Gene Simmons is the biggest asshole in the world. Not only does he freely admit it, he’s also inordinately proud of the accolade. It’s easy to see why Simmons became one of the most successful rock stars ever.
With Kiss, he made some of the most popular rock music of the past three decades. We know this because Gene wheels out the statistics in every interview he does – including this one. A strange by-product of his stardom is that he has become far more attractive to the opposite sex than his modest looks would usually warrant.
But then Simmons has charisma and money (and hence power), and of course he flaunts both at every available opportunity. When it comes to interviewing the Kiss bassist/vocalist, you rarely know what you’ll get from him or what he’ll be like. I’ve spoken to him on a few occasions, and it all seems to be down to pot luck.
The first time was in 1984. The magazine I worked for then wanted him to review the now-classic rockumentary movie for them. Simmons did so with incredible bad grace, commenting huffily that the film was “too close to home” in many respects.
But then almost a decade later, in San Francisco, he was friendliness personified – even showing an unexpected capacity for self-ridicule: during a discussion about bootleg records, he explained that he preferred audience recordings to those from the soundboard/mixing desk “because they have more atmosphere. You hear the kid next to the person who taped it saying stuff like: �.