Gene Simmons: ‘The Rolling Stones Aren’t Unique’

KISS legend Gene Simmons recently labeled the band’s debut album as the band’s “most honest” release, and suggested that his band tried to counter the “sameness” between dominant British rock bands of the era.

By the time KISS released their debut album in 1974, the music world had already experienced groundbreaking hard rock albums like Deep Purple’s “In Rock,” Led Zeppelin’s “IV,” and Black Sabbath’s “Master of Reality.”

This meant that the up-and-coming band from New York City faced stiff competition. However, something about the sound of KISS’s self-titled LP, combined with its striking imagery, captured the curiosity of enough people to lay the groundwork for a future global phenomenon.

Today, Gene Simmons looks back on “KISS” with great fondness, even though he admits the LP is by no means perfect, as he told Terrie Carr of WDHA-FM 105.5 FM in a recent interview:

“I think it’s probably the most honest record we’ve ever done. It doesn’t have to be the best, but painters and artists talk about the honesty of innocence before you learn to do things. Like kids — the most honest art is when a small child dips into mud or poop in the bathtub and starts creating imagery and stuff.”

“That’s the most honest expression of art before you know form and function and any of that stuff. So we didn’t know anything about the recording process. We barely knew how to tune the instruments, and we sort of could write songs and based on our love of…”

“We were Anglophiles. We loved the English version of what the Americans invented, which was rock and roll and blues, and it became rap and all that. It all started here [in the U.S.], but come on, the English gave us The Beatles and [Led] Zeppelin and stuff, and we gave them The Grateful Dead.”

“It’s just leagues apart. Nothing American ever rose to that level with people who play guitar. Nothing — not even close. And when you list the top — I don’t know — 10 bands of all time, they were all English or Irish. The Beatles and The [Rolling] Stones and the English invasion and stuff — on and on and on. Amazing songs.”

While returning to the subject of KISS’s debut, Simmons said:

“And so we started writing songs like that, and not copying or anything, but within that vein. And it came easy. Paul and I were long students of songwriting and the English bands and everything. The Kinks — oh my goodness, those early years. ‘Waterloo Sunset’ was so, so simple, stripped of even production.”

During that time KISS had also wanted to present an answer to what Simmons perceives as the “sameness” of British rock greats that were all the rage at the time:

“The thought behind those songs [on the first KISS album] was we wanted to put together the band we never saw on stage. So on one hand we had sort of this love of Anglophile music and those English bands, but then there was the sameness of, if you didn’t know much, you couldn’t tell the difference between The Kinks or The Stones or The Beatles and everything.”

“They all had basically the same hairstyle type, same age — except The Beatles, everybody sang, everybody was a star. That was a major, major difference. And so we looked at The Beatles as a template. Wouldn’t it be great if everybody sang lead? That was like, ‘Wait a minute.’ In The Stones, it was [Mick] Jagger. In The Kinks, it was Ray Davies — like on and on and on. Aerosmith, it’s Steven [Tyler] — nobody else sings. But in KISS, everybody sings songs. And that was a thing that was appealing to us.”

Reflecting on how that approach turned out in practice, Simmons offered:

“Now, putting that together, you have to go through auditions, and eventually we found the right mix, those original guys. Having said that, sadly, not everybody is designed in their DNA to run marathons. Some people are just shooting stars — they just go for a little while.”

“And Ace [Frehley, original KISS guitarist] and Peter [Criss, original KISS drummer] were so perfect for the original lineup, but they just weren’t designed to last 50 years. So they were in and out of the band three different times.”