Gene Simmons’ son, Nick Simmons interviewed his father for Esquire Magazine. Portions of the interview appears below.
Nick Simmons: You once said the music business isn’t dying — it’s dead. What would you say to young musicians and songwriters today trying to navigate this new terrain?
Gene Simmons: Don’t quit your day job is a good piece of advice. When I was coming up, it was not an insurmountable mountain. Once you had a record company on your side, they would fund you, and that also meant when you toured they would give you tour support. There was an entire industry to help the next Beatles, Stones, Prince, Hendrix, to prop them up and support them every step of the way. There are still record companies, and it does apply to pop, rap, and country to an extent. But for performers who are also songwriters — the creators — for rock music, for soul, for the blues — it’s finally dead.
Rock is finally dead.
I am so sad that the next 15-year-old kid in a garage someplace in Saint Paul, that plugs into his Marshall and wants to turn it up to ten, will not have anywhere near the same opportunity that I did. He will most likely, no matter what he does, fail miserably. There is no industry for that anymore. And who is the culprit? There’s always the changing tide of interests — music taste changes with each generation. To blame that is silly. That was always the exciting part, after all: “What’s next?” But there’s something else. The death of rock was not a natural death. Rock did not die of old age. It was murdered. And the real culprit is that kid’s 15-year-old next-door neighbor, probably a friend of his. Maybe even one of the bandmates he’s jamming with. The tragedy is that they seem to have no idea that they just killed their own opportunity — they killed the artists they would have loved. Some brilliance, somewhere, was going to be expressed, and now it won’t, because it’s that much harder to earn a living playing and writing songs. No one will pay you to do it.
The masses do not recognize file-sharing and downloading as stealing because there’s a copy left behind for you — it’s not that copy that’s the problem, it’s the other one that someone received but didn’t pay for. The problem is that nobody will pay you for the 10,000 hours you put in to create what you created. I can only imagine the frustration of all that work, and having no one value it enough to pay you for it.
It’s very sad for new bands. My heart goes out to them. They just don’t have a chance. If you play guitar, it’s almost impossible. You’re better off not even learning how to play guitar or write songs, and just singing in the shower and auditioning for The X Factor. And I’m not slamming The X Factor, or pop singers. But where’s the next Bob Dylan? Where’s the next Beatles? Where are the songwriters? Where are the creators? Many of them now have to work behind the scenes, to prop up pop acts and write their stuff for them.
Here’s a frightening thought: from 1958 to 1983, name 100 musical anythings that are iconic, that seem to last beyond their time.
NS: [How] does this bode for the industry of the future?
GS: There is no record industry, unfortunately. Not like there was. There are some terrific bands out there — Tame Impala, which you turned me on to, and so on. And during the ’60s and ’70s they would’ve become big, I’m convinced.
But, strangely, today, everything pales before Psy’s Gangnam Style. Look up the numbers on that song. He blows everyone else out of the water.
Read more at Esquire.
source: esquire.com
186 Responses
Wait, “Don’t shoot the meshuggener” wasn’t acceptable? If not, may I ask why?
Rock music has always been a young man’s game and now it has finally reached the twilight years.
No matter which decade you prefer, rock has done it all: sped up, conceptualized, tuned down, gone acoustic, gone country, gone hip-hop, gone neo-classical, gone retro….and now its just gone. Everyone has wrung the essence from it trying to give it new life along the way. Some have succeeded, others not, but at least they tried. Sooner or later we all hear something “familiar” and that is just some young kid(s) cranking out his parents’ (read: YOUR) record collection. In short, it has all been done.
I try to listen to some of the newer bands of, say, the last decade or less. Its not that its awful; its just old hat. I feel like I heard it before in a different incarnation. Maybe that is just me. Why listen to or buy Airbourne when I already possess most of the AC/DC catalog?
The technology has EVERYTHING to do with the album sales plummeting. Sure, we all borrowed LPs and tapes to dub thirty years ago but it wasn’t as easy or convenient as a mouse click. Unless you were a bootlegger the world at large didn’t even know. And most people don’t care about spending $$$ on great home stereo equipment for sonic fulfillment when they can listen on the bus.
Live music? I still go only because the amount of disposable income directly coincides with the number of artists I’m still willing to shell out $40+ for a night to forget the everyday humdrum. Overall, though, I’m never going to spend aforementioned ticket prices for a 1.75 hour show, $30 t-shirt, $9.00 beer, $_______ for parking as often as I used to (remember when there were $10 lawn seats?) Not to mention contending with drunk assholes who just go as an excuse to get shit-faced and can’t stand up.
I loved to hear what Ace has to say in response to Gene’s comments after scoring a top 10 album.
rock is the name of the animal on gene’s head. I know one thing that isn’t dead……..this thread.
As a musician myself. Gene (for once) is essentially right. There is no “industry” to prop up and develop new talent. That being said however there is a completely new industry that puts the power of all that in artists hands. For a reasonable amount of money you can invest in equipment that will allow you to create music that is just as good and sonically better than what was done in the early days. The biggest thing that got cut out was the people that sucked the funds out of new upcoming acts. If you could withstand this bloodletting you made it if not….
It’s is now possible for an artist to promote and distribute their work worldwide for less money than most people spend on food in a week. Things change. And you can either adapt and embrace those changes, or get run over by them. I suspect that good ol Gene is seeing that truck looming in the distance. The old industry was lousy with people looking to rip artists off and bleed them for every dime they could get, and when you were bone dry, they threw you in the gutter. I say good riddance. Rock dead? Hardly. Its finally where it was always supposed to be, in the hands and control of the folks who create it.
Sonically better? No way. The sound I can create at home is OK, it has never been easier to create your own music at home (studios) but it is still a far cry from a professional setup. The old and very expensive (and expansive) analog equipment is the sound of rock’roll and no plugin can so far replace that sound quality. That being said I hope you are right that new musicians using new ways of making their music available find new audiences – but: are these audiences willing to pay for your music??? Because, if one doesn’t get paid one will look for a different job, right?! E.g. how many clicks on YT does your song need so that you can pay the rent? So you are right that you now can get every penny from it but there are only pennies left for most new bands.