Gene Simmons: ‘This Band Is Bigger Than Anything In 200 Years’

Former KISS member Gene Simmons recently stated that The Beatles are “easily” the best musicians to emerge over the past two centuries, calling the power of their writing “undeniable.”

Well, there’s no denying that The Beatles had an uniquely powerful impact on culture and music of the 20th century, and that their legacy casts a very large shadow, even over artists who are just embarking on their professional journeys today.

But to call the Fab Four beat anything else that came out since the early 1800s — or since the Renaissance, even? Well, that’s a big statement to make. And yet, Gene made it during a recent interview on “The School Of Greatness”. He said (via Guitar):

“The Beatles are above and beyond anything that anybody’s seen in music over, oh, 200 years? Easily. Not since the Renaissance.”

He added:

“You have to understand, they only existed for seven years, and they came from a place that was a pool filled with liver – Liverpool – where nothing ever happened. High unemployment rate, no experience, no resume, no nothing!”

Simmons also highlighted some of the playful nuances found in his idols’ music by singing a few iconic verses:

“‘I wanna hold your hand’, ‘She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.’ That last chord, that minor ninth, is a sophisticated chord, if you know about music. It’s almost like a jazz chord – unheard of in rock music!”

The KISS bassist & frontman also noted how on-point The Beatles’ lyrics and song titles were compared to other famous bands:

“[The Rolling Stones’] ‘Satisfaction’ is one of the great songs… yet it takes about 40 seconds to get to the first ‘I can’t get no… [Cream’s] ‘Sunshine Of Your Love’ takes about 50 seconds to get [to] ‘I’ve been waiting so long.'”

He also reflected on how writing “Help” might have looked like, Simmons said:

“‘I just wrote a new song’, ‘What is it called?’, ‘It’s called ‘Help!”, ‘How does it go?’, ‘It goes like this: Help! I need somebody. Help!'”

Naming more examples in the form of ‘Yesterday’, ‘Michelle’, and ‘Hey Jude’, Simmons went on:

“There’s not even an introduction, nothing. Those are what I’d call perfect songs. Not only that, but the title of the song is the first word of the song… It’s the most memorable song, and it’s the last word in the song… Who writes songs like that? It’s undeniable, their writing.”

Singling out Paul McCartney, Simmons offered:

“McCartney, especially, by far is the most successful songwriter in all of recorded history. There have been over a thousand different artists who’ve [covered] just ‘Yesterday’…”