1092: Gene Simmons | KISS and Make-Up

1092: Gene Simmons | KISS and Make-Up

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[00:00:23] Jordan Harbinger: Coming up next on The Jordan Harbinger Show.

[00:00:00] Gene Simmons: If you have a hit single and you just sing in a microphone, they're paying more money for a ticket than they do for the album. It makes fans. Michael Jackson without all that dancing and the backwards and the stuff, not the same artist.

[00:00:23] Jordan Harbinger: Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people in turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life. And those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers and performers, even the occasional mafia, enforcer, fortune 500, CEO, Russian Chess Grand, or astronauts.

And if you're new to the show or you wanna tell your friends about the show, and I always appreciate it when you do that. I suggest our episode Starter Packs is a great place to begin. These are collections of our favorite episodes on topics like persuasion and negotiation, psychology and Geopolitics, disinformation China, North Korea, crime and Cults and more.

That'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit Jordan harbinger.com/start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started today on the show, gene Simmons lead singer of Kiss, whether you're a fan or not, kiss and Gene are legends in the rock scene and have been for decades.

I really didn't know what to expect here and during the interview. Well, frankly, he comes across a little bit standoffish sometimes though in the end. I think this interview did go in a fun direction, a little vulgar at times. That's his personality. I guess. A lot of corny sex jokes you might also expect if you were like hanging out with a pervy kind of grandpa kind of dude.

But we also dive into money fame, parenting, and even Taylor Swift. Alright, here we go with the one and only Gene Simmons.

I told my trainer that I was interviewing you. He is from Newfoundland, where your wife is from. And he told me that he had some mutual contacts growing up. And while the internet says she's from St. John's, Newfoundland, have you heard about the small town where she's apparently actually from Dildo Dildo?

I thought that was fake, but since you've heard of it, it's not Well, I,

[00:02:06] Gene Simmons: I want to tell you the actual, you wanna hear something crazy? Yeah. Let's, that's kind of crazy. Yeah, it was that, that checks the box. See what I did there? We actually went and visited there because there's a dildo post office. She hates it when I mention this.

And we ate at the dildo cafe overlooking Placencia Bay. No. Wow. Look it up on Google. Google and Smuggle. And there's Captain Dildo. It's a fascia. In other words, a two dimensional. Thing of a guy with a beard just like you'd expect. And he is holding like a blackboard and people write, it's about six feet tall.

People write sayings, stay where you're at. Then I'll come where you're too by, you know, all kinds of NFI things. I had a dildo burger. Mm-hmm. I'm I making it up? It's, yeah. What's, what's

[00:02:59] Jordan Harbinger: he roll with the name? It's, it's, I swallowed.

[00:03:00] Gene Simmons: Yeah. Yeah. And there's more Stay tuned kids. Get grandma in here. I probably know her.

So there's Placentia Bay, there's come by chance next town. Mm-hmm. And there's Spread Eagle, which is the town next to that. Really? There used to be a spread eagle coin before Newfoundland New Finland joined Canada because they refused to join. They were very rebellious and stuff. I didn't think they joined until.

Something like 1950. Before then they had their own militia, their own currency. Yes. They're like the Texas of Canada. Well, different culture. They had a displaced Irish with a touch of French. And I think, by the way, if you go there and you wanna be ingrained in it, you gotta kiss the screech. I'm not making any of No, I believe you.

[00:03:50] Jordan Harbinger: Why make it up? It's already weird. It's a dead

[00:03:51] Gene Simmons: fish. And you gotta kiss this thing and do other godly things.

[00:03:58] Crosstalk: Well

[00:03:58] Gene Simmons: that has to do with where the sun don't shine.

[00:04:00] Jordan Harbinger: It's unbrand, man. But you coming from hot yoga? What the fuck is that? Hey man, I, my producer dared me to go. Said, let's do it. It's really you're, yeah.

'cause you always do what

[00:04:10] Gene Simmons: she says. You.

[00:04:12] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. He's like, worst case, you'll get a story for the show. Is it a she? And here we are. No, no. My producer's a guy. Yeah,

[00:04:17] Crosstalk: but is he a she? Okay,

[00:04:19] Jordan Harbinger: go ahead. See, nowadays, so far, no, let's not get political yet. A Eugene uh, you're quite a Renaissance man. Fine artist with gallery shows, film production company.

Tons of products. Not just the kids stuff, but I mean, there's food, there's alcohol, multiple books. What keeps you doing more? You don't need the money. You are obviously, you're trying to stop. I really don't.

[00:04:38] Gene Simmons: I don't wanna pour cold water in your face, but anyone who says you don't need the money is a loser.

Hmm. Your ears actually hear you say those things and then you prevent your mind from literally, it's been proven over and over again that the words you say will affect you either good or bad. I didn't say you didn't want the money. I said you didn't need the money. No, no. Everybody needs the money. And I'll explain to you what, yeah, Warren B the richest guys in the world, and they are all guys who earned it anyway.

Get up every day and they go to work to do one thing, make more money. You are the gerbil on the merry-go-round, but you're alive. You're supposed to move or you're dead if you don't have a reason. Look, we can't give birth despite what some people may think. That's called being on crack. So we can't give birth.

We don't have menstrual cycle. What else do we do? Except work.

[00:05:35] Crosstalk: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:35] Gene Simmons: The only, oh, she's shaking her head. See, that shouldn't talk about that. No. We do have menstrual cycles. No, we don't. So the only thing we can do is, you know, the, the cart, the uh, horse that pulls the cart. And if you're not pulling the cart, what's your excuse for living?

What are you supposed to do? Yeah.

[00:05:54] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I think for me, I've actually, if we're talking personal questions, I have to stop myself from just working nonstop and making money. It's not easy because it's actually easier to work than not to work.

[00:06:04] Gene Simmons: What easy doing Nothing is easy. But you also don't make money.

It's harder. It's harder for me to do nothing. Is there such a thing in your estimation for your life of having enough money where you don't need more? Not really. And that's the problem. Why is that a problem?

[00:06:20] Jordan Harbinger: Well, I like to spend time with my kids too, and I think they enjoy that. Well, you're

[00:06:23] Gene Simmons: mixing apples with pure what has nothing to do with it.

Yeah. The more you work, the less time

[00:06:28] Crosstalk: you get with your kids.

[00:06:29] Gene Simmons: Yeah. But you're too young to give a fuck. I when they get older,

[00:06:32] Crosstalk: I'm

[00:06:32] Gene Simmons: not sure. Sure. You know, I've, we, we have two kids. I know that. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:06:35] Crosstalk: I'm curious why you think that way

[00:06:37] Gene Simmons: the first five years or so was a blank. Hey, remember that time when Santa Claus got Nope.

Yeah. Yeah. The Church of Disney is not for that. And again, in the, in the old days, dad, almost without exception, would get up at the crack of dawn and go out and work. There's no such thing as I gotta spend more time with the children. No. Your job is to go out there and provide for the family. Talking about the soon to be trillionaire, believe it or not, Elon Musk, he will be the first trillionaire, legally, not Putin or anybody else.

Yeah. Right. And he's got 12 kids and who knows how many terrible relationships with a few of them too.

[00:07:16] Clip: Well.

[00:07:17] Gene Simmons: Unfortunately, so is life. I'm not here to judge or anything. Just make the observation that you can be a nice person or a horrible person. So let's say you're an asshole, multi-billionaire who never gave a dime to charity, but that person who built palaces for himself and bought schooner and other useless objects for the rest of us still had to hire people.

'cause he's not gonna build his own boat or mansion. He hired people and be, even though he is an asshole, he gave them jobs, which enabled them to feed their families and put a roof over their head. Even the asshole that never contributed to charity is more important than you would ever imagine. They're job creators and all that, so job creator.

But is that the highest? Wait, it sounded like I was finished, but I

[00:08:08] Jordan Harbinger: wasn't. Is that the highest, uh, thing we can aspire to? What? The job creator. Would you rather have a, a good relat relationship with your kids? No. No. Okay. That's the, that's the fundamental

[00:08:17] Gene Simmons: difference. Well, you're either, you live in the planet with other people and capitalism doesn't work if other people aren't working alongside.

You know, it's, if money stands, if I make all the money in the world and I put it in the box and put it under the bed, nothing happens. In fact, inflation kicks in by less and less for the amount of money you have. It is only like running water. The fact that it runs, I. Keeps it fresh. Capitalism is based on the idea of, let's say I don't like you and I'm not gonna lend you a dime and, and all that stuff.

You're still providing a service and you're charging for that. Whatever it is that you do. No. If you are gonna be an asshole, it's still better to be a rich, miserable asshole. And not to be flippant. 'cause I'm not. I really do. I give to charity and philanthropy. Last year was about two and a half million, but a poor person never gave me a job.

That's kind of a stunning, horrible thing to say. It is. Yeah. But I'm, I follow. But it's the rich people that cause economies to flourish that 1%. They create jobs, they build skyscrapers. The city doesn't have enough money. They do bonds. They work in banks. They, and they loan money to people who don't have enough money.

What if you could get richer without spending all your

[00:09:36] Crosstalk: time working? What if you could get rich? Say it again. What if you could get richer without spending all your time working? A lot of those guys commit suicide. Is that what you think you would do if you

[00:09:45] Gene Simmons: weren't working all the time? Well, if you win the lottery, you'll

[00:09:48] Crosstalk: see

[00:09:49] Gene Simmons: statistically that's, these people

[00:09:51] Crosstalk: don't turn out well, they didn't work for it, but you got capital gains, you got money.

You could've like got me. Well, you're mixing

[00:09:55] Gene Simmons: other people with me either. We're talking about

[00:09:58] Crosstalk: me,

[00:09:58] Gene Simmons: which I'm talking about

[00:09:58] Jordan Harbinger: you. Yeah. Oh me. Yeah. You're talking about other people. I'm talking about you. This interview is about you. Well, it's the love of, this is all about you. It's

[00:10:03] Gene Simmons: the love of labor. It's the idea that, again, not having the ability or facility to give birth.

I don't have a purpose in life other than producing, making money. Even if I give all the money away or buy my mother, the hip operation she needs or your mom still her? No. Oh, okay. She lived to be 94. The idea though, applies to everybody. Without money, you can't do anything. Love is the most powerful force on the planet is a lie.

Money is the most powerful force on the planet. Maybe the only one because if you are living on a Kalahari desert and you're the that's in Africa, if you are a loving mother and you have a child in your arms and you would give your life for your child, there's a caravan going by. If you don't have money, you are fucked.

Your loving child will die in your arms, even if you're a terrible mother, but you have money, you will both survive. It's a horrible life lesson, but not if you look at money as the air that you breathe, it's neither good nor bad, or like water. You need water or you'll perish, but you can drown in water.

Fire is really important. It warms the food, kills the bacteria and all this kind of stuff, but you can lie to forest fire and if you think you've got enough money. Anybody out there listening, I'll give my personal bank information because I want you to wire me any dollar you don't need. 'cause I always want more.

You could do a lot with Gene Simmons personal banking information folks. Oh no, just gifting is good. You don't need a bank, just send it to me. It'll make me happier. I would challenge you on that, but we only have so much time. Please try. I, I'm,

[00:11:56] Crosstalk: I'm, you win the lottery, you gotta change your mindset. You're preventing yourself.

Oh, I'm

[00:12:01] Jordan Harbinger: doing pretty well. I think what I'm challenging myself with now is, is trying to figure out how to not be only focused on that, but the more I, more money you

[00:12:11] Gene Simmons: make, the more flexibility you have with free time. I have so much. The less money you have,

[00:12:17] Jordan Harbinger: the less of a choice you have. I think the problem is right now, I could have, I have the ultimate flexibility, but I choose to still work with that time.

That's a little bit toxic, I think. Who's, who told you this? Yeah. I mean, I've learned it from watching

[00:12:30] Crosstalk: my own dad make that same mistake.

[00:12:32] Gene Simmons: I. Don't wanna get into that. 'cause that, I'm sure there are other elements in that relationship. I'm sure there are. You never just about that. No. I'm not getting into the muck and Meyer between you and your dad.

[00:12:44] Jordan Harbinger: Didn't ask about that. Yeah. How many different items does KISS have in terms of merch? Bands have merch. We have like 5,000 different items. Yeah, something like that. Well, over

[00:12:53] Gene Simmons: the years. Over the years, you know they, they ebb and flow because one entity might have a year window or a two year window and so on.

Nobody has an exclusive forever, but everything. You want me to do the joke, which I've done many times? Sure. We have made everything from KISS condoms. We've made KISS caskets. We'll get you coming in, we'll get you going. All right. I haven't heard that. I've said it before, but it's still funny.

[00:13:18] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, it's still funny.

It is still funny. You speak Hebrew, Spanish? Is it Turkish and Hungarian?

[00:13:23] Gene Simmons: No Span? No. When I was a kid that was in the book, living with my mother in Israel because my father ran out on us. Or went off on his own. Take your pick. When I was about seven and my poor mother had to go out and work six days a week.

And do what? In some racial ethnic groups, 70 to 75% of all households, married or single are these brave, hardworking, single mothers. 'cause guys are assholes. They, some guys are, that's for sure. Predominantly they leave, they just, one day they get up and they leave and they abandon the kids and the mother and she's supposed to raise the child, make sure it's gets the school on time, all that stuff.

Watch over 'em and go out and make money. The real superheroes of the planet are women. Yeah, I can get behind that. That's just work. Women give life. Can

[00:14:20] Crosstalk: you make that claim? I don't, no, I can't make that claim. I mean, as I was in seventh grade biology, I only played a small part. Okay. Don't get into that.

'cause

[00:14:26] Jordan Harbinger: somebody will step up and say, no, I'm a three-headed zebra. Right. Do you think growing up with economic insecurity fueled you to do all the things you're doing now? We were always

[00:14:37] Gene Simmons: relatively speaking dirt poor, but I never felt poor nor ever thought about poor. Listen to the language. How did you do on the test?

Poorly. How is that? That's poor. How is that wine? Well, that's rich. The language tells you the value of the words. Think of it this way. We have a double standard. If you work hard and dig ditches, you know that Sunset Boulevard, we drove down, somebody had to pave that. Mm-hmm. Pour the asphalt and all the rest of that stuff.

They do that every day. Vacation time if they can get it. But they get up every day and work at a job. They don't like, in some cases hate in summer, in snow and everything else, and they hate it just for the money so that they can feed their family and survive. That's the salt of the earth. But if you're an actor or a painter or a rock star or you know, whatever you are and you make a lot of money, you're a disparaged.

And that's a nice way of saying, ah, that guy's an as well. There's no credibility there. I guess a lot of people do call me an asshole. It's usually for other

[00:15:44] Crosstalk: reasons. No comment. Well, I called my solo record one of them

[00:15:48] Jordan Harbinger: asshole. Mm-hmm. Just naming the self moniker, self-administered moniker is, was that the idea behind that?

We all have one. Do you consider yourself Israeli and American? Or how does, how does that sort of work your brain? It's, it's relative

[00:16:01] Gene Simmons: depending on who's looking at you. I see. So when, as opposed to if aliens land on the planet, they won't understand the differences. If you're in America, whatever racial group, and you come from the south.

Y'all doing well, you're doing over there. You kind of go snicker, snicker. Mm-hmm. Listen to how they talk. Where they going? They're from the south. I'm from the ah, those northern bastards. Then there's east Coast versus West Coast. And then you look at middle America, well, nothing happens there, but the East coast and they look at you and all, everybody's got differences.

Then there's old age young kids, you're in amoeba, you don't know anything. Then there's black, white, Hispanic, all the differences. Even Cain and Abel didn't get along very well. So your definition of yourself is based on to whom? So if I was quote African American and I lived in Harlem, I'd never think about being black.

'cause almost all my friends and almost everybody around me is black, and I don't want to talk for other white people. But there are varying degrees of who your mother was, who your grandmother was, and what you can be mixed or not mixed or all that stuff. At the end of the day, you try to. Go through the stop signs and the different lanes of life, and then you die.

So there's not much going on except trying to figure out how to be comfortable in your skin, whether anybody else gets it or not. So I've always been delusional about myself. Yeah, yeah. You

[00:17:31] Crosstalk: mentioned that in the book. Tell me what that means. I mean, I know what it means, but

[00:17:35] Jordan Harbinger: tell me, tell us what

[00:17:35] Crosstalk: it

[00:17:35] Gene Simmons: means.

Well, how about this? I know Mike Tyson a little bit. We've spent time over the years and to hear Mike talk, if you just turn off the visuals and the history, you would never imagine that that voice was the most dangerous person on two legs. That's true. That ever stepped into the ring. That's true mindset and will dominates.

In fact, if you're about to die in the hospital, doctors try to talk you. There's such a thing as will to survive, will to live, and you can be self-destruct in your mind and release toxins. You hurry up the clock, will you die? What do they die from? A broken heart. What the fuck does that mean? Yeah, I don't know.

No, actually your body releases negative toxins which kill you from the inside. So Tyson, well, he was always too short to be a heavyweight. He didn't have a long reach 'cause he was short. He never had the girth or the strength early on. He used to get picked on. I don't want to go into how he survived.

He'll tell you that himself and he doesn't have the lowest voice. And there was an impediment that the, you know, all that K and all that. He decided at whatever point in his life that he is gonna be the champion of champions of all time. And the rest is just hard work. I mean, that's the hardest part. But without lighting the fire, the spark, you're never gonna get the forest fire.

So it's mindset. Mindset is everything. You're about to walk a tight rope. You know what that is, right? Yeah, I do. Yep.

[00:19:12] Clip: Well.

[00:19:13] Gene Simmons: I don't know if it's 50%, but there's a chance you're gonna fall off. Yeah. Now you can think about it in two ways. One is thinking to yourself, well, there's a tight rope and there's nothing holding.

There's no net. You know, there's a pretty decent chance I'm gonna fall and I don't know if I'll get to the other side and all that stuff. Or you can do what champions do. Delusively. There's no way. I'm not gonna get double negative, which means absolutely. I'm gonna get to the other side. What do boxers do in the dressing rooms?

Oh no. Kill that guy when I get in there. What does a coach do when he gets into the dressing room and sees all these guys with towels? Oh, nice Dick. No, that's another kind of good, what does he do? He immediately starts yelling at her, who are we gonna kill? Who are you gonna do? You know, you get, it's called mindset.

Yeah, and that's. Almost everything at the

[00:20:05] Jordan Harbinger: beginning. Have you always been kind of like cognizant of self-talk and mindset and stuff, even when you I'm an only child. Yeah. I had

[00:20:13] Gene Simmons: an advantage. Yeah. I didn't have to compete with anybody. It was just my mother and I and even if you're dealt unfair cards, you could still get up in the morning and work at jobs you hate.

Sure. I worked the night shift at Williamson. At Williamson, a legal firm in New York City going at eight 30 at night, come out 12 hours later. I could type really fast because I took typing in Dictaphone and high school. 'cause the rest of the class were all girls.

[00:20:45] Crosstalk: Oh, I see. What's up.

[00:20:47] Gene Simmons: Did I pronounce that correctly?

I think you nailed it. Wasup. Yeah. Nailed it. Despite the fact that it's a T at the end and not an S, but I still pronounce it. Yeah. That's incorrect, doesn't it?

[00:20:57] Jordan Harbinger: Ah, I don't know. I think it's the popular vernacular. I

[00:21:00] Gene Simmons: You try to vernacular That's a. Dracula, right? Yeah. You start saying What's up in a big corporate event?

See how far that gets you? I think you could get away with it. No. You think you can? I think you could get away with it. Yeah. Oh, I could get away with it, but only because of the fame and the money. Somebody who's looking for job security. Oh, yeah. Gonna work. Not,

[00:21:17] Jordan Harbinger: not recommended.

[00:21:18] Gene Simmons: Call, say

[00:21:18] Crosstalk: yo to your boss. Oh, yeah.

See how that works. I don't have one, but don't, yeah. I don't recommend that, but it's my culture. I know, but you're

[00:21:24] Jordan Harbinger: fired. Yeah. So I always heard you had surgery that got your tongue to stick out further, or is it purely genetic? No. I was gonna ask how you brought that after the doctor I was

[00:21:34] Gene Simmons: born, I guess the doctor pulled me out by the wrong appendage.

Yeah, maybe. See, that was another joke. See what I did there?

[00:21:39] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Oh, I, I follow, there's so many gross things I could, oh, don't worry. Go in the script. I don't care. I'm already getting the Terry Gross treatment, so I'm, I'm pretty. Oh, I'm happy to talk about anything.

[00:21:48] Crosstalk: Yeah.

[00:21:49] Jordan Harbinger: Can we see your tongue on camera? Is that something you're willing to do?

Should I do the joke? Oh yeah, sure. I don't know the joke. Well, I would stick my

[00:21:55] Crosstalk: tongue

[00:21:56] Jordan Harbinger: out, but

[00:21:56] Crosstalk: the floor's dirty. Yeah.

[00:21:59] Jordan Harbinger: I've only seen it in videos. I was just curious if we could get it. It's probably good for social media. Well, we can splice it in. Of course you can.

[00:22:05] Crosstalk: Yeah.

[00:22:06] Jordan Harbinger: I wonder if you can get a doctor to do that.

Probably not. I don't know how you would bring that up without getting kicked outta the office. Well,

[00:22:11] Gene Simmons: as girls will tell you, they don't like to discuss it with other guys, but they'll talk to themselves about it. It's the movement. Mine is blessed with having the ability to have a spin and dry cycle and whip up a good goddamn froth.

Mm-hmm. But by and large, the mystery of women is that no two are alike. I mean, men are as simple as A, B, C, not even. You don't even get to see there's one movement you can make with your hand done. I figured out all men with women. No soft. Sure. Fast. Too. Slow. Too fast. And also too, unlock the honeypot. The best you can hope for is to start spelling the alphabet.

A B. Oh, she likes the C. Okay. There's every girl's different.

[00:23:00] Crosstalk: Yeah. That I remember learning men in high school. That's why guys die younger than women. 'cause they want to,

[00:23:06] Jordan Harbinger: you know, I was shocked when I found out that you don't drink, don't do drugs. At least not on purpose. There was the brownie incident in the book, but that's incredible for somebody who's been in a massive,

[00:23:15] Gene Simmons: never, never smoked cigarettes.

[00:23:16] Jordan Harbinger: It's really something. You've been in a super famous rock band for decades. It's not something, it's a choice. Yeah. That's where I was going with this. It's a choice you probably have to make and justify to band mates, et cetera, every day for decades on end. It's not easy. It's not easy.

[00:23:31] Gene Simmons: Well, it's worth noting that the two original guys who did partake were in and out of the band three times and then eventually out of the band.

You can't. Be an Olympic athlete or a football player in something and be high, it doesn't work. Now, conceptually, I could almost understand the idea of using crack or whatever the hell people call it. If it makes your sch muckle bigger or if you, or if you get richer or better looking or live longer or you know, whatever those things are, none of that happens.

In fact, it costs money. And if you drink enough, your sch mele won't work. There's guaranteed, you're not gonna say anything bright to the chick you're with. She's judging you. Remember trying to figure out if you're worth her time. You may throw up on her shoes that she just bought for the date, and if she lets you get close to her, your equipment's not gonna work.

If you drink enough, oh by the way, the next day you'll have a headache and you'll be, what the hell? What's that? Yeah, it's a terrible sales pitch, you put it that way. So when I was, uh. 13. I'd be invited to sweet 16 parties because I was always taller and all that stuff. And you know, they'd have spin the bottle and all that stuff and rub two sticks together and start a fire.

See what I just did there? Kids didn't have no idea what spin the bottle is. That was a big thrill. Oh

[00:25:02] Jordan Harbinger: really? That's too bad. That's too bad. That was, that was, that was a coming of

[00:25:05] Gene Simmons: age thing. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you do it with girls. Yeah. And see, you're not allowed to laugh at that. 'cause now, uh, you're a sis.

Uh, what are you, I'm gonna get canceled. I don't know. It's fine. I don't care. I don't give a fuck either. I. And then what happened was I would wait until the end of the night when the guys were drunk and passed out and like a vulture swoop in and take any chick because they were all drunk

[00:25:31] Jordan Harbinger: and passed outta the floor.

Not the girls. Yeah, the guys. Yeah, the guys not, yeah. To be clear, yeah. This is not sexual assault. You're just an opportunist, which is different. Yeah. I mean, you planned it. You're a planner. I'll give you that. I know you're really into comics and sci-fi as a kid, loved cartoons even as an adult. I think you said something like, I would tape them on Saturday morning, even if I had celebrities visiting.

I had Dick

[00:25:53] Gene Simmons: Donner who had just started working on Superman and Christopher Reeve, who was Superman and I think, and they both came up to my place and we were talking about movies and stars and things. He, he had taken me over to Margot Kidder's house, you know, Lois Lane in LA When I was there, we were hanging out and all I remember doing was playing Mike Cartoon collection and Looney Tunes.

Donna and Christopher Reef, and I remember Christopher saying, what is this stuff? And Donna was saying, no, no, no. This is cinematic. Look at the edit of that stuff. And the subtlety of Bugs Bunny cross-dressing. Yeah. With lipstick and all. I mean, it was deep. Yeah. Almost Shakespearean. And the kids were watching it and thought that it was funny and stuff, but Wing Quek, nudge, nudge.

It was kind of grown up material.

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[00:28:53] Jordan Harbinger: If you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors, thinkers, and creators and Gene Simmons every single week, it's because of my network. That circle of people I know, like, and trust, and I'm teaching you how to build your network for free over@sixminutenetworking.com.

This course is about improving your relationship building skills. It's not cringey, it's not awkward, it's very practical. Takes a few minutes a day and many of the guests on our show already subscribe and contribute to the course. So come on and join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. You can find the course@sixminutenetworking.com.

Alright, now back to Gene Simmons. The best sort of cartoons in animation is like that, right? You ever see a Disney movie with your kids and there's jokes where you go? Oh, only adults get that. Yeah. That's like, that's good. Eyes dark, less

[00:29:35] Gene Simmons: Disney and more Fritz Freeling and Chuck Jones and Warner Brothers.

Sure. The OG kind of

[00:29:42] Jordan Harbinger: OG Wood tunes. You

[00:29:43] Crosstalk: never heard that original gang surge just means like the original, I guess. I think that's black terminology, maybe. Yeah. I think I like, uh, OJ OJ Original Jew.

[00:29:53] Jordan Harbinger: Uh, I thought you were going somewhere else with that. I can appreciate that. I can, I'm allowed to use OJ as well.

Oh. I don't think Jews care about anything, so we don't, we're

[00:30:00] Gene Simmons: not cultural appropriation people, are

[00:30:02] Jordan Harbinger: we?

[00:30:02] Gene Simmons: That's, that's a a good point. There's never, there's never a Jewish parade. We need respect. Just

[00:30:07] Jordan Harbinger: don't

[00:30:07] Gene Simmons: try to kill us. We're fine.

[00:30:08] Jordan Harbinger: I was gonna say, we don't, we don't like parades. We don't like to gather large spaces and go on the street.

No. That's like, leave us

[00:30:13] Gene Simmons: alone. Just

[00:30:14] Jordan Harbinger: let us make money and we're happy. That's not, yeah. Yeah. We're not exactly a gatherer in public without, uh, a wall around type of people doesn't,

[00:30:20] Gene Simmons: again, it's cultural. Jews have never been accepted. And by the way, Asians have a problem in Western culture too. There's, but I've never seen an Asian parade.

Have you? I don't think so. That's a good point ever. Because they're too inclined to succeed in life and move on. And just despite what people say, go and make money, money, uh, James Brown said it better than anybody else. Black power is Green power.

[00:30:46] Jordan Harbinger: How was Kiss's branding costumes and makeup and things like that influenced by your love for comic books and sci-fi?

Personally, a lot.

[00:30:54] Gene Simmons: Specifically, the wings that I designed for myself was a cross between Cheney Sr, and London after Midnight, which is a movie that people haven't seen in decades, but I've seen photos of it. So the print has been lost. And Black Bolt from a comic group called the Inhuman. And by the way, I had the rights.

To make a motion picture outta that Marvel gave me the rights before the superhero cycle, and I couldn't get Universal interested enough. Sure. But eventually there was a Black Bolt series. I also had Ghost Rider.

[00:31:32] Crosstalk: Oh yeah. Man, before

[00:31:33] Gene Simmons: Nick Cage. Yeah.

[00:31:34] Crosstalk: That I was gonna say Nick Cage. And everybody

[00:31:36] Gene Simmons: thought, well, what do you mean it's a burning skull?

That was before the superhero cycle. So specifically a cross between London after midnight, the movie Long Cheney Sr. Who played a vampire and black boat and facially. The makeup came from the shadows on Long Cheney SR'S face. As Mary Filburn, his love interest in the op operas playing Oregon. She rips the mask off his face, and when he turns around, there's shadows on his face.

And in my mind, I saw that image. The branding,

[00:32:15] Jordan Harbinger: especially for its time, was. Pretty cutting edge, right? I mean it's still, oh, one of the iconic, the first

[00:32:19] Gene Simmons: covers of any magazines I got was in a magazine called $1 Out of Toronto. We were playing there and on the cover it said something like The Devil's Disciple or something, you know, I was supposed to be evil.

I don't even get high. I like cookies and girls. Not even

[00:32:39] Jordan Harbinger: a euphemism, it's just actually, or

[00:32:40] Gene Simmons: Phim. Yeah. See what I did there? I

[00:32:43] Crosstalk: did. I

[00:32:43] Gene Simmons: seman. You got dad jokes, semantics, but I'm not Antis semantic. You better take your pen out and write things down.

[00:32:49] Jordan Harbinger: You know, this is all being recorded,

[00:32:51] Gene Simmons: believe it or not.

Millennials. A pen is a writing utensil, right? Which you hold in your hand. This is a fake one. There's no button to put be beep, beep, beep be. Mm-hmm. It doesn't go on social media. There's paper too, which comes from trees.

[00:33:05] Jordan Harbinger: I'm Gen X. This is one of those times where I'm glad I'm Gen X. I hate all of it. I know, dude, you're, you're one foot in Carmon and, and, and one

[00:33:13] Gene Simmons: foot, one foot out.

It's a waste of time. Anybody who thinks, well, I'm not part of you. Nobody cares who and what you think you are. There's only, there's only one contest. It's like all the different top 40 things in Billboard Magazine. Top 40 alternative charts, top 40 reggae, top 40 Jewish folk songs, top 40 thing, and that's, it's all nonsense.

There is only one top 40. You're all in competition with everybody else. It doesn't matter what genre you're in. Who cares? I'm number one, heavy metal. What are you on the regular charts? 98. Yeah. If that, if that means nothing, those are all delusional self-serving numbers. There's only one rule. We're all on the same planet.

We better figure out how to get along with each other. Maybe a little more seriously. Maybe all our jobs, invariably, big word la gymnasium, is to leave the world a little bit better, just a little bit better than when we came into it. Multiply that by 8 billion. That would be

[00:34:19] Jordan Harbinger: pretty good. I agree. I mean, the motto of this show used to be Leave everything and everyone better than you found it.

But it was a little too hokey, but it, I still think it's apt

[00:34:27] Crosstalk: even if

[00:34:27] Jordan Harbinger: it's a

[00:34:27] Crosstalk: little bit, yeah, I agree with that. But Hitler didn't do a good job. He left it worse. That's true. Yeah. Most people would agree with that.

[00:34:35] Gene Simmons: Oh, and I actually met somebody who said, yeah, but he built good roads.

[00:34:38] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. Yeah, sure. Small silver lining is, I don't even if I don't even know how to react to that.

Early in the game, I heard you engineered crowds in the early days so that you would, you'd find KISS would be on a stage with another band, put a bunch of girls up in the front row with Kiss t-shirts. Kind of like a, not a publicity stunt, but somebody to convince what a and r and those folks from record labels like Hey, these people are all here to see Kiss at the very first show.

[00:35:02] Gene Simmons: Yeah.

[00:35:02] Jordan Harbinger: Tell me about that. That's smart.

[00:35:04] Gene Simmons: Obviously that's really sharp. Uh, clutter. Well, you're only gonna get the respect your demand and you know, you have to assume that people don't have an imagination. Sinatra had the same thing happen. His manager at the time went out and got high school girls and paid them 50 bucks or something to be in the front and ah, do all that stuff.

And they were called Bobby Sockers Sinatra fans, 'cause they were in school, had those Catholic ah, okay. Skirts. They were called that. It's not a religious thing, it was just, that was just like an Italian T-shirt. That's what it was called. And those short skirts and the socks went way up the leg. Bobby Sockers.

And then nobody else did that in rock because it was not credible. I don't care about credible. I just care about winning. You're not supposed to do licensing and merchandising. Who said that? Mm-hmm. Can I please meet that Loser

[00:35:59] Crosstalk: was like, that was probably still living

[00:36:00] Gene Simmons: in his mother's basement.

[00:36:02] Jordan Harbinger: I love the idea of you sort of engineered the crowd finessed the a and r folks, and it didn't matter 'cause it turned out that all you needed was their attention.

And you had the, but you had the goods to back it up. It wasn't all smoke and mail. Well,

[00:36:14] Gene Simmons: I think, well, it's the least of the most. Just gimme a chance again because the vast majority in the world never even get the chance. So Claw, do the best you can just to get up to bat. You may strike out, but if you never swing the bat, guaranteed, you'll strike out.

You won't even get a chance. All I want's a chance. Do you know who

[00:36:35] Jordan Harbinger: Shep Gordon is? Does that name ring a bell? I've known him well. Yeah. You know him well. Yeah, so he is a friend of mine and this reminded that, reminded me of something he would do. He's Alice Cooper's manager. For people who don't know, it reminds me of the stuff he would do.

Like have the billboard truck with the ad breakdown and Piccadilly Circus, and then take three hours to get it towed and stack the crowd with people who's screaming with the band T-shirts and stuff like that. It's just, it's show

[00:36:57] Gene Simmons: business. It's smart. Yeah. But there are people, young people especially, who's just starting in a band who think it's called music.

It was never called that. It was always called music business. That's what it's called. And if you believe in truth and advertising business is cool. Andy Warhol, who I knew, of course, millennials have no idea what I'm talking about. What's the new jurisdiction called? The New Generation? It's Gen ZI

[00:37:24] Crosstalk: think The adults, no, I think that's the, I don't give a generation.

Yeah, maybe that might be the, I don't.

[00:37:29] Gene Simmons: All these names. Who,

[00:37:30] Jordan Harbinger: who comes up with that? I think I, you know, that's a good question. I Google other, they line up like,

[00:37:34] Gene Simmons: Jess, I'm part of the YXYZ pick. Shut the fuck up. So Andy Warhol said, business is art and making money is the highest art. I hope I'm, I'm getting that right.

This pretty much right, because almost everybody can do art. Not everybody can make money legally.

[00:37:57] Jordan Harbinger: Yep. We're at true. That's true. I tend to agree with that. I'm not, it took me forever to even consider myself creative. 'cause I was just trying to, like you said, feed my kids. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

Well, what's creative

[00:38:08] Gene Simmons: and who determines that? I let the fans determine that, you know, there is only when a painting is really good, it's actually called priceless. You can't put a figure on it. Money is the judges holding up a number to tell you how well you did in your thing. That's all money is. Yeah.

The higher the number. Supposedly the better you're doing the market. Yeah. It's hard. It doesn't really lie, does it? It's what it is, what people say. How do you pay rent with that? May I? Good point. You're the best that ever want. Well, I'm, it's the 30th, but I'm broke,

[00:38:43] Jordan Harbinger: right? Yeah. It's the 30th of the month. I gotta pay rent.

That's right. I do try not to look only at my paycheck, uh, for fulfillment. But

[00:38:50] Gene Simmons: it's tough not to, man. It is tough not to. I don't understand why that's a negative.

[00:38:55] Crosstalk: You're right. You work hard. Maybe it's not.

[00:38:56] Gene Simmons: You work hard by the sweat of thy brow. Our people gave that book to everybody in the world's called the Bible, even the New Testament, so all Jews, and it says in the good book, by the sweat of thy brow, anything that you earn by the sweat of your brow has value.

When you make money without exertion, the value loses the. What they call gravitas. It just doesn't impact you. The same. Yeah. It does feel good to earn as opposed just to get, eh. Yeah. Yeah. Because then you don't have to say thank you to anybody.

[00:39:33] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Well, maybe I'm still thankful that people watch and listen to what I create, though.

I, I'm gonna lie about that. I feel like that's important. You geter, surely you're thankful to your fans as well. Of course. They're my bosses. Yeah.

[00:39:43] Gene Simmons: That's why I look at, without them, I'd be asking the next person in line if they'd like some fries with that. And by the way, that's an honorable profession. I agree.

[00:39:51] Jordan Harbinger: I try not to do that too. Yeah. I try not to shit on too many professions on the show, because statistically speaking, there's thousands of people who are doing that in listening to this show right now, and they're earning their money. Fairy Square is

[00:40:03] Gene Simmons: this, is this kind of a big show? Is this a

[00:40:04] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that's what, that's what they tell me.

That's what they tell me. Yeah. Fans do often say that you're really polite to them. I don't think that's surprising, but not everyone does that.

[00:40:13] Gene Simmons: Okay.

[00:40:14] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. You said you learned that from Dick Clark. Is

[00:40:17] Gene Simmons: that true? It was one of the life lessons. Kiss was on one of the first real rock concert TV shows early 1974.

Dick Clark had already been a mainstay in television. He had a show called American Bandstand.

[00:40:36] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah,

[00:40:36] Gene Simmons: I remember that. Young teen show every day after school, people would hurry three, four o'clock in the afternoon and they'd watch

written by Barry Manalow as a matter of fact, and they'd listen to new music and everybody would come on there, Madonna and Sch Madonna and everybody else. And then kids would listen to new songs. How do you like that song? I give it a 95 'cause I can dance to it. I like the beat. You know, they don't know what they look like.

Right. But that was, you know, like kid stuff. And then in concert was exactly that. You'd have the groups of the day playing live like a concert. And we were given a slot, first record came out and we were so thankful for 'em because we didn't look or sound or walk or talk like the other bands. Melissa Manchester Cool in the gang.

I don't remember who else was on the bill and kiss of tell you very quickly in the afternoon we had to do a run through so the cameras would know who's singing. I see who's gonna be where, where you're gonna do so they can cover you. 'cause it's television. Was it live? Live?

[00:41:51] Clip: Yeah. Okay.

[00:41:51] Gene Simmons: And that was also, and you can't do that nowadays.

They don't do that now. Yeah. No. Can say a potty word. And the, the advertisers get upset. So we did a song called Firehouse, actually, that Paul wrote. And then I'm supposed to spit fire and I'm talking to the cameraman right here. I'm holding my hand up in the air. I'm going to be spitting fire. The guy goes, what do you mean spitting front?

I'm going, no, for real. Actually, there's a fire guy watching and it's gonna be like this and it's gonna be eight or 10 feet. Wow. He goes, okay. So the show starts and we start doing it and the cameras are all trying to pick up all the shots. And I start walking towards the camera. And if you ever see that, I start to, the camera guy jumped off the camera and the camera went up into the 'cause of the fire.

Well, he was afraid. He was, I don't know what he was afraid of.

[00:42:41] Jordan Harbinger: Didn't they warn him? You said you were gonna

[00:42:42] Crosstalk: spit fire. Uh,

[00:42:43] Gene Simmons: we

[00:42:44] Crosstalk: Come on man. Ask any girl. Here's what I'm gonna do. No, don't do.

[00:42:48] Jordan Harbinger: That's that's really funny. So when you're, how does that work? Do you have alcohol in your mouth and you have a open flame and you spit?

Or is there some other trick going on? I'm curious how that works.

[00:42:57] Gene Simmons: Open flame and a flammable And I've caught fire a number of times. I was gonna ask you that. Yeah, I, I don't wanna tell people don't, don't try it. There are so many videos on YouTube with kids who are trying to do that, who went up in flames.

[00:43:12] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, it seems like something, well, you said there was a fire marshal standing in front of you, probably with a, I don't know. Yes. Fire, fire extinguisher of some kind. That's, that's right. That's how you do that. Kids not the other way around as a band that wore a lot of, was it spandex back then? I don't even know if that existed, but you had full makeup, you had blood.

Was there ever kind of a divide or a split between, you know, gene Simmons, the guys in the band, and then this alter ego that is

[00:43:35] Gene Simmons: kiss? Well, in the beginning we protected, you know, Superman, Clark Kent, right. Yeah, that's, that's funny. He didn't wanna,

[00:43:42] Jordan Harbinger: exact same note,

[00:43:44] Gene Simmons: Superman didn't wanna talk about Clark Kent.

Right. And likewise, we kept, our faces hidden are actual faces, you know, it's like beautiful women with makeup and all that stuff. They don't want you to see them in a potato sack without their makeup on.

[00:43:59] Jordan Harbinger: At what point did you realize people wanted to see the alter ego on stage and not actually you guys, it sounds like from the beginning that was something you.

[00:44:07] Gene Simmons: Decided to do in the days when $25,000 was a lot of money, there was a $25,000 reward on our heads Without makeup. Yeah.

[00:44:17] Jordan Harbinger: For somebody to snap a photo. Wow. Anybody claim that? Probably not, eh?

[00:44:21] Gene Simmons: No, not really. They were snippets, but no. To give you an idea of what, $25,000 right before KISS happened. I was, I worked on 47th Street in the jewelry district and there minimum wage was a dollar 25 an hour.

It skyrocketed to a dollar. 75 an hour. A hundred dollars a week was a good wage. People were making $5,000 a year or something like that. That's right. And a Volkswagen you could get for 1500 bucks. Wow. Brand new. That's mind blowing. Actually, when I was a kid earlier, 1959, possibly. I bought a movie ticket for 29 cents, and I saw two movies and three cartoons.

That's crazy. That

[00:45:10] Jordan Harbinger: just shows like inflation is just, it's hard to grab your mind around it. It's not a hundred years ago this year,

[00:45:15] Gene Simmons: a year or two ago, I think a dozen X was a buck 50. Now it's four bucks. Mm. Yeah. Unless you shop in LA and then it's $7.

[00:45:23] Jordan Harbinger: What about the groupies and the women? Did they ask you to leave your makeup on and stuff like that?

[00:45:27] Crosstalk: Because it, some did. Yeah. Seems like they would all were females,

[00:45:30] Gene Simmons: so don't get excited. But some did.

[00:45:33] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. You noted several times in the book you've been with 4,600 women. I assume the number is up since then, since this book was published. Not so much. No, not so much. You're lucky that thing didn't fall off, man.

I tell you what, what thing? Anything. Oh, anything could have fallen off if that many one, but now you're, you look, you're a dedicated father. Now, did you expect that in your life? Was that something

[00:45:53] Gene Simmons: you always wanted? No. I was afraid of marriage, monogamy, and children. Mm-hmm. I didn't wanna turn out like my father.

Tell us about your father. Well, I, my father ran out on us. See, even that doesn't get close to it. My father ran out on me. I was seven years old. I never had a father figure at home. I remember my father was, you know, in the army, Israel was always being attacked one way or the other. So I remember, I don't know, five or six.

There's a machine, a Russian with a Knik off, I think is what it's called. And as funny as it may sound, he had a uniform. And on weekends they'd have to go to the front line. I mean, here you are in Beverly Hills, you know, Pasadena's, half hour away. That would be another country, right? That was want to kill you.

And in those days, 35,000 rockets came into Haifa, or in that area where I lived. And on the weekends, my father would put on his uniform, take his thing, and hitchhike. They didn't have military trucks. They didn't have, they still the Chik in Israel now. Well, Israel didn't have an Air Force or a Navy or anything, but just people with guns and they still beat five Arab countries.

We went every time. And it's generational. Nothing's gonna change there until they're new generations who aren't dominated by religion. You have to remember World War II as a student of history, and my mother was 14 when she was in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany during World War ii, Germans and Japanese, the entire culture, the entire people bought the evil hook, line and sinker.

They were Nazi the, they loved it. And even after two atom bombs were dropped on Japan, they didn't make new terrorists or anything. The next generation said, you know, we were wrong. Mm-hmm We gotta move on. And they stopped worshiping the emperor as God. The culture has to change from within when guys sitting, self-appointed religious people become less important happened with Christianity too.

The Pope used to be a big deal and he would say crusades for them. After a while, they ran outta grownups and they had a children's crusade and saying that not none of them made it to Israel. They were all raped or killed before. 'cause they ran outta grownups.

[00:48:20] Crosstalk: Yeah.

[00:48:20] Jordan Harbinger: Unbelievable. So you didn't want kids because your father ended up running off on you when you were younger.

I

[00:48:27] Gene Simmons: didn't think I had an appetite. And one second. You're nobody in girls make you go through a an obstacle course. What's your name? What sign are you in? Not on the first date, first base, second base, third base. You know all that stuff. But you're both sexual. You both want the same thing, but then they're the cultural morays.

Girls, women, females have different rules, self-imposed a lot, and some guys think that, and guys have no rules. It's like two different sides of the same coin. You're both human beings, but may as well speak another language. So you know, it's tough for a guy. I don't mean to get a girlfriend, but just to satiate himself as they say.

Going from there. And overnight, on the very first show we played South Edmonton University and there were girls back in the hotel. We were nobody. This is Canada.

[00:49:26] Jordan Harbinger: Is that in Alberta, Edmonton,

[00:49:28] Gene Simmons: one of those,

[00:49:29] Jordan Harbinger: yeah. Places You don't even know. Okay, that makes me feel a little better. All right.

[00:49:33] Gene Simmons: Yeah, there were girls back at the hotel.

Just because you're in a band doesn't happen to plumbers or dentists and different rules. They didn't even care. If you remember their name, you see, they're bored. With their humdrum, small town, family life, these strangers, it's like the circus comes to town. It's exciting, you know? It's different. Yeah. And there was a lot of that for many decades.

[00:49:58] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I wonder how you got the number 4,600. Surely you didn't keep a spreadsheet, did you just back into it from the amount of time involved in like a guesstimation or did you actually track it? Photos. Photo. You kept photos of everybody. Wow. Where did you keep that many photos? That's good. That's a big stack of photos, man.

[00:50:16] Gene Simmons: Many model portfolios from the floor up to here, something like that. And then when I came clean, Shannon and I burned him together. Well

[00:50:26] Jordan Harbinger: you did, you burned, you burned him with your wife. Wow. When do you, when you came clean, when you just, you told her about it or like you shocked? Well, she always

[00:50:32] Gene Simmons: saw it in the media Sure.

And stuff like that. But at some point you gotta grow up. I don't think women understand that. Just 'cause there's a guy who's 25 or 30 years old and he's six two and ways. I don't know. One 90, 200,000. Nah, that's a man. He's got a low voice. No, he's not. She's smiling. You're a 14-year-old horny kid, and if she turns her back, you'll climb on her mother.

You're in consol. You just have an appetite. I mean, it's nice if some, hello. Nice to see. It's better to treat everybody nicely, but I don't believe for a second that men become mature enough until their sixties. Sixties. Oh yeah. Really? Well look at the divorce rates. Well, yeah. Why do they, it's just funny.

It fits. Why do divorce, divorce rates happen? Why do they so high? Because the guys fuck around. Why do they do that? Because even though they're grown men, they desire the other women. When you

[00:51:27] Jordan Harbinger: were doing that through the thir twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, did you ever think this is maybe pathological, this is a lot of this?

Or was it like, Hey, this is normal. This is normal for every guy. Every guy who could do this would

[00:51:39] Gene Simmons: do it. Is that what you're thinking? Never thought in any of those. Terms, nor would I hardly ever use the word pathological in all other ways. I thought I was responsible. I show up on time. I treat people nicely.

I make money. I buy my mother houses, you know, I take care of everything. No drugs, no booze. I don't even smoke cigarettes. Mm-hmm. And I like girls. Uh, socially acceptable vice. I didn't care what was or what was not socially acceptable because in my delusion it didn't matter to me what people thought of me.

It still doesn't. And in this woke world. That's a problem.

[00:52:20] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Well, I noticed that you had, you got a little, you got one for,

[00:52:23] Gene Simmons: well, I've got my judge and jury over there. My media maven seems so bad. She's perfectly nice to you all. She shakes her head every once in a while or her legs start. No, no, no.

Don't lose it. We did KTLA this morning. Oh yeah. And I started to make a comment. I don't remember what about, and you

[00:52:39] Crosstalk: get one of those. Oh, I see. Okay. Okay. Okay. Don't go there. Was it live? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. That's why you got the elbow for sure.

[00:52:46] Jordan Harbinger: Folks, now it's time for you to take your unusually large tongues and shove them right into some deals on the fine products and services that support this show.

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We are more than happy to surface that code for you because it is that important that you support those who support the show. Now for the rest of my conversation with Gene Simmons Kiss was around, was it the Satanic panic? Is that what they called

[00:55:52] Crosstalk: it? The age when the Titanic Panic, the Satanic panic.

I'm sorry. The Satanic panic, right? Oh, satanic what's? What's Satanic? Is that not how you pronounce it? No. What did you say? Satan or Satanic? Satanic. I feel like this is just a split hair comes from

[00:56:08] Gene Simmons: the Hebrew word chatam. Yeah. Which is the choice. Not an EM embodiment of evil. Christians made it with the horns and the tail.

I see. Okay. Yeah. Jews created the idea, but as a choice, just like the cartoons, you have a little horned guy on one shoulder shoulder and an angel on the other shoulder. It's, you have the choice of evil deeds. Satan is a choice, not an two legged horn theology

[00:56:32] Jordan Harbinger: lesson. Not

[00:56:33] Crosstalk: such. I was physiology

[00:56:33] Jordan Harbinger: major.

That's right. You studied theology in school. I would imagine a lot of religious people were saying, Hey kisses, what a chattan worship and things like that. It would come Satan. Now I'm just masturbating Satan. Yes, and would now come at you with Bible verses. Could you come back at them quoting Bible verses?

I would imagine PS somon verse. Yeah. That's. How did they react to that?

[00:56:53] Gene Simmons: Well, what happened to do not judge lest you be judged. Let those among you who is without sin cast first stone. That's the, that's right, bitch. I know where you live. Well, because there's a holier than thou sickness mentally. Because in a little bit of information, emboldens makes somebody think I'm better than you are holier than th I know stuff you don't.

And they often use it as a battering ramp to elevate their own inadequacies. Sure. So who died and made you God? Since when did you become my judge and jury? I thought those was a personal relationship between myself and God. Who are you to get in the middle, whether you're on

[00:57:36] Crosstalk: TV or not? Oh man. I'm guessing the reaction.

You got to that kind of rhetorical Well, they

[00:57:42] Gene Simmons: turned

[00:57:42] Crosstalk: and run.

[00:57:43] Gene Simmons: Really? Oh yeah. There was a guy dressed up like what he thought Jesus looked like because there was a historical Jesus, there was a human being and. We know that because Josephus Flavius, the Hebrew scribe for the Romans was a Jew Hebrew.

'cause it came from Hebron. See HEB Hebron. Hmm. And never put that together. Kept Yeah. And Jew, because they're Judean. Yeah. Ju from Judea geographical location. Yeah.

[00:58:09] Crosstalk: So where the hell were we going with this? Yeah. I'm

[00:58:12] Jordan Harbinger: also, I'm also like, wait, I had the question And then it was what they, how people react to you coming back at them with real biblical knowledge.

When they accuse you of being, being safe worship they, they

[00:58:22] Gene Simmons: have to run because they're not qualified to have that discussion. They're talking with mental midgets. They know a little bit more than that. See? That God will predict. So I, I asked one of these guys who was dressed in what he thought Jesus looked like straight hair.

He looked like he's from Norway and blue eyes and all that. I'm going, bitch, I don't wanna tell you this, but the real human being, rabbi Yeshu, Ben, yourself in the Vatican. In Josephus FIA's handwriting. Oh, I forgot. Most people think his last name was Christ. No. Mom and dad were not Mr. And Mrs. Christ, Joseph Christ and Mary Christ.

No. That's a title that comes Cristo in Latin, which means Messiah or King. That makes sense. That's why he, he's called the Christ. Nobody says the Simmons like the President. It's a title. Or the Christ child or Christ Jesus. Like King James. Get it? Mm-hmm. No, his last name is Son of Joseph. But you don't get taught that because it mixes you up.

Wait a minute. I thought he was the son of God, but his last name is the son of Joseph. Yeah. How about that? So was it a Hebrew name? Would he have had a Hebrew name like Ben Yosef or whatever? Yes. Even Arabs Bin Laden. Ben is son, the British Isles McDonald. The Mack is a son. I did not know that. No

[00:59:46] Jordan Harbinger: Son of Donald.

Right. The music ranking thing. I, I heard that with hits and music singles, you had a different mindset, right? Didn't care about billboard rankings. You mentioned that earlier. Flash in the pan. The strategy for KISS was to be consistently good, not just boom on the charts and off the next week.

[01:00:02] Gene Simmons: Well, it, it was a different culture.

I don't think Led Zeppelin ever had a hit single. In fact, hit single. There was radio airplay. Yeah. And you could get high on the charts, but never singles. And then there were actual sales. So here's a trick question. We all know the Beach Boys had a ton of stuff, ton of songs. 2030 songs that everybody knew.

Help me, Rhonda, and Good vibrate. Lots of them. It's a trick question. Who has actual gold? Single more of them. Gold Singles, beach Boys. Or Kiss A Gold Single sells more than a million copies. Beach Boys or Kiss has more, I have no idea. The Beach Boys maybe, who knows? Tide. Tide. Beach Boys only have, or Tide Beach Boys only have two gold singles.

Kiss has two gold singles, but they were played a lot more during daytime radio because mom is at home. Dad isn't working. None of that loud guitar stuff. More harmonies.

[01:01:06] Jordan Harbinger: I know that Kiss's success was not based on his singles, right? It was based on fan loyalty and I'm, I'd love to hear what you did to engender that in the beginning.

Like it was very deliberate, I assume. Yeah.

[01:01:15] Gene Simmons: Yes, because our fate, we were Anglo amplifies, so our favorite bands were English bands, Zeppelin and Song. Mm-hmm. Of course, the favorite of them all is the Beatles, but that's an exception. Nobody could write songs like them before, during, or since McCartney is the most successful songwriter.

Of all time. You know what a cover is, where other artists do your covers. Yesterday alone was covered by 1000 plus. Really other artists? Just that song. And they also did live in the uh, yeah. You know, just a ton of stuff. But you can't shine the boots of the Beatles. It's a different league. But you know, led Zeppelin never played the singles game.

AC DC didn't care. They were an album band. So it's a different

[01:02:05] Crosstalk: culture. Yeah, it's a good strategy though, right? Because casual fans

[01:02:09] Jordan Harbinger: burn

[01:02:10] Crosstalk: out quickly. It's

[01:02:10] Jordan Harbinger: only a good strategy if it works. If it works. Yeah. I suppose that's true. Having a loyal following, like you guys, Metallica, it's just such a better strategy long term.

[01:02:19] Gene Simmons: That's right. But by the time Metallica came in, those, the culture was set when we were first starting, you still had a lot of pressure to get a song on the radio, get a song on the radio. I see. And then it opened up. Maiden and Metallica and a lot of those,

[01:02:34] Jordan Harbinger: what did MTV do for bands like his, because music was way less visual than it

[01:02:40] Gene Simmons: is now.

A lot of new bands became very famous, very fast, and then died very famous. It was a, and I don't mean to pick on them, they're fine. I'm sure there's a band called Wang Chung. Wang Chung. That's, yeah. Had dance hall days and, and they had hits. You can't name anybody in the band and nobody ever wore a Wang Chung t-shirt.

I'm sure they're terrific and all that. So they were lots and lots of bands who had number one songs and then disappear because you gotta deliver on stage. If you have a hit single and you just sing in the microphone, they're paying more money for a ticket than they do for the album.

[01:03:25] Jordan Harbinger: That's

[01:03:26] Crosstalk: a really good point.

So it's all about that experience, which kissed you. You guys kind of innovated on a lot of that stuff. It makes fans. Yeah.

[01:03:33] Gene Simmons: Michael Jackson, without all that dancing in the backwards and the stuff, not the same artist. No, it's

[01:03:38] Crosstalk: not the same. Yeah, not the same.

[01:03:40] Jordan Harbinger: His shows were epic. For sure. You're an innovator In your, in your space, what is the next generation of music innovators?

Who do you think is really innovating? You think it's Taylor Swift? Gotta get that soundbite. Gene. You of all people can appreciate anything with Tay T's viral. Not in music.

[01:03:54] Gene Simmons: Innovators are Elon Musk. Mm. Tell me about that. W he, NASA with all the hundreds of billions of dollars. Couldn't figure out how to reuse a rocket.

So every time they launched something they had to throw it away. Elon Musk reused it can land, take off land, take off electric cars, outsold. All the car companies Changed it overnight. Car companies didn't wanna do it. Unions see what I did there. He doesn't care. It always takes one visionary. A futurist who doesn't care, just wants to do what they wanna do.

Alexander Graham, bell Edison, even Ford at the beginning, who created, you know, this kind of assembly line thing, which didn't exist before. Futurists don't look at what is, they do what they wanna do. Mm-hmm. So, Elon's got the boring company. He is gonna have robot taxis. He's just all this stuff. It's not waiting to ask anybody what they think.

He will be the first legal trillionaire, by the way, within two

[01:05:04] Jordan Harbinger: years. It's impressive. I, I'm waiting to see if boring or any of those companies actually do anything. Although, look, I'm a happy investor in Tesla, I'll tell you that. Invested early and that turned out to be a pretty good, pretty good shout.

Did you invest in anything like that? Do you, do you do your own investments or you just kind of Myself? Yes. You seem like the type, yeah. Stock market watcher, including

[01:05:26] Gene Simmons: crypto futures, commodities. What, what crypto are you bullish on? I'm curious pro, and this is not advice, I'm not a financial advice of, you have to say that.

Full disclosure. I'm not a lawyer. I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. It depends what kind of lawyer and which state, but probably the two safest for me are Bitcoin and Ethereum and the rest you have to, so you do know what you're talking about. That's impressive. I've got 13 or 14 different cryptos that I play with

[01:05:57] Jordan Harbinger: that I would not have guessed that, but that is, that's, that is quite interesting.

I was told that you were a Renaissance man. Like I said, at the top of the show. I wonder, did your, what did your mom think of all this? The music, the costumes. My mother,

[01:06:09] Gene Simmons: bless her. Never really understood it because from her, you know, they were lucky. All of Europe, not just Jewish households, but right after the Great Depression, 1929 and on, people couldn't even have an egg.

There were photos of Germans with wheelbarrows full of Deutsche Marks trying to get enough money together, just P stacks of money to get a few eggs. People have no idea. The great generation, there were a hundred million people that died in World War ii. Even white people. I'm not even talking about Black Asia or anything, just white Europeans.

100 million died starvation, war killings and all this stuff. It was insane. People who lived through that have a completely different point of view about life and the value of things. My mother in the translation in Hungarian, every day above ground is a good day. Is worth taking note of? Kind of corny.

What do you have to complain about living here in Beverly Hills? What exactly? Riots war. The what? Yeah. I know some hooded teenagers break into seven elevens and all this kind of stuff. I know. I can't tell you how I would react because

[01:07:36] Crosstalk: your publicist will, she's shaking down.

[01:07:39] Gene Simmons: Let's just say there were different rules for the police when I was growing up.

Yeah. There was less crime.

[01:07:45] Jordan Harbinger: There was less crime. That's interesting. I would love to know the stats on that. I think violent crime is down. I don't know if general crime is down relative to what? Violent. Any other time in history, whatever you say. Yeah. I don't believe any. You don't believe it. Not

[01:07:57] Crosstalk: at all.

[01:07:58] Jordan Harbinger: Get out that phone. Gene. Before we close here, I'm curious. Let's correct the record 'cause I am quite sure of that. The largest decline in several decades, which means probably throughout your whole career, at least, maybe if we go back far enough, it was high, uh, lower in the forties or fifties, but certainly after that

[01:08:17] Gene Simmons: forties and fifties, 1940s, 1950s,

[01:08:21] Jordan Harbinger: possibly higher, but unlikely.

And it's lower now than any other time in our lifetime. Once the

[01:08:25] Gene Simmons: drug, once drugs became culture, we went to hell

[01:08:31] Crosstalk: and back. The

[01:08:32] Jordan Harbinger: stats, say otherwise I look, I believe you, but the statistics are, we are safer now than we have been in the past since when? In the last four decades. For

[01:08:43] Crosstalk: the

[01:08:43] Gene Simmons: possibly. Yeah, but that's during the drug worlds.

When I was growing up and I went to school, you couldn't even, you weren't allowed to have liquor, booze, beer. Out in the open. You'd have to have it in a brown paper bag.

[01:09:00] Crosstalk: That's still

[01:09:01] Gene Simmons: the case. Oh, is it still? Yeah. I mean, course you can't walk out beer enforceability

[01:09:04] Jordan Harbinger: beer. No, no. Oh, I didn't know that. In Las Vegas, you, I believe you can in Las Vegas.

Well, they Orleans well baths in it

[01:09:11] Gene Simmons: over there.

[01:09:11] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[01:09:12] Gene Simmons: But never heard of a drug addict. Nobody smoked that we knew of. It was looked down on Drugs

[01:09:20] Jordan Harbinger: are up, man. That I'll give you violent crime, however, is down, which is a good thing. However, is that the general indicator of a safe society? Not necessarily. I wanna end on something that is slightly different than I heard you didn't drive until you were 34.

Is that true? Why is that?

[01:09:36] Gene Simmons: Well, if we landed in New York mm-hmm. And it was shock to me because we're we your mother and yourself? Is that my mother and my myself? Yeah. Landed in New York. I never saw tall buildings or every street was covered in concrete or asphalt. Every street. The small town and the bottom of Mount Carmel, like the Biblical Carmel.

That's where I was born. Just like, you know, with the grapes and like those stories in the Bible. Yeah. It's a real place. And I was right at the foot of those mounts, used to go up there and get cactus fruit. There was no infrastructure, just dirt on the road. I never heard of television. Literally never heard of it.

We didn't have radio. There was a hole in the ground outside and you wiped with rags that my mother used to wash. Now the phone thing

[01:10:30] Crosstalk: makes more sense. Yeah. The phone.

[01:10:33] Jordan Harbinger: The phone. Yeah. Don't touch the phone. Now. Now, now. It all, it all makes sense.

[01:10:36] Gene Simmons: That's a strange connection.

[01:10:37] Jordan Harbinger: Is it? I don't know about that.

[01:10:39] Gene Simmons: No, I just wanted to say that.

Okay. And two Jews talking. How are you? How am I? How should I be? Who wants to know? Why are you asking Good Lord? Accurate. Accurate. And when we first came to America, I was in shock. People were big, the buildings were big, everybody had cars. The sandwiches were massive. In Israel, you, you got a newspaper, used newspaper and they'd give you a slab of meat and some, a little thing, a little butter.

There was no brands. That was your food for the week. And cornbread, big honking pieces of stuff. There were no stuff, barely any canned goods and the land of plenty. You bet. I remember my Aunt Magda was married to my mother's brother who'd done well. Both her brothers were very successful and she, aunt Magda was looking at the refrigerator.

'cause I didn't know what it was. We didn't have one. Wow. Yeah, I didn't, we never had a refrigerator, just a white kind of a thing with a handle. So I spoke Hungarian as well, so my. She didn't speak Hebrew. Aunt Magna walked over and she opened the thing and I couldn't believe it. This box was filled with food.

There was fruit and you know, eggs and stuff. All this food. And I remember looking on the side to my right. I must have been eight actually. I was eight before I was nine. See what I just did there? There was another choke. I looked over there and there was this kind of reddish thing and I was attracted by the color and I opened up the top and my Aunt Magda gave me a spoon.

It was jam. My aunt Magda gave, might have been schmuckers, and she gave me a spoon. I guess she meant for me to taste it. Sure. I'd never had jammed. Tell me you ate that whole jar. I punished, I tasted it and I went, oh, oh my God. It's crack. And emptied out that thing. And I couldn't stop eating as I never tasted anything like that.

I bet. And both my mother and Aunt Magda were crying so hard. They were in tears, and I had no idea with mouthfuls of the jam what they were laughing at. That's so fun. What a story.

[01:13:00] Crosstalk: Yeah. You never experienced anything like that, eh?

[01:13:02] Gene Simmons: No. Oh. How could

[01:13:03] Crosstalk: you imagine that taste? It must've been a trip

[01:13:06] Gene Simmons: for your mom to come to America too, though, from her perspective.

Yeah. Yes. And I remember I had never heard of television. We went to my Uncle George's house, and in those days, television screens were smaller about the size of your head. Well, mine, yours is a little smaller. It's a little more compact, and you'd have six foot long furniture on both sides. You'd have liquor and so, so like a large cabinet, six feet long.

And in the middle would be the television set with a smaller screen. And I remember walking in and it must've been a news hour 'cause there was a closeup of the guy's head, and I thought there was a guy in the box. I couldn't imagine that. No. It was being broadcast in the air. It is incredible when you think about it.

I I didn't understand what that, I'd never seen a television set. And then when I understood, oh, television stuff, one of the first things I saw again that blew my mind is there's some guy with a towel or something around his back and he's flying through the air without an airplane. It's, it seems impossible.

Unbelievable. Right. Created by Jews, of course. Didn't know that makes sense. All superheroes, all the comic book companies were invented by Jews. Bob Kane, Batman, Bob Cohen, Jack Kirby Stanley, all those characters. Jews. It's the Moses myth of Moses whose family were being killed. Krypton. Was blowing up. So they sent K Al, like Al.

Those are Hebrew names being sent down to the Space Ark. If you ever saw the imagery, he's leaning back with a little blanket on, just like Moses. He gets adopted by the goin the non-Jew Gentiles, in this case, Egyptians and raised, and he became great. We do come full circle, don't we? Superman is the Moses Mythos created by two Jews from Cleveland, Ohio, Jews of Cleveland, but they don't talk about that.

The Hulk of Fantastic Four Spider-Man Jews. It's this hiding your public persona and having a secret identity. You know, the classic Assimilationists dress, British think Yiddish. I. Including the movie industry. Every single without exception movie studio was, it created, invented and designed by Jews to make non-Jewish movies for the simple reason that there were very few Jews.

You wanna make money, you gotta, you gotta

[01:15:44] Jordan Harbinger: go to the market.

[01:15:45] Gene Simmons: So a lot of movies with crosses and Christ and whatever you want, just buy tickets. Warner Brothers, those are not their names. You couldn't pronounce their names. It's probably like Live Shit's Brothers or something like that. Yeah. But yeah, so they changed all their names.

This guy Fox, 20th Century Fox. Mm-hmm. It was an Eastern European Jew. Oh yeah. In New York, buying fur coats, foxes from Canada, shipping them down and sewing them on, already made winter coats. So they became Fox fur coats and people couldn't pronounce his name. So he changed his name to Fox

[01:16:24] Jordan Harbinger: Gene Simmons.

An American success story or, or it is an American success story.

[01:16:28] Gene Simmons: No, this is the American success story because as much as proud as I am of the historical and Biblical Israel and all that, you cannot rise to this inner level anywhere else. We fly through the air, the computer, I on tv, movies, it was all invented here, including the phone by different people from different nationalities.

That is the, that's the wonder of this place, but we need much stronger laws. You gotta get the scum off the street. Put me in charge. I'll fix it. Gene

[01:17:02] Crosstalk: Simmons for president 2020. No, no. For leader Gene Simmons. Thank you very much. I just wanna say it was a pleasure to talk to me. I knew that wasn't gonna end how everyone thought it was

[01:17:13] Jordan Harbinger: gonna end.

You are about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger Show with rapper and singer T-Pain,

[01:17:20] Clip: A recorded bartender in a hotel room of a nudist resort your ass naked, looking out the window with a cup of coffees, with people fucking by the pool. Just everything's happening all at this one hotel and you're just like, this is nice.

Mm-hmm. This is nice. The hardest thing about being number one is staying number one. That stuck with me so much that I didn't even care when I became number one. Because I felt like I needed to work harder to stay there. And, uh, everything else was a distraction. Brooke was Wells Fargo sending me emails saying your accountant had, has reached $0.

[01:17:55] Gene Simmons: Oh, wow.

[01:17:55] Clip: Like Brooke was me asking my manager, can he buy food for my kids? And this is from like upward to $90 million. Wow. And then going to pure zero, I mean, because I was young, like, what, what am I supposed to do? You signed me as a 19-year-old and just hand me $40 million. What do I, I don't know what to do with this.

I had 43 cars at one time. How? How many? 43. 43 cars. All the gas goes bad. And all of them, the Ferraris don't crank up if they're not driven every day. The Bugatti is stuck in between two Chevys. It took me nine years to lose all that money and it took me two years to get it back. I could be a lot richer.

I could be going to space in a giant dick or Yeah. I could be stuck in my nose and my ears were toilet paper to make sure roaches don't get in it. I think I'm fine where I'm, yeah, it seems okay. Amen.

[01:18:45] Jordan Harbinger: For more on how T-Pain made and lost $90 million and how he climbed his way back. Check out episode 5 5, 1 of the Jordan Harbinger Show.

Alright, so I did warn you it went in a little bit of an odd direction. Not really used to that. On this show, I gave his listening skills as Z minus, and he gave himself an a. Uh, wonder what the, A stands for. Fun to interview a legend. Even if he did imply that I was some kind of loser for wanting to be a present father to my kids within the first five minutes of the interview.

I, I don't know. I think that probably says more about him and his beliefs than it does about my own. I know he was a little bit standoffish, but honestly I got the feeling he was more playing with me and just being like, cocky. 'cause he thinks it's funny as opposed to actually being like a true. A-hole, uh, although I was on the fence for a while.

Uh, anyway, kiss is just behind the Beatles in terms of gold records. It's really just a, a total icon legend institution in the rock and roll space. One thing that we didn't get into that I wanted to but we ran outta time, is how having kids changed him. Not a lot of people are expecting him to be this devoted father after all the womanizing and everything.

And it seems like early in the game, he really just lived his life for himself and, and anything he didn't like, he changed it. And he talks about this in one of his books. He said, don't like your looks put on a bunch of makeup or change 'em. Don't like your name. Change it. Don't like where you live. Move with kids.

Of course, it's not as simple as that, but I really thought that was kind of an interesting tip. You know, when I was before kids, I was like, oh, there's so much I don't have any control over. I can't do this. I can't do that. I really think that if a lot of us think bigger, you can live anywhere you want.

You can be anyone you want, especially if you work to change yourself. That's actually quite empowering. All things Gene Simmons will be in the show notes@jordanharbinger.com. Advertisers deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show. All at Jordan harbinger.com/deals. Please consider supporting those who support this show.

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