KISS’ Gene Simmons was once famously quoted as stating “Rock is dead,” and then amended the statement by adding, “young fans” are the reason why.
After Simmons made his initial declaration many responded including, our very own Eddie Trunk, Dee Snider, AC/DC’s Brian Johnson and Angus Young and Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott.
Now Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has shared his take with Greg Prato at Consequence of Sound.
Iommi stated, “I don’t think rock is going to die. That’s been said for years. I mean, how many times I’ve heard that statement over the past 50-odd years? It’s quite a lot, really.”
He continued, “I think good music is not going to go. There’s always going to be a market for it. There are going to be an amount of bands that fall by the wayside — as there always is, there always will be. But there are certain bands that are going to stick out and going to be there. You’ve got Metallica up there — they’re not going to go away. They’ve got a lot of fans and they’ve got a great fanbase. There are a lot of bands out there. No, the music is not going to go away.”
In recent Sabbath news, the band recently released deluxe versions of the Dio era albums, Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules, read more details here.
29 Responses
To younger fans, I would imagine that bands like 5 finger death punch & others are considered to be their version of “rock”. As an older fan, even before the pandemic, I thought rock seemed to be on the ropes. The majority of young people know little about it (other than when inserted into a movie clip or tv commercial) and with certain exceptions (Like for example Greta Van Fleet on SNL & a few others) very few “traditional” Rock bands seem to get any national traction with young fans. I honestly don’t know if it will come back unless re-discovered by a future generation who are inspired by the bands we like (Rock and Metal). Once in while in the summer, a jeep filled with 20 somethings with the top down will pull up next to me cranking Zep, and I think, maybe there’s hope. I say bring back great singers, guitar solos, and killer riffs solid enough to build a whole song around.
Don’t know if this is related to selling song rights but just saw Godzilla vs King Kong and they had a snippet of a kid driving a van playing Breaking the Law and sporting a Screaming for Vengeance tee-shirt.
Oh brother….well at least he has good taste in music-LOL!
Charles – not even Judas Priest could save that movie….will say the fight scenes were fantastic.
Initially he has a SFV shirt and it inexplicably changes to a DOTF shirt for no reason whatsoever in a later scene.
I read “filled with 20 somethings” as you couldn’t tell what they were. It wasn’t until I read it again that I realized you were referring to age not organism.
Gene,
Fight scenes were great, but the CGI on Kongs hair looked off, and the switching of the shirts. I guess they wouldn’t have thought people would notice. I just wonder if it was a nod from the director is a priest fan or just random?
there’s a lot of unmined gold from the ’80s that you haven’t even discovered yet…just 1980..I could care less about the current state of..”rock.”
Shannon, I agree with your 80s “unmined gold” comment. I love the NWOBHM period, and I am constantly discovering bands from this era whose music is finally getting released. Some good, some bad, but gems nonetheless….