The iconic band Gene Simmons wanted to sign: “Nobody else saw it”
Celebrated as the bassist of Kiss and notorious for his personality, Gene Simmons has always divided opinion. Whether it the music, the gimmick, or his political opinions, the New Yorker has made a career out of shocking people, and it’s a position that hasn’t dwindled over time.
Perhaps due to the high level of arrogance, Simmons is considered to emit, as well as his shocking comments towards Terry Gross and an interview in which he made some pretty astonishing comments about suicide—and many other uncomfortable moments—he’s often thought of as a heel and nothing more. For droves of music fans, he represents the absolute worst of rock stars from the classic era.
However, just as no one is perfect, no one is one-dimensional. While it might leave some people scratching their heads as it starkly juxtaposes some of his other more infamous instances, Simmons has a gregarious side. From his various philanthropic efforts, which include sponsoring hundreds of children in Africa and fighting to get healthcare to children across the world, to Rock School, where he took cues from School of Rock and sought to turn a class of children into rock stars, clearly, there is some degree of humanity that lies beneath the black shades.
As Rock School might have suggested, he’s no stranger to using his position and status in music to help other artists. While he might be a harsh critic when it comes to sonics, when Simmons loves a band, he really does, as Van Halen found out in 1976. He first saw Eddie Van Halen and his group at Hollywood’s Starwood Club and was immediately blown away.
Simmons knew this band was the future of hard rock and heavy metal, and as he told Classic Rock in 2023, he wanted to sign them. As his own band, Kiss were one of the most popular on earth during this era; he could sign them, and he did. However, their business association was fleeting.
“So I signed the band to my production company, Man Of 1,000 Faces, flew them to New York and produced a demo for them at Electric Lady Studios,” Simmons recalled. “If you Google the words ‘Gene Simmons Van Halen demo’ you can hear the song that I consider to be Edward’s defining moment.”
In his typically self-confident manner, Simmons said that Van Halen’s version of ‘House of Pain’ was “the most powerful thing they ever did.” However, despite “the quality of those tracks” that were recorded, the bassist maintained that it wasn’t enough to convince his manager at the time, Bill Aucoin, or Kiss frontman Paul Stanley to take any serious interest in taking the band further. Never one to spurn an opportunity to take a jab at his rivals, Simmons noted that at the time, bandmates Ace Frehley and Peter Criss were “too busy making bad decisions about life” to even notice Van Halen.
Lamenting his disregarded opportunity to take Van Halen further, he said: “I had wanted to take Van Halen under the wings of Kiss. We should have signed them and taken them out on tour with us. Sadly, nobody else in our organisation saw it and of course, months later, Warner Brothers came by and scooped them up.”
Unfortunately for Simmons, by the time Kiss went on tour again, Van Halen had released their debut single, the hit cover of The Kinks’ ‘You Really Got Me’. They became superstars quickly, and all he could say to the rest of his band was: “I told you so, you morons.” He also does not doubt that for him, the late Eddie Van Halen was the most important musician since Jimi Hendrix, a naturally contentious point for many others.
