music really was founded on the backs of creative former
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: slaves who could barely play guitar. And somehow these melodies
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: came out of I mean, blues, jazz and then rock
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: and roll and rap, all that came from black music.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, most certainly, Well, Night's break and we'll be back
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: with Gene Simmons. Some of the funkiest kiss songs of
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: your song almost Human from love Gun. I mean, so
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: that's a monster as a bass player, as a songwriter.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: You know, obviously beatles, I know are paramount for you,
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: the Beatles, But there was there was that other layer,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: there was another there was something else you.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Were I didn't I didn't have a uh. I didn't
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: come from a genre because I first picked up a
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: guitar and tried to strummer a few chords. Because it wasn't.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: I literally have never taken a lesson. I don't know why.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: The smart thing would have been to sit down with
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: somebody who could play how do you play a sea chord?
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: And so on and what does that mean? But I
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: never did, and that goes all the way down to
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: that e Van Halen, like all the best players taught themselves,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: and well, I didn't start playing bass. I started strumming
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: those stupid songs My Uncle is a Raft and Stanley
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: the Parrot, which became Strutter and all that. There's just
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: strumming CG D and coming up with my own melodies
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: and then hearing hit songs House of the Rising Son
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: and so and trying to figure out what those chords
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: were and of course getting it wrong. But then I'm going, well,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, I just these are my chords now,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: and I can do my own melodies. Here's a song
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: called Spice Islands. I don't know where that came from.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: And making up melodies, but I didn't have a genre
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: because I grew up on Chuck Berry, Little Richard, you know,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: black music. And then the Beatles hit, which was like
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: a kick in the nuts.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: It was like, what is that?
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: You know, she loves you? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, and then
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: you get that harmony that minor nine, yeah, you know
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: that thing with I never heard that in popular music
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: to this day. It's not easy to do. It's easy
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: to sing the root and then the you know, do
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: re me? Do you know that kind of the triad thing,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: which sounds very nice, it sounds good, but that thing
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: was like on another level when you started to hear
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: those Beatles harmonies. So, you know, I digress. It is
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: interesting that the most successful songwriters of all time, Paul
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: McCartney single handedly, by the way, is the most successful
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: songwriter of all time. Just Yesterday on its own has
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: been covered by over a thousand different recording artists on
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: their own, which is unheard of.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: But all the other songs too.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: I used to manage Liza WESAMNELLI went to see Sinatra
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: at the book and he comes out and introduces, I've
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: got Sam Riddle on the man. I've got to do
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: a song for you. It's one of the finest songs
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: ever written. It's called something, and then it goes into
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: a Beatles songs like yeah, And it's worth noting again
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: those guys didn't know how to play. When they started
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: to pick up. They were doing what it was called skiffle,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: and then Buddy Holly and then the Everly brothers, and
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: then you know they self taught. And the fact that
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: all these amazing writers came from a place called liver Pool.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: You couldn't come up with a crazier name. Now it's
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: all poetic. Oh Liverpool, No, No, it's liver Pisca River.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: You know, it just makes When I first heard that,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: I thought that's disgusting. A Liverpool, yeah.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: The other day, but even hard Day's Night. That opening
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: chore that is so strange and it's amazing, but they
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: never returned to it.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: It's like.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Serious, it's like, let's do open with this and never
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: come back to it.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: Genius, genius.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: They heard a sound in their head and they did it.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: Just genius. As a matter of.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Fact, if I felt follows opera in a way that
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: rock and roll does not popular music. If I fell
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: in love with you, would you promise it'll be true?
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: And ilpe he understand because I've been in love before
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: and I found that love was well than just holding hands.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Then the song takes up. If I give they never
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: come back to that intro. That's what opera does. Opera
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: has this kind of mood setting, melodic intro, and then
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: the material starts and you never come back to it,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: And the genius of these guys is still unequal.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Here.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: I'm one of the beatles in your dream Simmons. And
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: you say, so you got a new song? Yeah, got
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: a new song?
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: How's it?
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: What's it called? It's called help? Okay, how's it going?
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: It goes like this help? I need some bad But
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: there's a pause. It's the song title, which is the
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: first thing you hear up. Pause, I need somebody help,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: not just it, there's a pause. It's not help, I
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: need somebody.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: No.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Do you have another that's really good? You got another one?
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Well, what's it called?
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: Yesterday? How's it go? It goes Yesterday? Pause?
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: All my trouble seems so far? It's you got another one? Yeah,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: it's called Michelle.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: How's it go?
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Me?
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: Shechell?
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: You got any more?
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Got one called she loves You?
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: How does it go? She loves You? Yeah?
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: It's crazy if you're right, If you're right, And they've
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: written hundreds of songs like that, Paul, do you have
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: a song? Yeah, it's called Penny Lane and Penny Lane
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: there what so if you write songs, or you try
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: the hardest thing to do is to write a really good,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: simple song that hits the nail on the head right away.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: We love the stares with satisfaction as much as we
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: love it doesn't touch that because you got to get
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: through and we love the rip. You gotta wait about
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: forty seconds until satisfaction comes in the title. Is there
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: a Stone song to you that approaches the Beatles?
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: Like?
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: If there were one, would it be satisfaction? Or is
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: there another that you think? I love the Stones, but
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: they don't approach that songwriting. In point of fact, you
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: may like the Stones more, but that's taste. In fact,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: the first hit the Stone Side was written by Lennon McCartney.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: I want to be Your love a baby, I want
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: to be oh man. They gave it to the Stone
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: that they didn't write songs at that point. They were
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: doing you know, blues covers, John Lee Hooker, stuff like that.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Well you know the lessons of that stuff. Is it
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: unconsciously in your mind as you're writing? Is it top
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: of your mind as you write? I think, I mean
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: even a song this is a little the Beaten Path,
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: but it it felt always felt a bit beatlesque to
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: me in a sense, I confess from Carnival of souls.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: You know, it's just a really it's kind of it's
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: it's it's really experimental and abstract in its way, like
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: are you thinking, like, let's try to do something out
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: or is it just coming?
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: Oh? It just comes.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: So I wish I had the talent of the Bill
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Street building, all those guys that wrote hit songs, even
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Phil Spector and all these guys. It's a very it
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: was a very strange building because all those writers, will
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: you Still Love Me Tomorrow? Carol King, who was Carol Kleinb.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: They were all of a certain persuasion. They were all
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: members of the tribe Neil sedaka Carol Kleinb, Neil Diamond.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: You know, they all americanized their names. Carol King, No,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: they were my tribe. Uh. Phil Spector genius, No, him too.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: And they knew how to write hits. And that just
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: comes with talent. The rest of us, you know, just
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: bubbling our way through it. And if you come up
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: with something that people like, certainly doesn't have to be
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: a hit. Certainly one of the biggest fans of all
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: time didn't write hit songs.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: Led Stepplin.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: The hits. The astonishing thing about Page Who over the
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: years I'm proud to see has become a friend. Are
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: those amazing riffs? This guy who played on Donovan Records
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: and every British artists who had hits had Jimmy Page
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: playing guitar, but he himself has come up with more
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: classic riffs than all the other English guitar players put together.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: And it's instantly recognized.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: You know that is you know.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: It's not air supply.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: I want to ask you once to go back to
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: something we were talking about the top of our conversation.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: Then I just want to quickly ask you about the
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: Kiss Cruise and you can.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Well, this is a fan run event. This ain't a
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Kiss concert or anything that's being held in November in
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Las Vegas. We're just trying to stay in touch with
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: the fans because since Pophouse bought Kiss, we are. In fact,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: we had a conference call this morning. There's a movie
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: coming and the Kiss Avatars and a cartoon show and
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: I'm awful lot of stuff, if anything, since Pophouse came
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: into the picture, we're really ramping up to big, big stuff,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: the kind of stuff that hasn't been done respectfully by
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: other bands. Just because you know, while you're alive, try
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: you know, reach for the stars and so the fans.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: This is a different kind of stuff, not like a tour,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: so we're sort of we're not seeing the fans so
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: you can talk touch. So this is more of a
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: chance for us to stay in touch with the fans.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Open to only a few thousand fans. It's going to
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: be at the Virgin Hotel. No, you don't have to
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: be a virgin to a ten.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: See what they just did there.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: And it's going to include Q and A and photos
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: and you know, all that kind of stuff, and we'll
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: get up and we'll you know, strum and do stuff
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: for shits and giggles. But there's not going to be
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: a kiss show. It's not like going to blow up
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: the Virginal Hotel. I just got the stink guy from
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: the other side of the room. Yeah, yeah, okay, I
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: got it.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I thought I had longer, but I'll
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: tell you what. We wrapped everything we could possibly wrap it.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: I got made fun of, I got lectured. We had
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: a great talk some kids, we talked to kids. Cruise
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: no charge, beatles, we did it all no charge. You know,
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: we we we we.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: We can conclude. Well, I had fun. Thanks so much,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: and I wish you well. And by the way, when
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: did you quit modeling? I never did, I never did.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I never did. Yeah, well, I
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: have a I have a sneaking suspicion.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: You would be very popular in jail. Well, let me
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: let me go.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: Maybe let me go try some blue collar crime or
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: white collar crime.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: It's all.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: You won't need to do anything. They're going to bring
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: you hot tea in the morning and tuck you in
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: at night. Don't you worried.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: That's a that's a real I'll wear that with the
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: badge honor everywhere I go.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Just don't tell what happens in jail stays in jail.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: You don't have to.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: You know, if you don't tell, it doesn't count. Man,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: it's incredible. I hope, I hope we get the chance
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: to speak again. It was real real, I mean, you know,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: you have a real You demurred.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Here's the word again, you demurred, But you really interesting
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: musical mind and it's appreciated.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: And hopeing you to speak again. Thank you, I wish
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: you well. Bye Bye.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: An episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: of our favorite Gene Simmons sung or written kiss tracks.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Be sure to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: Record Podcast to see all of our video interviews, and
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: is Ben Holliday. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription
• 35:51
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• 35:54
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  Speaker 2: podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show, please remember
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.