Rock is Dead…According to Gene Simmons.

Gene Simmons is back in the news again. Not for his music with KISS and not because of the Arena Football team he is part owner of. This time he had some more controversial statements to make.

Gene Simmons says Rock Is Dead

Gene Simmons is always good for an attention grabbing quote.  All you have to do is google him and you can find an endless supply of controversy.  Whether it’s his opinion on drug addicts, immigrants or the 1 percent Simmons is not known for holding his tongue…pun intended.

But this time he’s speaking about something that he knows about. In an interview for Esquire with his son Nick the elder Simmons expressed his thoughts on the state of rock music.  According to Simmons the future doesn’t look bright.  In fact, if you believe what he says there is no future because ROCK IS DEAD.

Instead of me rehashing his comments I’ll let you read it for yourself.  Do you agree?  Let us know in the comments section.

“The tragedy is that they seem to have no idea that they just killed their own opportunity — they killed the artists they would have loved. Some brilliance, somewhere, was going to be expressed, and now it won’t, because it’s that much harder to earn a living playing and writing songs… The masses do not recognize file-sharing and downloading as stealing because there’s a copy left behind for you — it’s not that copy that’s the problem, it’s the other one that someone received but didn’t pay for. The problem is that nobody will pay you for the 10,000 hours you put in to create what you created.”

Who does Simmons blame for the decline of the genre?  File sharers.

predominantly white, middle- and upper-middle-class young people who were native-born, who felt they were entitled to have something for free, because that’s what they were used to.

The full interview can be read over at Esquire.

About Dave Abrams

Dave has been eating, living, and breathing music since before he could talk. This makes Dave perfect for his role here at Guitar News Daily.