Gene Simmons tells CNN it was heartbreaking to get award from President Trump without Ace Frehley.
“When we’re all children, we all have delusional notions about ourselves… You had big dreams, and part and parcel between the big dream and reality is just hard work. Hard work is easier, but to have this kind of, imagine this, the will to reach for the stars and all that… I’m getting very emotional about this. But in America, it’s big dreams. Reach for the stars. Did I ever imagine? You betcha. Climb Mount Olympus? You betcha. The air up there’s thin, but I belong there.”
Gene said it was sad to get the Kennedy Center Honors award for KISS without Ace Frehley: “Well, his daughter Monique and his wife Jeanette were there, and it’s heartbreaking. Ace actually found out from the Kennedy Center that we were going to be honored, and he was so thrilled.
“We were four knuckleheads off the streets of New York with no resume, no experience, no manager,” Simmons added. “We didn’t know. We were like kids playing in the mud. Scientists call that a singularity. It just happened — the right thing at the right place at the right time… And I wanna tell you that I can’t explain it, but here we are. And I get very emotional talking about this because I wasn’t born in America. I know I don’t look Swiss.
My mother and I came here as legal immigrants, because there is a difference, and we waited in line for years until we finally came in. And one of the first images I saw on television was a man, and he was flying through the air with no jets or anything and just a cape on his back. And my mind was blown. What kind of country is this? And I’m still amazed by the wonder that’s America. And I get flack for that from people saying, ‘Well, you’re doing soundbites.’ No, no. I deeply love, and I’m amazed by this country, no matter all the problems. There’s always people [who] always argue about stuff, but the wonder that is America is that I can be here, first-generation legal immigrant, and people who’ve been here for hundreds of years don’t say, ‘Go to the back of the line.’ I can have access to any position in power I can have, as long as I’m willing to work for it. That’s the American dream.”
