The band John Lydon thought was “deliberately fake”
Every rock band in history had their credibility questioned more than a few times. From the moment an artist becomes well-known, there is always a question surrounding whether they are in it for the right reasons, with audiences doubting if they are as authentic as they seem. While John Lydon has been known to call out many artists for what they are, he considered one of the reigning kings of rock and roll to be nothing but smoke and mirrors.
Then again, Lydon’s success was about tearing down the old guard of rock and roll. When Lydon first put together Sex Pistols, rock and roll had become a bloated parody of itself when most of the album became dominated by artists looking to make elongated solo exercises rather than actual songs.
Assembling fellow punk luminaries like Steve Jones and Paul Cook, Lydon shocked the system with Nevermind the Bollocks, bringing rock back to its feeble roots with blaring guitar chords and screaming about the outcasts of society on songs like ‘Anarchy in the UK’. While Lydon admitted to rebelling against anything and everything, every musician gets it from somewhere.
When talking about the influences Lydon loved growing up, he singled out the artists known for shocking the system, like Alice Cooper, getting into his first band by singing his youth anthem, ‘I’m Eighteen’. Although Lydon may have softened up on some of his opinions with age and even admitted to liking a handful of Pink Floyd songs, he felt that Kiss was more of a manufactured product than a rock outfit.
Forming out of New York in the early 1970s, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons started the band wanting to create the biggest spectacle they could when they took to the stage. Whereas most bands tried to add a bit of flair to every one of their shows, Kiss turned every one of their sets into a sideshow, with the music taking a backseat to seeing Simmons breathe fire and watching Ace Frehley shoot rockets from his guitar.
Although Lydon could certainly appreciate the effort into the production, none of the music appealed to him. Since punk was about sending a message into the world, Lydon felt that everything Kiss stood for was just a corporate take on what proper rock and roll should have been.
When talking about selling out, Lydon thought that most of Kiss’ music was shallow outside the costumes, telling SPIN, “There’s a lot [of artists] that are selling you an image that’s false, deliberately fake, and deliberately commercial. I’ve met the Kiss lads. They’re all right. You know, [but] without the makeup, there ain’t much going on”.
While Kiss may have tried their hand at taking the makeup off during the 1980s, the stage show was still the main draw for everyone, looking to see them dominate the stage and seeing the bombs going off whenever they performed. Even though Stanley and Simmons carved out their own place in rock history, there comes a point where they’re known more for the sideshow than for any of their anthems.
