I spend should be much less than how much I make.” At corporate events, he rejects the idea that someone could ever want “just enough money to get by” by posing a scenario in which audience members imagine that God has come to them and given them a choice between having more money in their pocket or less money: Which would they choose? “I want more,” he says, adding that “all sane human beings” would make the same choice. “I have a lot of money, but I don’t have enough money,” he told an audience of Google employees in a much-viewed online interview during his book tour in 2014. “More is a good word,” he says, like a latter-day Gordon Gecko. “Aspiration is a good thing.”
Rock and roll all night…? Few can quibble with Gene Simmons’ success. From a birth ward in Haifa (his given name is Chaim Witz) to emigrating to New York City at age 8 to founding one of the biggest rock bands of the 1970s, Simmons is genuinely one of the “self-made rich” he believes deserves far more appreciation from society. That said, having a brand can only get one so far. While no official explanation of the canceled tour dates was forthcoming—aside from management stressing it had nothing to do with Simmons’ health—talk of poor-ticket sales quickly made the rounds on music websites, signaling the possibility that the Gene Simmons brand might struggle
to hold its own when removed from the better- known Kiss brand. Simmons didn’t say how many North Bay residents had cut a $12,000 check to hang with him as a “roadie for a day,” but
‘Not a popular thing’ Not all of Simmons’ life advice is as easily digestible. While the Google audience of well- paid Silicon Valley employees at the 2014 conference
lapped up his permission to earn “more,”
one wonders whether any
they weren’t as quick to absorb his objections to unions, federal funding for the arts, and government assistance for the needy (even food stamps), which the multi-millionaire dismisses as “handouts.” (As the half-hour Google interview
roadie refunds even had to be made. Still, Simmons’ simple advice about the value of hard work, absorbing as much knowledge as possible, and spending the bulk of one’s time setting yourself up for
Gene Simmons, in full brand-marketing mode.
came to a close, the audience sat in stunned silence. “It’s not a popular thing,” he conceded. “It gets quiet, you don’t like that.”) He's also quick to digress to questionable asides about the differences between men and women—typically reverting to shopworn conventions about women’s power existing in physical appearance, and men’s through the pocketbook. “It’s man kind,” he insists in our interview when crediting humanity’s progress through the centuries when women were generally stripped of power, before moving on to a lengthy observation about how women love to shop for shoes. (“How many pairs of shoes are in your wife’s closet?” he asks multiple times.) In 2002, Simmons made headlines for an interview he conducted with NPR’s Terry Gross, in which he repeatedly baited the Fresh Air host with men vs. women sexual innuendo, ending with her observing several times how “obnoxious” he is. More than 20 years later, he still plays that card.
success is hard to argue with. Though, where does that leave Kiss’s signature message: Should we or should we not, “rock and roll all night, and party every day”? “No! Do, rock and roll all night and party every day!” stresses Simmons. Just have a fiduciary responsibility to yourself the rest of the time. g
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54 NorthBaybiz
April 2025
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