Kiss’ Gene Simmons onstage together with his Awl bass.
Getty Pictures
3 years in the past the Pokemon Corporate unveiled a new persona known as Obstagoon that debuted within the Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Defend video games for the Nintendo Transfer. It is a racoon hybrid that appears remarkably very similar to Gene Simmons, the bass participant for Kiss, entire with a black-and-white face and indignant, stuck-out tongue. On the time Simmons quote tweeted his response: “Welp.”
In a contemporary interview with CNET, the long-lasting heavy steel musician maintained his indifference to Obstagoon. “I do not care,” he informed me by the use of Zoom. “I do not imply that to be uncaring or disingenuous or different giant phrases like fitness center. I’m the luckiest man at the face of the planet.”
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Gene Simmons talks about 50 years of Kiss Mania
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Simmons regularly shares fan-made pictures on Twitter about the multiplatinum band he helped found, including a Record Store Day poster featuring Olivia Rodrigo in Gene Simmons makeup.
A Record Store Day promotional poster featuring Olivia Rodrigo
Gene Simmons/Twitter
“It’s a Kiss world, and you just live in it,” he says with his signature tongue in cheek.
Kiss is currently on its End of the Road Tour, which began in 2019 but was interrupted by the pandemic. Now, almost 50 years since the band was founded, the bass player is feeling reflective.
“I came to America and couldn’t speak a word of English, as most immigrants — legal ones — do,” he said. “The idea that you could climb success, to get to heights you never imagined were possible, is more reward than I could ever imagine.” Simmons was born Chaim Witz in Israel in 1949.
He started Kiss at the same time he was working at a school in Spanish Harlem. “I wanted to install a thirst for knowledge in young people’s minds — never imagining that in six months I would get a record contract,” he said.
Gene Simmons G² Thunderbird Bass
Gibson
Simmons is announcing a new signature bass guitar in collaboration with Gibson, called the Gene Simmons G² Thunderbird Bass. Though he is known for his woodsman-inspired Axe guitar, he told me it’s not his only instrument. “I’ve been using a Gibson bass since the ’70s — the 1870s. That was another joke there, you’ve gotta keep up.”
He helped design the guitar because it allowed him to play high on the neck, unlike other guitars on the market.
Because he “bounces around like a ping-pong ball,” Simmons says he has little time for listening to music or amassing a record collection, although he does listen to the radio. “You try to find cutting-edge stuff, and then you can get the blues. I’ve met people who’ve never heard of Chuck Berry, and I did the eulogy at Chuck’s funeral.”
The Gene Simmons G² Thunderbird Bass is available on Gibson.com.
