KISS icon Vinnie Vincent discussed seeing Gene Simmons a year ago at the KISS legend’s “Vault” event in Nashville, Tennessee on a new episode of ‘Rock Talk with Mitch Lafon.’
“I almost didn’t do his ‘Vault’, because… When you’re driving, you think… And the thing that kept coming into my mind was, ‘It’s the first time I’m seeing this guy after being run over by his bus.’
“It’s easy to run over somebody when you can just keep forking hundreds of thousands of dollars into attorneys, to your law firm, and say, ‘Hey, destroy Vinnie. Here’s another hundred and fifty thousand, here’s another five hundred thousand. I want you to destroy Vinnie,’
It’s very easy and it’s also really cute to say, ‘Hey, here’s Vinnie filing his hundred and fiftieth lawsuit, another three hundredth lawsuit. Ha! Ha!’ Very funny. Very fucking funny. Not funny to me. And yeah, these were different lawsuits for different causes of action.
“When you have money, you buy justice. And you may not even buy justice — you buy a win or you buy a lose. Mostly people with that kind of money do not lose, because judges are pretty much on the same… they’re not on the wavelength of justice. It’s good old boy game.”
Vincent considered backing out of the ‘Vault’ event while on the road driving.
“These were all detrimental reasons that were starting to reverse my decision to show up at his ‘Vault’,” Vinnie said. “So I actually pulled over for a while. And I was late showing up, but I pulled over, and I said, ‘Look, for all the reasons, for all the right reasons, for all the natural reasons that you have for not going, you should not go.’ Then I had to make that choice and say, ‘But you made a promise and he’s expecting you there.’ And if you’re gonna try to put behind you anything and try to bury this — which is very difficult.
It’s like someone murdering your child and you’re gonna try to face that person again and shake their hand, which is near impossible. I’m not built that well where I can shake someone’s hands for doing that. But it was a moment where I had to make a quick decision, and I said, ‘Okay. I’m going. We’ll see what happens.’ So I did show up. And, to be honest with you, I went there with a smile. I went there to support his show.
And I felt that it was a cold reception and I was treated very indifferently. And driving home, I thought, ‘Now, why did you just do this?’ But it’s documented. It’s there. There were some funny moments, and I tried to keep it… Nobody needs to know what really happened. But we took some pictures, we talked a little bit. [It was] superficial, very indifferent, very cold, nothing warm. And I thought, ‘Hmmm. Okay. That’s the last time I will do the favor. And don’t ask me again.'”
