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00:00how much unreleased kiss stuff is in the vault there's a lot i listen back to it today you know
00:04these guys that wore more makeup and higher heels than your mommy ever did they weren't
00:09fooling around rock metal frog and everything in between welcome to this episode of talking
00:17rock with meltdown don't forget to follow the audio only talking rock podcast on all podcast
00:22platforms and now it's time for today's conversation here's meltdown gene first of all
00:29happy belated birthday man what is what does the demon do when he turns 77 you get up every day
00:36and you gotta move use it or lose it as they say yeah by the by the way i it
00:45sounds like a sound
00:46bite but every day is my birthday i don't have a thing about the calendar dictating when you're
00:52supposed to celebrate life somebody told me something a long time ago and it was pretty uh
01:00it was a real wake-up call and that is that at the end of today you young man are
01:07going to be alive
01:07one less day the fuse has been lit and every day it gets you know closer to the end so
01:18i i think
01:19the lesson we should all learn from that is get up every day work hard be kind to your neighbor
01:26kiss
01:27a pretty girl and you know leave your mark and then you die yeah i know my son used to
01:33say that
01:33life is like a roll of toilet paper it goes faster near the end is that true
01:39yeah but hopefully you don't get you don't get what your face wiped up and shit
01:45but i understand well of course i mean uh we're all just passing through
01:52yeah well you know your mom lived a really long life so you still got many years ahead of you
01:56i mean
01:57and you're still going of course you got this show coming up september 20th you got a bunch of shows
02:01coming up here uh you just love being on stage don't you i love it i love it because uh
02:07imagine
02:08you're a painter and by the way i'm really excited because in october next month i fly to nashville
02:16to get the performer of the year award i mean if you like that sort of thing for me as
02:21a little kid
02:22to get an a on a test or an a plus on a test it was like you know a
02:27big thing and then when you grow
02:28up it's the things like getting the hollywood star walk of fame or the kennedy center honors or the
02:33songwriters hall of fame you know stuff like that rock and roll of fame those are things that
02:39it doesn't really mean anything let's not kid ourselves but it's it's a way for your peers to
02:46say hey pretty good uh but speaking of potato chips i love it i often wondered uh when i was
02:54first
02:55starting out with the band 50 years ago before you were born actually closer to 55 now
03:02like all i ever wanted was to be in a band that went in the studio and recorded one album
03:10one i just
03:11wanted to be able to go into a store record store they used to have those in those days
03:17when people used to rub two sticks together you know fire and everything and before young people felt
03:23they were entitled to free health care and things like that yeah bullshit uh and that's all i ever
03:33wanted to do and then that day came that day came when i walked next to electric lady studios in
03:40new
03:40york where we did our first record went next door and actually bought the first record three dollars
03:45and 39 cents you know then they got more expensive and all that and then after that
03:53it's like i think it's analogous to when you're a kid and you never made a penny in your life
03:59you
03:59walk down the street you look on the floor and you go oh my god there's a penny on the
04:04floor i can
04:04pick it up and it's mine then when you find the second penny whatever you know that's good i did
04:11that
04:11then you find a dime oh my god there's a dime you pick it up and you go wow and
04:17then later on you
04:19find a dollar and you go oh wow i found a dollar i'm rich so you know how we look
04:26at life is all
04:26relative you know when you climb on top of a mountain you go wow i made it then you look
04:31around
04:31and there are taller mountains and you go okay roll up your sleeves and keep going that's really the idea
04:38yeah keep keep going there's got to be an addiction process to going on stage all the time isn't there
04:46i don't i don't like that word i think it infers uh negativity um drug addicts alcohol and so on
04:55but when you love doing something i wonder why that's an addiction
04:59yeah like you're a workaholic losers say that you know who uh the starving people in uh sad
05:09in india and other places in the world who don't have jobs and are trying to figure out how to
05:15how to feed their families they can't imagine anybody would come up with a phrase like
05:20you're a workaholic you're working too much too much i please let me work too much i'll give you my
05:28first born yeah where we are we are entitled and spoiled and i i think i've had about enough of
05:37that the most impressive people to me are buffett and elon musk and bezos elon's worth i don't know
05:44about a trillion and a half something like that what does he do every day he gets up he's he's
05:53planning
05:54he's doing he's planning for goodness sakes cities on mars while the rest of us are complaining about
06:01the traffic jam we're doing we're doing nothing these are these are people who have higher intellect
06:08and a grander vision of life that you can do big things and for me the big thing is look
06:15imagine you're
06:16you write a book and you're really proud of it you worked hard and you want you know and then
06:22once
06:22you're finished you put it on the shelf and nobody reads it well what that's you don't get anything out
06:28of that the joy is to have other people read it and comment some love it you you you're a
06:34painter and
06:35you do this amazing painting that you're really proud of and i've done some of that myself well
06:42uh if nobody sees it where's the joy in that so writing songs is the same thing or being in
06:49a band
06:50there can't be a party without you if you're alone at home spinning your favorite record and you have
06:57potato chips and diet coke and that ain't much of a party well i mean wait i mean think about
07:04yourself
07:04where would you be if you're home alone talking to yourself yeah i'd be listening to destroyer on
07:11my turntable i think maybe well you're very kind well i have done that uh many times in the past
07:15by the way celebrating its 50th uh anniversary and you got this uh collection with uh dixon flannel
07:21you're you're always coming up with stuff i guess people are always coming to you to put the kiss
07:25brand logo that is that is uh dixon's cool and but that's just a drop in the bucket there are
07:32literally
07:33thousands of new licensed products and we've got a new partner called pop house that actually bought
07:40kiss yes yeah and i keep hearing big numbers go a million you know lots of uh but who knows
07:49uh but
07:50they're the best partners you can imagine because they're in the middle of putting together the first
07:57kiss movie scripted and everything we've got mcg directing he did charlie's angels and lots of other
08:04stuff and mark canton is producing who ran one of the major studios in hollywood and we're almost at
08:12the casting stages you know who's going to play who and so on so that's very exciting and there's going
08:18to be oh my goodness cartoon shows theme parks you whatever you can imagine where no band has gone
08:27before who do you want to play you in the movie do you have any did did he have any
08:31yeah my preference
08:33would be on unknowns okay i mean i don't want to see uh that's my taste i know that it's
08:42better for
08:44uh marketing people because i just produced a big movie that came out called deep water that
08:49had sir ben kingsley and aaron eckhart i saw that that was really good actually very good yeah thank
08:55you yeah uh movies take an awfully long time but when somebody is too well known it's difficult to even
09:03say anything because there are always exceptions but when you're doing a biopic you've got to be really
09:09careful who's going to be the person if you know too much about what somebody looks like elvis for
09:16instance it's really tough to get somebody to play that part who's i don't know how to say this too
09:22well known because reality gets oh that's uh that's so and so as elvis you want to lose yourself which
09:31is
09:31why i'm a big fan of getting lesser known actors yeah now did did you watch like the dirt and
09:38bohemian
09:38rap scene stuff like that you like those movies the dirt was terrific i thought it was true to form
09:43to
09:43what motley's about and and rami did amazing but for the masses they don't know who that is
09:51yeah and and that's what made it good that's what made it real obviously the script and the director
09:58and all that but yeah i don't want somebody famous to play freddie mercury yeah now you just
10:05talked about uh you know uh this company buying uh kiss uh somebody wanted me to ask you about
10:09what your best business decision was outside of the music uh world would that be it you think
10:15no coming to america and i don't say that in jest or anything i'm so to some people embarrassingly
10:27patriotic and uh grateful for the people of america who allow this legal i underline legal immigrant to
10:37come into america and first hear about it as eight eight and a half year old boy because i was
10:46eight
10:46before i was nine see what i just did there yeah uh i started hearing about something called the
10:53american dream i i didn't understand what that was and as the years passed i realized you can't be in
11:00russia and say the russian dream or in france the french dream means nothing there is only the american
11:08dream and i'm living proof of it it's not only alive but it's alive and well i i came from
11:15nothing
11:15my mother was in a concentration camp in nazi germany we had nothing and we came to america
11:22and my mother went to work in a sweat factory there wasn't even a minimum wage
11:29and through education and learning to speak english well and learn you know assimilating and so on
11:36we rose to the heights i mean getting the kennedy center honors from the president come on you can't
11:43buy that in a supermarket you've got to earn it yeah and where are you going to get this award
11:49in
11:49nashville where's that going to take place i have no idea oh i thought it was going to be at
11:54the
11:54opera or something i don't i don't use a system well it's not necessarily a nashville it's it's a
12:00business symposium where all the promoters in the country get together and they you know talk about
12:07performers and the business yeah yeah a couple months ago i was doing some yard work and i was
12:11listening to your interview with bill o'reilly your story is really one of the american dream no
12:15question about that and of course uh then you come here you you build a huge career obviously
12:20you know um you got two great kids then you you talked about record stores and whatnot i saw that
12:25your your son and uh and uh paul stanley's kid were signing records here yeah you posted on about how
12:30proud you were i mean talk talk to me about that for a second oh come on i urge uh
12:35anybody and
12:35everybody yes nepotism is a big word like gymnasium but ignore that at the end of the day you get
12:42judged by what you do not who you are right yeah and so uh you know there are exceptions michael
12:50douglas turned out to be a decent actor even though kirk douglas was an actor and you know and so
12:55on and
12:56so forth there are examples and mostly nepotism doesn't work just because you're rod stewart doesn't
13:02mean there's going to be junior rod stewart and i love rod you know he's got great kids and all
13:08that but
13:08the public decides everything so ignore everything i say check out stanley simmons
13:15they didn't want to use those names they didn't want to you know hey dad i love you can i
13:20have 20
13:20bucks they didn't want to do any of that but you know they ran up a brick wall which is
13:26you're damned
13:26if you do damned if you don't they they were childhood friends they went on tours with us and
13:33you know they'd see each other and hung out and who knew they'd develop into this kind of
13:39individually without talking to each other
13:43one went through evan went the route of blues
13:47and really learned to play great guitar and nicholas keyboards and nick got involved in kind of radio head
13:54that kind of stuff he started off with acdc abba you know all the greats
13:59uh and then wandered off into radio head and you know that kind of stuff and then they happened to
14:08meet at just as pals at nick's place and evan brought an acoustic guitar and they set up a video
14:18and
14:18they did sounds of silence just one acoustic guitar and those two singing you got to check it out go
14:25on
14:26youtube but sounds of silence stanley simmons you you won't believe it yes it's uh their their band
14:33is nothing like kiss but there is a groove and kind of a a classic mentality to it yeah and
14:39how much did
14:40paul and i have to do with it zip they wouldn't they wouldn't even play us the tracks as they
14:46were
14:46writing it somehow they were able to come up with the goods i have no idea how and by the
14:51way that
14:52doesn't even touch sophie who had the number one asian record called bubblegum and uh she's had
15:00oh you know she writes produces does all this stuff every day and she's got over a billion and a
15:06half
15:07uh i don't know what the hell it's called streams downloads i don't know that i don't know the
15:12difference i have an award sitting here in my room um did she ever ask my opinion nope
15:19just did it but but getting back to your point i love getting up on stage otherwise these songs
15:28fits like a glove which we do which kiss hardly ever played when i go through her it's just like
15:36a hot knife through butter come on that's poetry get up and get your grandma out of here that's poetry
15:44that's right so and just do this you know you know shut up he works twice as hard your man
15:51is
15:51worth a deuce that's right if you bring if you bring home the bacon not for the jews because they
15:56won't do that but if you're the one that's bringing home the the food then the guy gets to clean
16:02and you
16:02know do all that stuff if i'm the one that's bringing home for it it's time to be quiet and
16:07go do
16:07what i say yeah somebody you know we can all be in the same car somebody's got to drive right
16:14and you
16:14know who you know who drives the guy that paid for the car hey you guys just released this um
16:20this live
16:21album from uh anaheim how much how much unreleased kiss stuff is in the vault there's a lot and what
16:28i'm
16:29thrilled uh about is hearing back you never really think oh you know when i was a kid i used
16:35to fart and
16:36shit in my diapers and all that kind of stuff i wasn't any good i listen back to it today
16:40i go
16:40you know sounds like these these guys that wore more makeup and higher heels than your mommy ever did
16:48sounds like they they were here you know to burn rubber they weren't fooling around if if i listen to
16:56that as a new band i go wow that's a lot of energy and that's what uh impresses me most
17:02the band at
17:03that point was really all for one one for all and but you know familiarity breeds contempt not
17:10everybody's got the dna to run a marathon that happened with lennon mccartney and jagger and richards
17:17and you know simon and garfunkel everybody it seems for some sad reason to turn on each other of course
17:24there's drugs and alcohol and all the stupid stuff but at least when you were starting out there was
17:29somebody to slap the back of your head so that you looked like one of those bobblehead dolls
17:35when you went astray but as you become more famous and richer there's nobody there to say
17:42are you a moron the hell you're doing you worked hard to become to get all this the money the
17:47fame
17:47the chicks and you're gonna blow it you are gonna blow it so i've been lucky i've always been straight
17:54never been higher drunk in my life which is why i just turned 77 i can hold my hand in
18:02front of my
18:03face and it doesn't do this right right yeah you'd be shocked you know ozzy and i bless him
18:10are the same age and ace sadly passed away but he's years younger than i am
18:20yeah did did how have you and paul remained like so connected at the hip over all these years
18:28i think it bears noting that you don't have to agree on many things and paul and i hardly do
18:38um he he likes cooking i i can't you'd have to hold a gun to my head he he likes
18:47french uh pastries
18:50you know the fluffy fine like shit like sweet shaving cream that you can't chew i don't care
18:56about that i i gotta be able to chew put some chocolate and some jam in the middle of a
19:01rock
19:02and i'm i'm set gotta be able to chew so if you walk into a room and there's a chocolate
19:08cake there
19:09and if you see you know the uh chocolate missing and just the devil's food left you know paul's been
19:15there and another on the other table if you see um what's left over is the chocolate and devil's food
19:23gone you know i've been there but you know it bears noting that currency has two different
19:30completely different sides they don't resemble each other but both get along fine and both can
19:36lay claim to being a dollar bill the differences are probably what makes it better one and one equals
19:45three kind of a thing because if you're do if you're exactly the same then what have you got to
19:51offer that i can't do myself kind of a thing which is which is why we can talk about lennon
19:57and mccartney
19:57and jagger and richard's all we want a solo artist it doesn't touch the beatles or the stones
20:05yeah and if you notice that you know i guess i guess when you're coming here solo on september 20th
20:09playing all these great songs and stuff but i guess when you put the band back together when that
20:13unit is formed that's when that's when it really stood the magic takes over at the end of the day
20:18you live or die by the team and i've got killers i got three guys who are multi-instrumentalists
20:24every guy can lead his own band they all sing in fact at the show you're going to hear them
20:28they're all going to take a song and uh sing and by the way i just found out eric singer
20:33our drummer
20:35is going to drive out he wants to jump up on stage and you know what and have fun
20:40wow there's nothing i mean i can't think of having more fun with with my pants on
20:47being on stage there's just nothing like it it's uh as they say down south a hoot yeah
20:56and i know you're going to be here on september 20th like i mentioned umw field in utica but i
21:01want to give this a shout as well november 5th you're going to be at my friend's place in green
21:04bay the epic event center and i was there last month they have a giant 20 foot uh painting of
21:11your base on the wall where the where the bands hang out oh no that's that's so sweet i i
21:18always
21:18appreciate um that kind of stuff i you don't understand uh you know when the kid can't imagine
21:30i could bear when i first came to america i couldn't even ride a bike i mean we came from
21:35nothing i never
21:35had a bike i never had a tv set i didn't know what tv was i know it sounds like
21:40what are you talking
21:41about everybody no not where i came from they had dirt roads i never heard of television when i came
21:47to america i turned on the first tv and i i couldn't believe it it was like what i thought
21:52there
21:52was a guy it was the news and there's a close-up of the guy's face black and white color
21:58hadn't come
21:59yet and he's saying this evening tonight i thought there was a guy in the box i didn't know there
22:05was
22:05that he was his image was being flown through the air thousands of miles what and then i saw
22:13a human being with a cape flying through the air outside of a plane i just couldn't understand it was
22:20like what is that and then i walked into my first supermarket which was like a city of food i
22:27saw people
22:28going down avenues and byways where the food was taller than the people they would disappear like
22:36what is that america come on yes there's not another country that touches us and then at one point
22:44you probably watched four guys from liverpool on tv and probably blew your mind i didn't know what to
22:49think i i always worked and i remember it was a sunday night and i came yes i worked on
22:56sundays
22:56and i came back and my sweet mother would have these things called tv dinners
23:03you'd have this this thing box and you'd warm it up in the oven we didn't have microwave back then
23:11and eat them on tv trays tv trays yeah that's right and i had a tv tray you had your
23:17mashed potatoes your
23:18peas you know like meat and even dessert like those small slice of cheesecake or something i was happy
23:25even even with the peas so i'm eating the stuff and all the if you talk like that she loves
23:31you
23:31i'm going what is that it's like four girls with the silly hair and everything because in those days
23:38everybody had really really short hair i mean i've got really long hair but it's tied back at any rate
23:47um i thought they looked funny and then my mother came in and she said boy they look funny and
23:51at that
23:52point i thought huh maybe maybe they look cool yeah yeah and of course you uh you modeled kiss after
24:03that and uh whenever you come to detroit it's always a big thing i saw you at uh at your
24:07uh rock and
24:08bruise when you were here a couple months ago now you're coming back to detroit rock city on september 20th
24:12so
24:12it'll be a big night i i love it all and you meet new folks uh people of all ages
24:20from all walks of
24:21life and often you meet people that have been going to the concerts and kiss and my solo band uh
24:30it's like an extended family it's the best and by the way kaleidos playing that day the detroit band
24:35and also a derrick st holmes from the old ted nugent days you probably yeah derrick sure took ted out
24:41as an
24:42opening band within a year and a half of forming we found ourselves and it just came out the live
24:50box set kiss destroys anaheim here we are headlining a stadium and ted and his band were one of the
25:00opening bands and there was derrick he was there and bob seger was on the bill and you know all
25:07kinds of
25:08great artists who've been around for decades at least a decade we didn't know what we were doing
25:13it bears noting by the way people were saying ah must have been great how many mansions did you have
25:19no i was on 85 a week salary all the money we made went right back into the shows but
25:28you didn't care
25:28you were rock and roll gypsies the circus came back into town you hop on and you just go on
25:34an
25:34adventure yeah as much attention and as you are seeing the sights and his chicks oh yeah i forgot
25:41about that because i have a feeling if i was a dentist i wouldn't get as much attention oh he's
25:47a
25:47dentist i gotta give him some hey by the way real fast before i cut you loose here i saw
25:53rush the other
25:53day and oh my god i love that band so good they were so good of course you know you
25:58guys famously
25:59toured together back in the day but no it's a little it's a little different we took him from
26:04nowhere nobody would give him a tour because they were canadian right but but when paul and i heard
26:10working man and especially yeah oh yeah i thought what is that and we didn't care where it was from
26:20for heaven's sakes i wasn't born in america so we took rush out on their very first tour
26:24and we'd have to torture the uh promoters who when you got there to do a show i'll never forget
26:32we played winterland in san francisco and it was kiss the tubes and then rush and i remember getty i
26:41think it was getty who came into our dressing room as we're putting on makeup because we got to start
26:45two hours earlier while the opening bands are going on and he's going we're really hungry is can
26:51you arrange food i go what are you talking about you should have food in your dressing room he goes
26:56no the so the promoter cheaped out so half made up i went over to bill graham then i said
27:03we don't go
27:03on you don't feed our bands we don't go on so they went out and got burgers and you know
27:09and stuff like
27:09that yeah treat everybody the way you want to be treated well one of the recent shows i guess annika
27:17she kind of plays these games at the end of working man at the end of their set and she
27:21actually put on
27:21the uh the the the the the costume thing i guess ace and and alex used to goof around with
27:26the the
27:27down the bag yeah the bag yeah called the bag yeah it bears noting on the very last show
27:34in san diego when uh neil was still you know alive what they did was it was pay an homage
27:43to kiss and right on stage were these six foot tall uh they were store what were they called
27:52like when you wanted to buy kiss stuff it was like the band was there you know full height and
27:58we
27:58were on the stage for the entire evening yeah no look it's uh you will meet the same people
28:06going up that's right as you will going down that's right but so but so far so far so good
28:17well the uh the the uwm field sunday september 20th uh the the inaugural uspbl fall music classic gene i
28:24can hardly wait to see you back here in detroit rock city thank you so much for your time
28:27you're a powerful and attractive man dude it's been great for you to talk to me
28:32good you're learning check out talking rock with meltdown on all podcast platforms and wrif.com