Gene Simmons has said on the Lipps Service radio show that The Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger and U2 singer Bono would be like ‘little girls’ and ‘fall down’ if they wore his onstage get up.
“It’s always interesting marketing when you say, ‘I promise,’ and all that. KISS is the hardest-working band in show business — period. It doesn’t mean we’re the best, although we call ourselves that. But I wear about seven-inch platform dragon boots. Each one weighs 10 or 11 pounds. That’s 20-plus pounds on the legs. It’s like working out with bowling balls. Then on top of that, there’s another 30 pounds or so between the armor [and the rest of the outfit]. And so if you put [Mick] Jagger and Bono — [who are] both great — in my outfits, they’d… like little girls, they’d fall down… They can’t do this. And I’ve gotta spit fire and fly through the air and all that. It is physically exhausting… So the idea is go out with some dignity.”
He also said he believes KISS could continue someday without any original members.
“Sure. Of course. We’ve had 10 different lineups. AC/DC has had 22 or so. And there are bands that tour now that sell out things with different lead singers and different guitar players. At the end of the day, it is about the material and about the culture. Because there are better musicians — jazz musicians — that will never be able to make the money that people who are less talented but have charisma [are able to make]. You can go to school to learn guitar or bass — you can’t learn, ‘You’re exciting. You have charisma.’ There’s no school for that. Walk this way, do [it] that way. You just have it or you don’t.”
Gene Simmons told Glasgow Live a couple of years ago (via Loudwire), “We’re the hardest-working band in show business, I wear over forty pounds of studs and armor and all that stuff, seven-inch platform heels, spit fire and have to fly through the air and do all that stuff,” explains Simmons. “If Bono or [Mick] Jagger, who we all love, had to dress up and do what I do, they couldn’t last an hour — they just couldn’t. In hindsight, it would have been smarter to be a U2 or The Stones to wear some sneakers and a t-shirt and you’re comfortable. No, we had to do it the hard way.”
