Speaker 1: Just the shortcut is it's a kiss world. You're just living in it. There's a lot.
Speaker 2: So you've been in the industry a while now, but kiss is still having an impact on pop culture. Uh, for example, you shared the other day, a picture of the latest, uh, records store day poster. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 1: Oh, oh my God. That's pop culture stuff. If you go on media, you'll find people, uh, doing all kinds of crazy things [00:00:30] and thematically it's about kiss. So if you go to, as a matter of fact, a few years ago, Carneal the largest gathering of people. I, I kid you not, you can look it up on and Schmo. Uh, they had a Jean Simmons, you know, there are like a million people that gather more than that in Rio in Brazil. And they had a Jean Simmons parade as one of the parades, there were 5,000 unlucky, uh, folks who dressed up like me, lots of girls with plumage wearing [00:01:00] my makeup. And they were all doing music in time. So, uh, anywhere I go or you can visit kiss world in Las Vegas at the Rio hotel. And, um, just the shortcut is it's a kiss world. You're just living in it. There's a lot of stuff every day, somebody's doing stuff or wearing makeup, or you can Google most of the famous folks out there, whether it's Gaga, who I'm a big fan of and, uh, lots of folks. And [00:01:30] you'll see them in kiss makeup. Cause it's fun.
Speaker 2: How do you feel about being the inspiration behind a Pokemon character?
Speaker 1: You, you know, I'll answer, uh, seriously, because I am a joke and I like to joke around and all that is I don't care. I don't mean that to be, uh, uncaring or disingenuous and other big words like gymnasium. The, I am the luckiest guy on the face of the planet. You know, I came to America, couldn't [00:02:00] speak a word of English as most immigrants legal wants to. And the idea that you could climb success and get to Heights, you never imagined were possible is more reward than I could ever imagine. So this idea of, Hey, you're a big deal. People talk about you or they don't, they like you or they don't, it, you can't imagine most folks the life I have. [00:02:30] And more than that, Bob's your uncle, as they say on the lonely island in the middle of the ocean.
Speaker 2: So you're going back on tour in a couple of months. How will this tour be?
Speaker 1: Oh no. We're back on tour in two days, two days tomorrow, tomorrow I fly up a, uh, we have a jet started off having dreams of, I was so grateful at least here to be allowed to come into America and have my dreams come true that I wanted to sort of give back. [00:03:00] So I actually became a sixth grade teacher in Spanish, Harlem, and I wanted to instill that the spark in kids' eyes it's like books information. This was before the handheld device. What has, which has all the answers you could ever want about anything. So you can said, oh, how do you do that? Ask Siri. So I wanted to get that, that search for knowledge hunger in young people's minds, never imagining [00:03:30] that within six months, our little band that was rehearsing would get a record contract. And within a year and a half where headlining Anaheim stadium, I'd never been to California. Anything we land, you gotta go. What's Anaheim, man. Never heard of it. And 55,000 people before MTV, before the internet, before voicemail.
Speaker 2: So as far as keeping up with current music, obviously you spare, uh, shared the, the picture of record store day. Uh, do you listen to vinyl? Are you, [00:04:00] uh, listening to streaming services? How do you listen to music nowadays?
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, because of my time schedule, cuz every day I'm like a ping pong ball. Uh, people take wax at me. Radio is the way. So you try to find, uh, cutting edge stuff that, you know, plays new stuff. And then when I've had enough, you can just turn the dial and you get, uh, you know, the blues, uh, BB King's blues network on, uh, serious. That [00:04:30] works really well. Cuz you get to hear Bobby blue bland and uh, you know, just all the classic stuff that should be the roots that can connect. Of course the new generation has no idea who a lot of those people are and they should, they should find out who Albert King is and so on. And I've actually met people who have never heard of Chuck Berry. I did the eulogy at Chuck's, uh, funeral, unfortunately. And, but you're right in [00:05:00] asking how spectacular is the new Gibson gene Simmons, G squared base line of instruments. I'm glad you asked that question. You know
Speaker 2: Why you are known for your act base. So why a Gibson base now?
Speaker 1: Well, I've had a relationship with Gibson's for decades. I'm older than you think I am. And we started, uh, using Gibson's back in the seventies, the 1870s. You see what I did there? That was another [00:05:30] joke. It's like you gotta keep up about, uh, 1976 or so, because I started off, I had handmade my own base because I didn't like the way bases felt for one thing. The next over here were not exposed. So a lot of the bases from another guitar company fender had the, uh, horn coming in and getting in the way. So you couldn't slide. [00:06:00] Woo. You know, when you wanna do that all the way up to the neck, you'd go who you couldn't go up. And I hated that the G squared base is almost completely exposed next. You can really hit those high notes, but it sounds terrific. You know, I forgot your answer cuz I love the sound of my own voice,
Speaker 2: But no, that's fantastic. I, I I'm really looking forward to playing the bass. Actually I'm a bass player myself. So, uh, wish you all the best on the tour. Jean Simmons. Thank you very much for your.
