The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 432: Gene Simmons—The Sun Never Sets on Planet Cool

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

The multilingual, bass-thumping, capitalist dives into what made him fall in love with America, his unforgettable first job involving prosthetic testes, and the etymology of the word a**hole. It's a free-wheeling discussion from Moses to Superman and everything in between. 

Hey, it's me, Mike Roe, and I'm always delighted when people stop by who are far, far, far, far more famous than I. That is fair to say. Very fair to say. One of the founding members of a little rock band called Kiss. It was in the neighborhood, and he braved the L.A. traffic, which was no easy thing to do. But he came in, and he sat down, and we began to chat. And the pearls of wisdom just about. bounced across the table as they tumbled out of his mouth. That guy knows a lot, and he's not afraid to tell you about it, right?

A lot of fun facts in there. And one thing that he's very keen about is how many Jews there are in the world? We definitely, we did talk a lot about the diaspora. And the Jewish population, of course, Gene Simmons is very, very Jewish, and is real light in every sense of the word and eager to talk about it. And he does, because he's Gene Simmons. He's 75 years old. He's worth close to half a billion dollars.

You want to talk about crypto. You want to talk about fine art. You want to talk about the joy of music. You want to talk about the Holocaust. Whatever you want to talk about. He sure can. He's been there and he's done it. And he's a guy that I've wanted to meet for a long, long time.

And he didn't disappoint. I mean, if you're not old enough to remember, without overstating it, Kiss changed rock and roll, changed fashion, changed music. It changed everything. I remember, let's see, this would have been 1975. They had formed the band had, and they were playing, but no one knew of them yet.

There was no Kiss Army yet. Right, right, right. But you know what there was? There were billboards in Manhattan and up and down the East Coast, black billboards with those big white letters that said kiss. That very distinctive font with the list. the straight S's.

Yeah, something very German about it. But no one knew what it meant. No one knew they were a band. It was just, why am I seeing the word kiss? What am I supposed to do? Is this a command? Is it a suggestion? What is it?

Keep it simple, stupid. It's that too. Now, others have said knights in the service of Satan, which is not true. No. But it does come up in the conversation because, frankly, everything else does. What's the title of this episode?

I love the quote he gave me. called The Sun Never Sets on Planet Cool, which was his response when I said, dude, why don't you take off those sunglasses? Which he never does. He's Gene Simmons. He can say whatever he wants. And believe me, we're about to prove it. Right after this. The federal government is not going to close America's skills gap. They have an important role to play for sure. But if we're serious about reinvigorating the skilled trade, on a national level. We need more organizations like Skills USA making a real difference on a local level. These guys have been around since 1965, and today they are relevant like never before with hundreds of chapters in schools all over the country and hundreds of thousands of students

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Skills, U.S. Skills, USA. An hour 40 minutes from Malibu, seriously? Oh, yeah. 145, yeah. What? And, well, PCH is closed. If I took PC8, 40 minutes. You got all around Ventura Highway to Oxnard and Kama or Kane and Dune.

Yeah. And then I've got another half of it, because I live at the very end. Well, I'm so glad you came. but you're 45 minutes late, right? And I know how I feel. It doesn't happen to me a lot. It doesn't happen to me. What happens in your brain chemically and to your person?

You drove yourself too, right? Oh, yeah. I've never had an assistant or anything. I wipe my own ass. I love that. I love that. Do you alternate hands when? Wiping?

Yeah. Like you ever mix it up a little bit? It depends how much there is. If it's a big scoop, I'll use both like an earth mover. Friends, look, I apologize in advance. I don't know where we're headed with this. The question I'm trying to get at, though, is for a man who values promptness, like, for me, it's the five stages of grief.

When I'm running that late for an appointment, it literally makes me crazy. You have to care because you have to imagine you on the other side. You don't want to be treated that way, and why would you treat somebody else? that way. It's an old truish idea. Do unto others as to, yeah, sorry, that's, we came up with that first. Yeah.

And it's respect. And when you're poor, you're afraid of repercussions. If I'm late, I'm going to get fired. Right. Ergo, ERGO, I won't make any money. And what follows is, I won't be

able to have a roof over my head, feed my family and eat. So they're repercussions. The question is, are you a mensch? Are you a man? And when you don't depend on the money, when you've got enough, because there's no such thing, will you ethically morally show up on time? Because you care. That's the way I feel about it. What's the etymology of mensch? Is it abbreviated for something? No, it's a German. It's a German word. I can speak well enough, Hochdeuts. which is proper high German. And mensch is a real German word.

It means a gentleman. But for Jews, the added ideas you're a man. In those days, everything was about men. A man, if he says something, you've got to take him for his word. Anybody that doesn't is not a mensch. Right. Right. So back in a time when a handshake meant a thing. Similar, yeah.

Right? By the way, sometimes they'd spit. Where'd that come from? Western in America. It came from the West, not in Europe. In fact, in Europe, good luck is you spit on the head of your child. Hey. Come on.

Really? I'm a hand to God. Well, what about cutting and the blood, the Indian thing? Yeah, we are of one blood. And as a matter of fact, if you're curious where Indian names came from. It's really a fascinating American Indians. Fascinating idea. There's an old chief, you know, howling wolf who's dying and the young buck, you know, who's going to become the Indian chief gets in front of the old howling wolf before you pass on with the great spirits.

I know what to do and I'm going to, I promise I'm going to protect, you know, the thing. I just want to know one thing. How do we name our children of what? Because they don't have mom and dad. How did you get howling wolf? He goes, well, when we are born, what we see around, they saw a howling wolf when I was born and therefore I'm howling wolf. Does that answer your question? Two dogs. Chuck, did you see it? Yeah, I did.

I saw it. I mean, did you see where he was going on? Oh, I saw it very good. I didn't. I didn't. He got halfway through it and I realized, oh, man, it's going to be a joke. It's going to be. To circle back.

You're a man of wealth and taste. You've done pretty well for yourself. Wealth is relative. Not really. Well, I suppose it. I suppose everything's relative. If you're around Bezos or Elon, your speck of dandruff.

You're measly $400 million next to Elon's $400 billion. I never said I'm worth $400 million. No, but Wikipedia does, and they can't be wrong. Oh, of course not. But here's my question. Yeah. You get up. you're 75 years old.

Yep. You suffer through an hour, 45 minutes of traffic to come here. You don't know me. I mean, maybe you know of me. Sure, I do. Maybe you follow my entire. I have no idea. But I know that a lot of people, if they imagine themselves in your position with your life.

Yeah. What are you doing, man? Why are you out in the world? Why are you on podcasts? Why are you still out there? I'm busier and work now more than ever. I have a Gene Simmons band, a labor of love. We're doing an American tour starting April.

Really? Yeah, the Gene Simmons band starts all across America. We show up with guitar picks, and that's it. Everything is just bare bones the way we started, the old-fashioned way. No guitars, just the picks? No, I'm sorry. Somebody carries the guitar. Four-toes walk on stage with nothing.

but picks. I'm going to demand a refund. The idea being that the amplifiers, yes, I have that too, the amplifiers and the drums and everything are provided for us. They fly us in or we drive, and then we play. You should go to jeansimids.com to find all the dates. We're there right now, I think. Look at this. And you can go to shop jeansimins.com.

He's scrolling too fast for me. But what am I going to do? Keep going down. Keep going down. No, that's up. The other way. There you go. So you go to shop jeansimmons.com. I own the moneybag logo. I own the Bitcoin. See all those logos?

I own the trademark to all of them, including the euro, the pound sign. Yes, I do. You're not answering my question, man. I never touched her. Why? Muscle memory. Reflex. Why?

Yes. Why are you still? We have restaurant chains, rock and brews, two of them at LAX, across the America, a film company, Simmons Abramson, I'm sorry, Simmons Hamilton. The first one is Deepwater with Sir Ben Kingsley and, oh yeah, big stuff. You've been business with Ben Kingsley? That Ben Kingsley? Yes, Sir Ben Kingsley.

Oh, I'm sorry. Renee Harlan directing and the second one's with Bella Thorne and Mel Gibson. They come one right after the other. But while you're a lot, look, you're running a race. Because life, in essence, is a race. And, you know, we're young. We don't care. We don't know what it's about.

You just cruise. Aren't you like I am? As you see the finish line, don't you speed up? Sure. I'm 75. How many years more do I have left? I don't know. I'm clear.

Ten years, 23rd, whatever it is. I get up every day earlier. This morning I was up at, so help me God. On my children. I was up 5 a.m. Yeah. On purpose. No, just my eyes are. I can't wait to get started. Read, you know, be a sponge.

So the notion, like the notion of retirement, does it even mean anything? No, it's a somebody made up 64's retirement age. In Greece, it used to be 54. Then where the government tried to move it up to 60 because that doesn't make financial sense. They started burning tires on the streets. I don't want, well, what do you want to do with your life? Do nothing? I want to retire and do what. You get up after you poop and wipe. Not everybody gets up before they do that either.

Yeah. What are you going to do the rest of the day? There's eating, yeah, and what? Smelling the grass on the lawn and everything. No, you've got to do something. I want to be able to see, the pharaohs were not good guys. They enslaved people, they tortured people, but they had the same will to live. that winners do.

But is the will to live? I mean, I think that's instinctual. Achievement. Not just living. That's different. That's different. That's right. Work ethic is different.

Yes. Right? Then the will to live. Yes. The will to work, the desire to work. Yes. The compunction to drag your 75-year-old bag of bones into your car and drive yourself over here to talk about whatever it is we're going to talk about.

Is it is it curiosity like are you still like are you a curious person about everything? I admire All kinds of people that do things that I can't do and I want to find out why I'm not doing it or not doing it as well For example, who do you admire who you've never met? Oh anybody Elon Bezos you know these guys started with nothing Elon especially came from South Africa not a happy home had a brother and so on, and they moved to Canada, and somewhere along the line, scientists like to call a singularity or something. Some flicker went off,

and then nothing was going to stop the guy. But I mean nothing. Bezos also started off with nothing and just had this kind of notion about this idea, this Amazon thing, go to someplace, and I mean, it's really a simple idea when you think about it. And all the big movements in,

technology and inventions and so on were started by individuals, not corporate entities, not governments. Alexander Graham Bell, Mr. Soonzo, come in here and Edison with this team inventing things, just individuals who have this scratch that they can't, this itch that they can't scratch, this thing, and they're never satisfied. But don't you, I mean, look, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I saw a biography on KISS years ago. And I think you and Paul both were trying to explain the singularity in terms of the moment where somebody said,

okay, we're going to call ourselves kiss. We're going to wear makeup. Yep. Right? And like that wasn't, I mean, that came from some other place. Some other place because there was nothing. We didn't have a resume, no experience, no nothing. We knew.

Somehow you know, you may not know what it is, but. you know it when you see it and feel it. And it's difficult to teach that kind of thing. I used to be a sixth grade teacher. And the thing that I tried to teach most is about trusting your gut, this thing. And so if you see a kid in school doodling, put away your pants down, I'm going, no. As long as you can do your work and you're doodling, I'm going to give you paperwork. Don't stop the mind from wandering.

It's this kind of like, you know, we're born and we're like the ping pongs in a ping pong machine. No, no, let them, don't do this kind of straight line thing. Because when you take a look at the most successful people, it was not a linear line. You know, one of the popes was in Hitler youth. And from there, you know, advanced and so on became a pope. And Schwarzenegger came from Austria, where his parents were Nazis. And couldn't speak a word of English. And I had this thought about, I'm going to build up my body.

And that's going to be my way out of this small world. I have bigger ideas about life. And he became the world's most, whatever it is, muscle guy, Mr. Olympic many times over, and then became the governor of California. And he's not done. The fifth largest economy on planet Earth ahead of Italy and England.

Well, maybe not right now at this particular second, but it's up there for sure. This seems a stupid question probably because obviously music was... I don't think there is such a thing when you think about it. Oh, see how you feel maybe a half hour from now. Okay. Music seems to be your way out and the way that working out was Arnold's way out.

But it could have been magic. It could have been painting. I would have succeeded in anything I wanted to do. You believe that? Oh, there's no question about it. Tell me why. Well. Where's that certainty come from?

I think it's worth noting that the type rope walker, and all champions do this. They work, I'm going to do it, I'm going to win. You know, you've got to hype yourself up. You can't wait for somebody to hype you up. You got to, I'm going to do this. You know, in football, sometimes you get the gipper. Okay, let's get out there and show them.

And you're depending on somebody else. If you are your own gipper, as they say, and can hype yourself up, you're actually contributing greatly to your success. So if you're going to walk a tightrope and your mind, is everything, including the will to live. Doctors haven't figured that one out yet. If you don't have the will to live, you're going to die fast. You live, you've got to live.

It releases the right endorphins, whatever that's called. But you're about to walk a tightrope, and you start thinking thoughts like, ah, there's a pretty good chance. It makes no sense. I'm probably going to fall off in the middle. You just contribute it to your downfall. The chances are mindset is everything. before. And if you have the mind, I can do this. I'm going to get to the other side because I've

got stuff to do and I got this and I got there. And you go out there like a champion, more than likely you're going to win. Permission to complicate the metaphor, just a little. Meta 5, inflation. Okay, I like the tightrope. But is there a safety net? No. Or no? No. The safety net is you're going to fail at that and you're going to fail miserably, but you don't die. And what doesn't kill you makes you strong. So you can fail at something, try something else. But that's what the safety net is. If you fail and fall and there's a safety net, the consequence of falling is... Failing means nothing. That's right. So in a world where there's no consequence to failure, does failure even have a definition? The reason you have a huge advantage in America is because

you cannot fail. If you don't have any money, if you're homeless, God forbid and all that, there are places that will take you in and provide bed, clothing, food, food and shelter. Churches, Salvation Army, you can get by and you can wash dishes and slowly work your way up in capitalism. And if you succeed and you get the rug pulled out from under you and there's no money left and all that stuff, you can declare legally chapter 7 and chapter 11 and start all over again. Have you ever done that? Never. No.

I would never do that because. you're short-changing the people who gave you their money to invest i would i couldn't do that you came over here with your mom when you were what six seven years old and i was 56 no i was i was eight actually i was eight before i was nine and here i was thinking you were something different something special eight leads to nine you're with your mom your old man had left so it's just the two of you he he got up and walked out one day you know sadly it is more common than not. In one of the books I wrote called Me Inc., the statistics are horrific and shaming men in the Hispanic,

but especially in the African American community, 75% of African American women who have children, whether they're married or not, have no father figure at home. And then you wonder why the kids turn out badly? In the Caucasian, something, it's like, like 55%, it's, of course you get lost children. How should we think about men who walk out on their families? I love stories like this. Seven years ago, a guy named Ben Still was a musician.

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Get good ranchers now. E-haw! Well, the law, should hold them accountable. Whether it's an accident of birth or not, you've got an innocent child. And whether it's an absent dad or not, you've got to at least financially provide. When did you fall in love with America? When I saw Superman,

we came on El Al Airlines, propellers in those days, 1958. Maybe it was 1858. I'm not sure. Don't they go buying a blank? And all I remember is my mother saying, we're just going one stop. I had no idea, but I was throwing up the whole time. I remember this. Throwing up, eating a cracker or something, and then falling asleep, then getting up, throwing up. And we landed, and I remember seeing a billboard. You got to remember when you come from Israel, you have no idea about Christianity.

Christianity or anything else. You never heard of that as an eight year old kid. All we saw were the Israelis, the Jews, and some Arabs who walked down the street. That's all you knew. There's no television. I never heard of television. We didn't have a radio. This is in Haifa.

In Haifa. We are in Tirata Carmel, which is the village of Carmel, the biblical Carmel. Same one. I live right at the foot with my mother. Yeah. And I was introduced at about eight and a half, a little more, to television. And I remember thinking, I promise you this, I thought there was, we were at our uncle George's house. And he was successful.

Of course, he's Jewish. And we went, statistics, bear it out. If you have a problem with that, just check the statistic. It doesn't lie. I mean, the proper pronunciation of your given name is? Chaim. Okay. You know, when you hear Jews or other people say, Lechheim, which means to life,

you're actually saying, to life, that's the toast. That is the only toast Jews do, which is ultimately invariably, and other big words like gymnasium, that's all there is. Everything else is just smoke and mirrors. If you're alive, you have the gift of everything. And then it's what you do with it. So I went to my uncle George's house with my mother. It's her brother.

And I remember walking in, and there was a man on television, black and white. And you can see a close-up of his head. And I thought there was a guy in the box. Like in those days, a television set was a long piece of furniture. On one side was booze on the other side. So it was like six feet long. And I thought there was a guy inside the box. you know, talk. I didn't know what he was saying. I didn't speak English. Right.

And then we went to my uncle Larry's house. My uncle George, her brother, was a prosthetist. He made bridges, teeth, and balls. For those that had problems, yes, he made prosthetic testicles. Yes. And my first job was carrying around paper bags with... Full of artificial testicles. Yes. That's fantastic. What a job that is. I made $20 a week and I couldn't believe.

Yes. I swear I thought you were going to say you worked for tips, but that's another joke. Seriously, what is the name of that job? What was that the ball carrying job called? A delivery boy. I don't know. I mean, that's a bag man. Very good.

And I had to learn how to subways and how to, I didn't know anything. I couldn't speak English. but I wanted to say that I'm sorry man I just I'm just so taken by balls I don't know I mean have you told that story before is this a thing that you talk about

in your many many interviews because I just don't might have once said it like there's a time in Gene Simmons life where he's getting paid to transport prosthetic testicles testicles yeah

I mean with the sirens in the background the testicles and the foreground well that's free there's no extra charge for the pro I just think this is the effects guy. This is extraordinary, Chuck. We have to make sure this is cut into the open somehow or another. So I'm with you.

All right. So I go to my uncle Larry's house, her other brother, who's a huge successful baker. Now he has his testicles. No, that's Uncle George, who's the dental prosthetologist. Okay. This guy, I had a huge bakery business. So I gained a lot of weight because when the gladbacks came out, the plastic garbage things, which I'd never seen before.

He used to come every weekend. It would be filled with Danish and, of course, I gorged everything. But I remember walking in, and the first thing I saw on the way in, it was the kitchen. I don't know why it was there. And my Aunt Magda opened the kitchen door, and there was a refrigerator. We never had a refrigerator. It was like a closet, and there was a piece of ice in it. And you couldn't keep milk or anything, because there was.

the ice man would come and give you a piece of ice. There was nothing to plug in. Sure. In Israel, the outhouse literally was a hole outside. I know this all sounds like you're making it up. No, no, no. I just got to rein you in a little bit because we were just in the States

looking at a piece of furniture with a TV in the middle, and there was a Superman in there. And then we got sidetracked with the testicular delivery system. And now I'm back in Haifa with a piece of ice in the freezer. It's difficult. It's my problem is I love the sound of my own voice, really. So she opens a refrigerator door and I see more food than I've ever seen. And I'm attracted to the color red and it's schmuckers.

Yes, it was back then. With a name like schmuckers, it has to be good. That was Mason Adams, by the way, who did that voice over. And I was with God, what was the bald guy on NBC every morning? Fred. Willard? No. Fred Willard.

Who was the first Ronald McDonald? No kidding. This is what I'm here for. Wow. All kinds of stuff. I'm an only child, so I have it a lot of time. I actually read the Encyclopedia Britannica from cover to cover. In what language?

English. Okay. Teaching myself how to read it right. That's how you learned English. No, it's by reading comic books. Now we're getting back to Superman and it's all going to come together. Keep going. So I happened to walk by.

There was another TV, but, you know, like a double take. and there's a guy flying in the sky with like a towel, a red cape or something on his back. And I never, not only had I never seen or heard anything like that, I never imagined a human being being able to fly through the air without propellers or anything. just by himself. What kind of a place is this? And right outside my aunt Magdus House, they lived on a suburban street. Well, there were paved roads.

We didn't have paid roads. And there were cars going both ways. There were hardly, there were just donkeys doing so. It was like another planet. It's just magical. So there's unlimited food. There's a whole new. Not only unlimited food, I went to the first supermarket within a week.

somebody had to walk me across the street because I was afraid to death, you know, all these cars. I didn't know about green light, red light, and you walk into like a city of food. The food went higher, like avenues and boulevards of food, more food than you can ever imagine with colors and pictures of what was inside of it. It was insane. And once I saw Superman, I go, yeah, I come from the promised land, but there's something going on here. here. This is the place. So the notion of being able to appreciate this country, and you've said this to me before, but it's worth repeating. So much of it is made easier if you come from a place where the roads are dirt. Your perspective. Yeah. Your perspective. If, you know, if you're born in

America over a few generations, I think of it as everybody's got a mirror. And perspective means the closer you are to the mirror, the less you actually see of your face. Eventually, all you see are your two eyes. Pull back a little bit more, you can see your nose. Perspective is if you've been poor and had that empty belly feeling and people are trying to kill you or hate you, the perspective is very clear. Because you've got a, this is what the rest of the world is, this country, no matter what. If you're black, white,

you know, no matter what, the rest of the world hates each other, there's still racism and hatred in this country, but there's a, I didn't know it at the time, the Constitution and Bill of Rights and all that. Despite man's tendency for evil, this wonderful idea of the Constitution

and the amendments and so on keep pulling us back to a more civilized area. I've always been, you know, you had Nixon, everything. Then you had Barack Obama. Barack Obama went out there. Now we have Mr. Trump, you know, Mr. Trump. You can say it, yeah.

Who I knew before he became a political animal. I bet. And he's neither a Democrat. His closest friends were Bill and Hillary they came to his wedding. So don't kid yourself about that. Well, I've heard you say this before. In full disclosure, I said it myself. We had a movie out last July,

and I made a point of saying it was called something to stand for. And It was unapologetically patriotic, but I made a point of saying, look, this is not, I didn't write it from my friends on the right or the left. I wrote it for Americans. Yeah. And so it seems an increasingly skinnier cohort these days to find people who first and foremost identify as the A word, right? Instead of the R word or the D word, but that seems to be a thing that might be worth getting back to. If you study history, whatever the political divide is in this country, it's nothing.

Go back to when Lincoln became the president, and you will see the hatred of brother against brother that resulted in the civil war. Now, that was a situation at the border, for real. That was a real border problem. But you're right. But if you go back, there are all kinds of shenanigans. if you study the founding fathers, the blackmail and the stuff that went on between them, there were a lot of problems.

Oh, and the media. I mean, the muckraking in the press. And that's an old word. Yeah. That's right. And they used to do that before there were rules about slander and all this stuff. No, we're doing great.

Trust me. The unemployment's going down. You may not agree with the politics of something. where else you're going to go? If there's a strike in France, you cannot fire anybody. If there's a strike in France, they will stop traffic in Paris and burn tires and shut the city down.

Now, there's no place like, with the scars and the problems, the problem with America is not the Constitution or the Bill of Rights on it. The problem is people. There are some people that tend to veer, towards darkness and some not. That's always going to be part of it. And we have to keep fighting to, despite the fact, look, take a look at currency, a quarter, a 25 cent piece.

It is widely recognized, or a dollar is widely recognized around the world. But those two sides have nothing to do with each other. They don't look alike. If you try to put one image next to the other, they don't look alike at all. But they both lay claim to, in In other words, the person you completely disagree with on politics, economy, and everything, it's their America too. And that's the beauty of a coin. It has two sides. Sure.

There's an obverse and a reverse. And how boring would it be? I'm going to flip a coin. And their heads on both sides? Well, no, nobody would ever flip the coin. I want to go back to Superman for a minute, because as you were telling me about that. By the way, created by Jews. all superheroes

all of them Superman Batman fantastic force that were created by Jews the Superman mythos mythology is the Moses mythology created by two Jews from Cleveland as it happened

they mention their Ubermansk the idea being that your home planet Krypton and they have Hebrew names Jorrell Kallel Ella

Those are Hebrew names. Yeah. They're, of course, they're foreigners. And so the planet is in danger, so they have to escape, just like the pogroms of Europe and the Jews were always running because there was danger in the whole planet. So they sent the child in a manger. You can see him leaning back like a biblical thing.

Why would you go through space covered in a little blanket and everything? Just like Moses going down the thing. And so when Kallel has given name is, Kryptonian lands in earth, what happens? Two Gentiles' mother and father adopt him. Dress British? Think Yiddish. That's exactly what happened with Moses. So the story goes.

And by the way, historians are beginning to feel more and more like happen. Are we talking about Moses, Bullrushes, Aaron, that whole... And his stuttering brother. Let my people go. That wasn't Moses. That was his brother because Moses spoke. with a stutter and a lisp. Left my people go.

I was Aaron who said all those things. It doesn't have the same snap to it. But that's what happened. Moses goes down the river and he gets a foster mother. Yeah, it's dress British, think Yiddish. Well, what I'm thinking is that there you are, you know, eight and a half years old. You see this Superman and he's in costume. But he has a secret idea.

Identity. Yes. Just like Jews. We change our names. You think I'm Greek? Sure, it's fine with me. Think I'm Italian from the... Of course I am.

It's fine. I have no problem with any of that. Gene Simmons, that's not my given name. It's Chaim. Yeah, but that doesn't work. Chaim, Chaim. Yeah, yeah, it's hard to chant. Yeah.

So you have to recognize the shortcomings, financially speaking, because everybody... Was it Gene Simmons the music guy, or Gene Simmons the famous actress? It just came. There was no stream of conscience. Wow. Yeah.

Fascinating. But what I'm getting at, man, is that you've got this giant impact of the man of steel who changed his name, who flies through the piece of furniture, right? And he's in a costume. And then just a few years later, your name is changed. You're in a costume. You're elevating on stage. Like, are you just channeling your voice? version of Superman this whole time?

I didn't think of it initially, but clearly I didn't look or sound or walk like... Clark Kent. No, no, like, well, when I saw the Beatles, that changed my life. Because all of a sudden you saw people that looked different, and I did. Not that I was black or Hispanic or anything, but I didn't look like I came from Sweden as an example. But you saw these little guys, you know, sort of feminine by American standing. because Americans are bigger people. They had better food.

Classic English breakfast is beans on toast. I'm not making it up. Heinz beans on toast. Because in World War II, they couldn't afford meat. Let's see. You learn all kinds of things with Mr. Simmons. Duh-Dood-Dood-Dood-Dum. Well, are you sick of it yet?

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slash mic. That's netsuite.com. That just triggered something too. When you talk about the Beatles as slight almost effeminate. There was a there was a rock and roll band in New York around the same time as you guys showed up and they were doing the sort of the glam rock. New York Dolls. The Dolls. Now those

guys were petite. Yeah. You guys looked like a bunch of linebackers but you were doing the same kind of... It was called the glitter movement and it was a special time in New York because at night people

would go to work in offices and at night and at night they'd all dress up and go to hundreds of bars. There were all kinds of bands. It was the time, the beginning of David Bowie and Lou Reed and that kind of thing. And it kind of androgyny, right? Yeah, it was okay to wear girls clothes even though you were straight. And, you know, it was a very exciting period. So we couldn't do the New York doll thing.

Right now, I'm 6'2 and about 250 pounds. I can't do it. that thing. No. Not, you know, I mean, I'm okay with it, but a football player and a tutu is not very convincing. No one wants to see that. My apologies to all you football players who like dressing up in tutus. I support you. It's a big country. Go with God. Go with God. Let your freak flag fly. Yeah. But we didn't think we were convincing at it. So you had to create your own persona, not costumes. And what I mean by persona is

if I would have worn red lipstick and put a star on my eye, I wouldn't be convincing because that's not sort of it's not who I am. I don't, whereas Paul, it's much more flamboyant that way and had better hair

and fluffy and all that stuff and moved that way on state. Not me, I'm like, move more like Godzilla. look. And so you have to be clear, and both Ace and Peter, the original guys, veered towards what they felt comfortable with. I mean, in Halloween, if you go to one of these places that have all kinds of costumes, you might tend to pick out a costume. You'll gravitate. You'll gravitate towards something you feel comfortable with.

And you were the demon. We didn't think of it that way. When I put it on, I, I thought about Lon Cheney Senior, who I was always a big fan of born Craton Tull, senior, whose parents were deaf mutes. So we had to learn how to communicate perfect for silent films. He invented and created the makeup man, not putting on makeup, but, you know, putting in plastic tubing in his nose for Phantom of the Opera. Like Phantom of the Opera. He was like that whole unmasking thing.

Yes. Mary Philbin, who was the, oh, I'll tell you more than you. Todd Browning was the director and all that. So I remember that scene where that happened. There were shadows, and I remember the shadows on the face scared the bejesus out of me. So I did a version of the shadows on my face. And I must have seen an image of London after midnight, a Lon Cheney film that has yet to be found. A print of it is lost.

But there was a photo of it where Cheney's got a top hat. And he's got like bat wings as a kind of a night vampire before Dracula came out. And in the back of my mind, I went, yeah, bat, yeah, that. You know, you take bits and pieces of your DNA, your stuff that you grow up with, and you put it together. And what you get, you know, people think is original, but it's not. They're bits and pieces of stuff. this was um i mean for the younger cohort listening out there it it really is difficult to describe

just how how bananas it was and like there was no the only thing i can think of is the new york dolls that were kind of out there but but they failed you didn't oh within within a year and a half of forming before the internet before voice-making before voice-making you still had to go to a phone booth on the street to put in a dime and then a quarter, but first a dime in those days to make a phone call. And at a house you had a rotary call. There were no buttons. It was beep, beep, beep.

Digital was not. In fact, when we first started, it was, you know, like Plymouth, 4,000 or 5,000. It was P-L, it were letters, the first two letters. And people say, what are you talking about? out. Greenhouse, four or five thousand, and that was a phone call.

Then it became 212 when more and more people. Before then, it was just the five numbers. P.O. Six numbers. Anyway, one of those

before the area codes. And so, within a year and a half, we're headlining Anaheim Stadium in L.A. with bands that had been around 15, 20 years

before us, opening the show. And we came out January, February of 74, within a few years, where the Gallup pole, biggest man in the world, three years in a row, 77, 78, 79. The second most popular man was the Beatles, and then they were displaced by the Beegees and Led Zeppelin. And before anybody did this,

we had questionnaires and fun stuff. in our albums. Where are you from? What do you do? And you could order T-shirts, belt buckles, all that by putting these little envelopes, colorful things. You check off what you wanted. You put in either $5 or $10 or $5, $10, all in fives. And you look at clothes and you mail it. And before there were bad people at post offices who opened your mail, we got millions of bucks through the mail

of people wanting it. And we had four. four warehouses in LA that work 24 hours a day mailing t-shirts and everything to fans around the world. I've always wanted to ask you because I've seen the reality show and you know I've obviously was a fan over the years but but this there's always a line between art and commerce and uh I don't think there is no no I mean the whole starving artist trope the famous painters who never got paid and never cared? Well, you don't know if they never cared. I've never heard of anybody who wins the lottery and is sad. True, but I know a lot of people, whether they mean it or not, who will talk about the filthy lucra and who can't quite square the business of success. Yeah, but that's one of the

big lies of humanity. Money is the root of all evil. It's untrue. That's a lie. Lack of money is the root of all evil. If you don't have any money, you might consider holding up a 7-Eleven for $14.95. Or perhaps the love of money is the root of all evil. It is not. Okay, so money's not the root, not the love of money. And I can prove it to you. If my only motivation in life is making money, and if I never give a penny to a poor person or a charity or anything, I'm still improving life on earth. And I'll tell you why. I want my yachts. I want my mansions and all that stuff. I create jobs. My money seeds the workforce and enables poor people to feed their families and do that, even if I'm an asshole and never give to charity. A poor person never gave me a job. Speaking of which, is this like just an artifact that I dream it up or did you release an album?

called asshole. Of course. My album was called asshole. God, that's one of the greatest words in the in the lexicon. I mean, have you ever really like broken it down like to think about what that is? It's supposed to be an insult and all that I don't have a problem with it. I don't have a problem with anybody calling me anything. I really don't. I know that I do good. I know that my mom's okay with me and that's all the validation I need I remember walking into Wait wait wait why did you call

Why was the album called asshole There was a song on it called asshole It goes You're an asshole You're an asshole, maybe I'm an asshole too Is the punchline of the chorus And I thought Yeah

And I was going to tell you the story of why I wanted to call it asshole. When I walked into Interscope Records, I was co-managing a band with Paul called Crown of Thorns. I came up with that name and created a band. So we got the Medial. And Jimmy Iovine walks in and says, I want you to listen to a thing. It's by a new artist I just signed whose name is Tupac. And I'm saying, is he African or something? No, no, he's like from L.A. or New York.

Oh, great. and it's just a black cover, and it says, for my N-word. And I thought it was a joke. I thought he was saying, oh, what are you going to call the album? He goes, no, no, it's going to be called that. I'm saying, you're using the N-word? He goes, yeah. And I'm going, why are you doing that?

He says, well, because he's comfortable with that. So the most vile thing you could call an African-American is the N-word. They take possession of it and use it themselves. So what's one of the worst things you can say I am? Asshole. Great. Let's call the album, asshole. How to tell?

I didn't do great. But it was time when the entire record industry was changing. But I'll tell you what happened with the album. Okay. Bob Dylan and I wrote a song there. He came over and we wrote a few songs. Frank Zappa, last song he wrote, co-wrote with me. Hell of a guitar player, by the way.

unlike anybody out there. I've never heard the like of it. Nobody ever. Garage tapes. Yeah. Amazing. But by the way, Zappa was a failure. Did not succeed.

Never had gold records and platinum records. Why? The music didn't connect with people. I thought you were going to say, asshole. It's eclectic. I tossed it right to you. All you had to do was say, asshole.

He was actually a good, very bright. Oh, his testimony in Congress, I would really suggest people. go watch that I mean he took a principled stand sure at a difficult time and a very not a popular time not a popular time the PMRC and censorship and all that yep that was the tipper Gore days right yeah hmm where were you when all that was happening oh I was right in front of the TV set by the way uh mr. gore's wife is named tipper if that's not a stripper name I don't know what is do not cast who among you is without

sin kind of a thing. Your wife's name's tipper? Yeah. I'm sure by the way she's a loving mother and faithful. I'm sure she is. It's like, you might be a redneck if you might be a stripper if. I didn't say that. I'm not just, I don't know. Yeah, good luck.

Hey, laissez-faire. Live and let live. Whatever you want to do, as long as you don't affect anybody else. But we survive that. We survived McCarthyism. We survived the blacklist. We survived all of it and what doesn't kill you we're not going to have another blacklist nope people are going to try to do that there's always somebody who's going to push back on it what uh you must have a few shows of material on this we have literally uh i mean none of this is usable obviously

we have so much good stuff it's embarrassing you got somewhere to be when do you have to go trying to make a buck you want me to lend you a few you you i can spot you A lender or borrower be. Do you believe that? No, I borrow all the time. Oh, sure. Do you? That is great because you can write it off.

Oh, no, no. You've got to have assets because they want assets against it. But debt is good. You can, depending on how much. Especially, depending on where the Fed is. So I borrowed tens of millions when I was being paying 1.1 interest. 1.1% I'd play that game

all day because do I think I can make more than 1.1% on the money I borrow every day. Are you kidding? Even if I put it into a savings account, they'd pay me more.

That's pre-tax because I can write off my 1.1%. So you're at this point, you just mentioned it in passing, but you're a crypto guy? Oh, yeah. You're in the space? I bought millions

when, Bitcoin was about 10,900. But I had an advantage because Tyler Winklevoss, one of the two brothers, you know, who started that, they didn't start it. They promoted it very, very early. Satoshi, that guy, nobody seems to know who he is. Who is that guy? So I bought millions at 10,900.

Well, we're in the 90s now. It was 105,000. and I firmly believe, my opinion, do your own research, oh, within 12 months, it'll be at 150 to 200,000. Because there are very few hedges against inflation. Every day, the dollar that you have buys you less and less. And we're printing money left and right. We're sending it to Ukraine, which I support.

You do this. You want more money? They just print more because it's no longer based on gold. What's your hedge against inflation? What do you do? Put your cash in a mattress. So there's real estate, but, you know, real estate goes up and down as well. Look what happened to the Palisades and California and all that. It's why it took you an hour and 40 to get here.

It's still chaos out there. Pacific Coast highways closed to get to here. Otherwise, I would have been here in 40 minutes. So if you've got money to spare, and you are blessed if that happens, What are you going to do with your money? Don't put it into a savings account. Because the bank will give you two, three, four percent. You've got to pay tax on that.

And they'll loan it out for more than that. They're making money on your money. Don't put it into a savings account. Mutual funds are good. Sure. I get it. But you said something earlier, and you kind of glossed over it. I just want to make sure I understand that the business of making a bunch of money

is good for the economy, irrespective of whether you give any of it. Yeah, you could be an asshole, never give a penny, and you're still creating jobs. But just so people understand. Oh. Tell me, I mean, I don't want you to pat yourself on the back too hard, but your genuine attitudes toward philanthropy. What are you doing with all this excess, uh, Geltafroika? Well, people are still raving, raving, I tell you, about my,

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Well, I don't tug on people's shirt sleeves or anything, but And you can go online and find out. Mendingkids.org provides children who can't afford, you know, because they're poor, operations that they sorely need. So I contribute millions. I've got 1,400 kids in Zanzibar and Zimbabwe. And you can look it up. Oh.

And they... We'll find it. Gene Simmons. Mendingkids.org. Mending, well, there you go. Yeah, it's, it breaks your heart. But can you go to Gene Simmons supports children in Africa? 1,400s.

1,400 kids. Yeah. The idea is very simple. We'll give you as much food as you can digest and do, and you can take some food home, but you can't have a morsel, nothing, unless you come to school. If you come to school,

you get food. And in Africa, in the worst areas, where there's no infrastructure and everything, there you go, Zambia. Hey, I loves you. You should go to the images, go on top. Yeah. There you go. Look at you without sunglasses.

What happened there? Well, I wear it most of the time because the sun never sets on planet cool. So, There's your title. These children, you're not taught that education is the way out of poverty. It's the only chance you've got, really. Because where there's no infrastructure, you can't speak any other language,

you speak an African dialect, you have no job skills, you're going to starve. So I try to help, including there was a young child who had aspirations. She must have been 14 of wanting to go to university. to become a doctor because she wanted to come back to her village and treat the females to teach them not to have sex with these males who didn't care because AIDS is, the numbers are off the charts. These guys would just have sex and then run off. So you have single mothers with children and they have AIDS.

I saw a 14-year-old mother carrying her child on her back and they both were AIDS sufferers. Yeah. So she wanted to go to university and get a degree and come back and be a teacher and a healer. I said, all you have to do is do well in high school and all that.

I'll pay for your entire... I'll fly you to whichever university you want to go to, as long as you come back. Also, I stopped giving out Christmas gifts for anybody, everybody. I used to give out hundreds and hundreds ties people don't wear and all that stuff

and so in people's names I contribute to kefir.org or heifer.org and what they are are two micro banks connected to large banks that loan money to single mothers in Africa and other places

loan the money interest free so that these single mothers can dig a hole in the ground and get a well or buy a cow that changes the entire economy. You can have milk and, you know, they literally bleed the cow and drink the milk. And it's actually a source of protein and all this kind of stuff in Africa. We can't imagine it, but that's what they do.

Wait, but they drink the milk or they drink the blood? With both. Yeah. Well, I think it's, I mean. But once they make enough money, they have to give them money back, no interest. and then the money gets loaned out again. That's my point. You're always going to look at the,

you're going to look at consequences because that's who you are and you're going to look at it through a lens of a kind of commerce because commerce is consequential as well. So your philanthropy comes with certain conditions. And I only make the point because on a much smaller level,

my foundation will give away. a few million bucks this week and work ethic scholarships. And, you know, I get a lot of pushback on it because I don't want to help people who don't share my fundamental view of the world. And I'm not sure if that makes me what that makes me, but I get, because I get to choose, that's what I want to do and that's what I want to ask you as we start to land the plane here, like maybe about work ethic. Yeah.

And what that really, what's it mean to you? What's it meant to you? Well, to have a job. You know, I've heard people marching, you know, I have a right to have a job. No, bitch, you don't. If you have a job, it's a blessing. You don't have a right to have, you don't have a right to have health care. You don't have the right to have a job.

You have the right to have a big fat mouth and freedom of press. There's nothing in the Constitution or anything. It says you have the right to have a job and health care. No. you have to earn money. And the fact that there are, I know the health care people are just going to go nuts. Well, in Norway they have health.

I know. There are 12 people that live there. We have 330 million. We're already $36 trillion in debt. Big number. Not counting the 10, 20 or 25 million illegal immigrants in America that are either a person, positive or a drain on the economy.

It's just everything. It's like dominoes. Everything affects everything else. And you can always hold up a crying child. I know I was one of them. And make any point you like and you're an asshole if you don't agree with my point of view. See, there's a baby crying. You can make any point you want. So I don't believe, I don't suffer fools lightly.

If you don't see, there are people. a lot of them who are looking for jobs. And I'm much more interested in people who are looking to work. The love of labor itself is what it is. And most people, you have to understand this, most people on the face of the planet, if they're blessed to have a job, have a job, they hate. The only reason they're working at the job

is it gives them money at the end of the week, which supports their family. and so they bring the money back and their children have what to eat. This idea that I have to be inspired that's such bullshit. That's the Beverly Hills Blues. You know how that goes?

My limo is late. I got the Beverly Hills Blues. It's all bullshit. I can't do something if I don't believe in it. No, no. The roads you travel on and the buildings you live in, they're built, worked on by people who hate their jobs, but bless the money that they get at the end of the week so they can survive.

How do you think about work ethic in your industry? Like you mentioned Bob Dylan. Oh, he's out there all the time. Yeah. Yeah. What about you? Sorry, I was like, I sneezed. What, I mean, I like, I know I got to let you go soon, but I just have to ask what's, what's right and wrong?

wrong with music today. Well, fame is fleeting. Anybody will tell you that. You can mention big acts that had number one records and the public is fickle. Everybody Wang Chung tonight. That was the number one

record. Right. Right. So fame is fleeting and never put all your eggs in one basket. If you go to Las Vegas and you play what is it when you put the

I never gamble. Yeah, roulette. What are you going to do, put all the money on one thing or spread the risk? Diversify your portfolio. That's it. Walshry, yeah.

Don't put your eggs in one basket. You could win big, but you can get wiped out. I don't know about you, but I don't like losing at all. I prefer to win a little than lose anything. I think that's smart,

but I think the genius part of your career is that you still, surprise people. I saw you in a movie. Chuck, can you find it? It was Reagan. Oh, yeah. It's in Reagan. You're, you're singing. Yeah. In Reagan. What was the song? Stormy weather. Da da, da, da, there's a sun up in the sky. Stormy weather. Now, how the heck does that happen? Who approaches you? The producer called me and he said, are you a fan of Reagan? I said, yes. Yes. I said, yes. He was one of the better presidents in America. And I'm really happy to have been asked by the stylistics.

Remember the stylistics? Oh, sure. Tones of hits. I'm on the new record. I sing lead. Yes, I do. You bet you that's coming out. I think it just came out.

And Shania Twain's on it. Ronnie Wood. Billy Gibbons. Lots of cool stuff. That's terrific, man. Yeah. I'm the luckiest bastard who ever walked upright. Well, look, you worked hard.

You diversified. you took chances when it made sense to take them. You've been generous with your time. You're still curious. And then you die. And then you die. And then you die. That's it.

But they're going to have to drag me kicking and screaming. Because unless and if you really enjoy life, end it. Then get out of the way. There are so many other people, you know, will fight like hell to stay alive. You either appreciate it or not. I know there's mental illness and all.

Okay, I get it. I never understood I was unkind without really meaning to be in the early years. I remember watching TV shows and movies where there's a guy on top of a tall building threatening to jump. Before I understood anything, I'm going, shut the fuck up, just jump. What are you waiting for in audience? Yeah. Who are you?

If you want to die, then jump. And I had to be educated. No, you don't understand. He's got a mental problem. But I still don't understand, by the way, if you are suicidal, why it has to be a public event. There is a bit of the narcissistic in that. I'm not qualified.

I don't understand it because I'm suspiciously a happy-go-lucky guy every day. Nothing bothers me my health, never had an operation that hardly ever get sick,

got a little wheezy kind of thing but I don't stay in bed. Never smoked, never drank? No drugs? The other thing, kids,

is if you don't smoke or drink or get high, then you can get to be 75 and hold your hand in front of your face and it won't do that. Yes.

See what happens? But this is my shooting hand. Shooting hand? Remember from Blazing Saddles? The Wake-O-Kid. Yeah. That was very good. Thank you.

Helmed, written, and directed by... They're everywhere. It is so suspicious that all of American pop culture except glorious and amazing, the music that we listen to, pop culture, is black music. all the variations thereof, except parts of country music, which came from Irish jigs and so on and so forth.

But predominantly jazz, blues, rock, it's black music. Right. Uniquely American. Uniquely American by the least qualified people, the least educated former slaves, who could barely play their instruments and just came up with this amazing thing. Now, everything else in pop culture is Jews.

all the movie studios Now you're whispering Every single one An hour in and you're whispering Jews because they came from Judea Or the Hebrews because they came from Hebron All of the movie studios Warner Brothers Paramount Universal

Were all created by Jews Who lived within a 500 square mile Area in Europe Pol and Russia and all that stuff Didn't know each other Came to America Settled in New York One made Fox fur coats

Fox which became 20th century fox. All he did was by Fox Tales and everything from Canada and took pre-existing coats and put one in one together and Fox coats. One in one equals three.

That's how he made his money. The guys had all Nickelodeons and everything in New York. And they all came and settled within a 15 square mile area. Didn't know each other. Mayor, all these guys,

Goldwyn, who was originally The goldfish was his original name. He stole his last name, Wynn, from the Selwynn Brothers when they had a deal together. And they created MGM, Metro Goldwyn-Mayer and Paramount Universal, all created by Jews. The beauty of the Jewish Hollywood system, Hollywood is Jewish. Created by them is they didn't make Jewish movies. They were clear. there's only 14 million Jews on the entire planet today.

They understood and respected the idea, let's make King of Kings, let's make Christian movies and stuff, and don't put lead characters with names like Ira. Hey, Moisha, what are you going to do? Nope. This is going to be for the people who actually buy the tickets. Well, since you brought it up,

is that what your music was all about? Was it for the, were you writing to satisfy, which you believe the audience wanted? Absolutely. What did you want, though? Well, I was also fascinated by, I was an anglophile. I loved what the English did with American black music. The Beatles covered Motown.

They covered, you know, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry and all that. It's black music. But they did it their way. But I liked what the English did with American pop music and all that stuff, and including the heavy stuff. Led Zeppelin, Jimmy, who became a friend, Jimmy Page, had to pay off some of the blues guys because he would literally, he admitted,

ripped off the, you know, all those licks. Yeah. Not that one in particular, but something very close. But the other thing is that in the music industry, the record labels were Jewish. Sun Records, Sam, Phillips, they were Jews. They loved black music. You ain't

nothing but a hound dog. Written by two Jews from New York, Lieber Stoller. They hated Jewish music, Broadway. They loved black music. So these two Jews from New York, Lieber and Stoller are sitting around

having a deli salad, pastrami, give me a little more pickle and everything. You ain't nothing but a hound dog. Crying all the time? Yeah. And they that's what happens later so that's the magic that the Brill building with all these writers

Neil Sadaka was one of the writers they were writing songs for the other people and the Goyant that's not a negative it's simply me it's not like the Christian or Islamic heathen which is or infidel which looks down on it a Gentile simply says they're not Jewish

Yeah. Well, I guess in the end, it's a story of reinvention. Every single thing we've talked about. We all should be. Otherwise, we're just copies of our mothers and fathers. You know, as we're born, you get a clean slate, and you can write whatever you want on it. Well, you have filled up your slate with some pretty interesting stuff, brother. So far, so good.

Final thoughts on asshole. It's such a great insult because Funding. fundamentally, I'm a word guy. If you just look at the word, fundamentally it's a hole. You're calling somebody a hole. And a hole, by definition, is an empty space. Well, mine's always full. Except for those occasions when it's filled with crap.

By the way, scientific fact, do you know why shit, as it comes out, is tapered at the end? Oh. Well, if it weren't, the hole would go. Your actual slam shut, yes. Okay, with that, folks, it's the way Gene Simmons heard it. Thank you for slogging through traffic. I think we learned a lot, and well, heck, I'll never forget it. Heck, that's a word that hasn't been used in 40 years, but...

Jew. No. All right, I'm out. Thank you, man. It's terrific. If you're done, please subscribe. Leave some stars ideally. Five lousy little stars.

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