[ad_1]
Gene Simmons of KISS talks with Yahoo Entertainment about his new G² line of Gibson guitars and basses, which kicks off this month with the release of the G² Thunderbird Bass. But the ax-driven conversation soon naturally pivoted to guitar god Eddie Van Halen, whose 66th birthday would have been this Tuesday, Jan. 26. Eddie tragically passed away last October after a years-long battle with cancer, and at that time, Simmons was one of many peers to pay him a tearful tribute.
But Simmons wasn’t just a peer – his role in the early career of Van Halen’s band, when he discovered them performing at a Hollywood nightclub and offered to sign them and record their demos. – is the stuff of rock ‘n’ roll legend.
In a rare moment of modesty, the usually boastful Simmons emphasizes: “All this [false] idea of “you discovered Van Halen”… the people who literally discovered the Van Halen brothers were their mother and father. After that, the two brothers made themselves. Nobody gave them anything. They worked hard for it. They put in the years, paying their dues. However, the KISS superstar admits that by being there early on, he could have put Van Halen on the right track – especially since he gave them some key business advice.
“I was invited back in the 1970s … to a place called the Starwood. My date that night was a young woman named Bebe Buell, who would go on to have a child with [Aerosmith’s] Steven [Tyler], Liv Tyler. And I was busy upstairs in the “ass ****” section, all “who do you think you are?” thing, despising everyone, ”Simmons recalls that fateful evening, when the soon-to-be-legendary young and hungry Pasadena’s live concert blew him away. Simmons initially assumed that the “flurry of stuff” and “classic melodies” he heard emanating from the Starwood stage had been created by several guitarists, and he was astonished when he realized that was the work by Eddie Van Halen alone.
“I ran to the front of the fence on the top floor, so I could see everyone below us – and there were only four guys on stage,” Simmons marvels. “A type [frontman David Lee Roth] had his shirt on, defying gravity, jumping up and down. [Alex Van Halen had] giant drums, playing the double kick. The bass-player [Michael Anthony] had the loudest voice I have ever heard, truly pure, like a banshee. And then the guitarist – I didn’t know their names or anything – he kicks in and starts doing this thing and typing, which I’ve never seen before. … I had never heard of a guitarist, certainly a rock guitarist, do this. And he played not only fast and furious, but sometimes in harmony on the tapping. I was just so amazed. I was waiting backstage for the third song.
The moment Simmons ambushed the Van Halen members after their exhilarating half-hour game, he was “gushing,” swarming them with their future plans – only to be told, “Oh, we had a guy.” outside. He’s a yogurt maker and he’s going to invest in the group. And I begged them, ‘Please don’t do this, Please do not do that. Do not give any percentage of the group at the start. These might be the only profit margins you’ll ever see – that is, you’re going to take a dollar now, and like everything, later in life you won’t see a profit and someone d other will have a word on what you can do. So the news is that I offered to fly them to New York, put them in a hotel, and take them to Electric Lady Studios to produce a 24-track demo. And that’s what I did. I signed them to my company, Man of 1,000 Faces. “
Simmons and Van Halen ended up recording 15 songs, including early versions of “Runnin ‘With the Devil” and “On Fire,” as well as a now famous version of “House of Pain” which has never been featured on any music. Van Halen’s album but Simmons says it’s “maybe my favorite Van Halen song.” Simmons is so proud of this track, in fact, that he even pauses the Yahoo Entertainment interview to feature it on YouTube and listen to it, describing it as “like a steamroller, like a locomotive going down.” … And what is amazing is that almost everything is live, the guitar, the solos, all that. They were one of the few bands – AC / DC is another – one of the few bands that actually sound like the record. You know when you hear a record and go see a band live and Ugh, is it never so good? Nope. This is who they were.
Simmons was incredibly excited about Van Halen’s demo sessions, which took place at both Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady studio and Village Recorder studio in Los Angeles, and he went to see the director of KISS at the time, Bill Aucoin, hoping to bring Van Halen into Aucoin. Management fold. But to his surprise, no one in Camp KISS shared his enthusiasm or vision.
“Aucoin, Paul Stanley, none of the guys in the band, Ace – they didn’t hear him,” Simmons said, shaking his head. “They would just say, ‘So what?’ I’m like, ‘No, you don’t understand. I’m telling you, listen to Uncle Gene, I know what I’m doing. We will eliminate them, open them for us. They’re going to be a mega-group, and we’ll be there with them too! “But an unimpressed Aucoin passed anyway. That’s when Simmons, the savvy businessman, knowing he had a potential gold mine in his hands, had to make a tough decision. And that’s when he experienced another rare moment of humility.
“I had a choice, because they were assigned to me, to keep them locked up with my thing, or to do the ethical thing, which is, ‘Guys, you don’t owe me anything. I tear up your contract. You are free to go, ”says Simmons. He chose the latter, also giving his demonstration masters to the Van Halen brothers, although these officially unseen sessions were hacked and circulated for years under the title. Zero demos. “And of course within two months they made a deal with Warner Bros. and soared. ” Van Halen’s self-titled debut album, produced by Ted Templeman and released in February 1978, eventually sold over 10 million copies.
Simmons remembers that the Van Halen guys were always down to earth: “Eddie has always been like this – no rockstar air, none of that Gene Simmons’ what do you think you are ? ‘ kind of stuff, none of that ‘oh, this guy is an asshole, he’s so full of himself!’ No, he was just a regular lover, even when they became megastars, ”he says. So later, Simmons explains, “They kind of paid me back, because when [KISS] We went to Japan for this tour, came back to LA and I had written some songs, new songs, “Christine Sixteen” and two others, and I was going to go to the studio. I used to come in at night when the phones weren’t ringing, nobody cared, none of the girls were there.
“And what happened was that I didn’t have enough time to do all the instruments, because I usually went there and played drums, guitar and ‘other things, then I did everything. I called Alex or Edward and said, “I’m going to the studio, I’ve got some songs. I don’t know what you are doing tonight. Do you want to come help me? And they did, Alex and Eddie, and the “power trio” was there and we recorded, ”Simmons continues. “It was on my safe, Gene Simmons’ safe, the greatest cabinet of all time – you can hear the trio doing that. In fact, I forced [Kiss guitarist] Ace Frehley, when we finally made it [the KISS studio version of] “Christine Sixteen”, to copy Edward’s note-for-note solo – which he was of course not happy about! It is its good [Eddie] solo was. A take.”
Since Simmons is a savvy entrepreneur responsible for everything from gigantic box sets to his new partnership with Gibson G², one would expect him to be pleased with whether he predicted Van Halen’s success, or that he did. would always be. kick each other to let them go and not get a share of the profit. But he insists: “No, none of that, none of that, none of that. I earn my living and all my dreams have more than come true. … I did not give [Van Halen] their talent. I did not invent them. I happened to be there as this magnificent beast passed. I was there at the start; that’s all you can honestly say. If they would have lasted longer and maybe made some wrong turns at the start, yes that might have killed their careers. So maybe I said, “Don’t go this way, let’s go this way”, and that led directly to… I would like to think that this demo helped them close the Warner Bros. deal. But they owe me nothing. “
Check out Yahoo Entertainment’s extended interview on Gene Simmons’ Gibson G² collaboration, which has a family-focused mission that could lead to the formation of the next Van Halen-style fraternal group:
Learn more about Yahoo Entertainment:
· Wolfgang Van Halen creates a touching musical tribute to Father Eddie: “I love you and I miss you, Pop”
· Patty Smyth on how she almost became the singer of Van Halen: “I followed the path I had to take”
· KISS revisits “Phantom of the Park”, 40 years later – “Wow, that was weird”
· Sophie Simmons on Finding Her Own Voice: “I was just a normal preteen, and that wasn’t enough for the industry I was born into”
#NoMakeupSunday: When KISS showed off their faces on MTV
Yoshiki and Gene Simmons unite via the shared love of rock, Hello Kitty dolls
· Ace Frehley says he would join KISS farewell tour “for the right price”
Follow Lyndsey on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Amazon, Spotify.
Produced by Jon San, edited by Jason Fitzpatrick.
[ad_2]
Source link