Gene Simmons, the legendary founding member, and bassist for KISS was recently interviewed on Larry King Now. Here, he discusses with fill-in host Dennis Miller how his daughter, budding musician, and writer Sophie Simmons in his words, does not make any money off of the popular streaming music service Spotify and his overall problems with the record industry as a whole. Gene Simmons took a brutal shot at Radiohead recently.
The KISS frontman told Miller:
“The other thing is that record companies simply cannot make money. My daughter Sophie [Simmons] is on Spotify, a huge writer, singer and all of that. She’s written for Rick Ross, Yellow Claw and all these kinds of [acts]. She’s got tons of songs that have been downloaded millions and millions of times. You can download something ten million times and make only a few hundred bucks.“
Gene Simmons recently forget words onstage in this sad video. Simmons would later continue proclaiming the recording industry “dead” for new artists. The famed bassist stating:
“So the record industry is dead for new artists. Rock is dead, the last great rock band were the Foo Fighters and that was twenty years ago. You can’t name another rock band because you can’t make a living. When I first started, in 1973, there was still a record industry and the record company, which we used to talk badly about was the best friend you ever had. They gave you millions of dollars, tour support and all of that and they only took money back from the records you sold. So you would sell records, made popular songs, have people show up, and you’d get all that live money and licensing and merchandising.”
Simmons concluded, telling Miller:
“Until legislators become well educated and understand the nature of business they are unqualified to talk about copyrights or the record industry.”
KISS fans debated if there ever be a rock band like KISS or will “rock ever be popular again” in a recent KISSfaq.com topic.
Gene Simmons daughter revealed this ‘Overweight’ video a couple of days ago. Dtk07 said: “Rock’s biggest weakness is its tendency to create purity standards for bands and it’s fans. Nickelback hate killed labels ambition to build crossover artists in rock. Also, the music industry is carved into a million nitches today, there is no central place for the next Elvis [Presley] or Beatles to speak to an entire generation anymore. Also, the “gold record” bands have been wiped out of the music industry. Either your one of the lucky few multi-platinum artists or you’re lucky to sell 50,000 albums and you’ll hope to make a living on the road. Music’s middle class has been largely destroyed except for legacy acts who’ve always held those spots.
