The Evolution of a Rockstar | Gene Simmons
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Manage your business from one dashboard and keep it growing with built-in marketing features. Get everything you need to turn your part-time passion into a full-time business. Go to Wix.com. And then one day, I can't remember who, said, hey, let's go downstairs to Woolworth and bought makeup and black lipstick and red lipstick and decided to put on makeup. She asked people on the street, just a close-up of Teddy Roosevelt on the

Mount Rushmore. Who's that? I have no idea. But as soon as you show those faces, they go, oh yeah, Kiss. Even if you hate the band. And I'm talking Africa, Southeast Asia, anywhere you go. It doesn't mean it's the best band. It just means that the imagery connected in ways that

No other band connected. Gene Simmons is a rock and roll legend, best known as the charismatic bassist and frontman of Kiss. With a larger-than-life persona, theatrical concert style, and signature face paint, Simmons and Kiss revolutionized rock in the 1970s and 80s with hits like "I Was Made For Lovin' You" and "Rock and Roll All Night." Born in Haifa, Israel, Simmons immigrated to New York City with his mother as a young boy and was inspired to become a performer after seeing the Beatles appear on The Ed Sullivan Show. With a knack for marketing and a love of music, Simmons created his demon persona to make Kiss a massive success.

44 albums later and at 100 million records sold, the band just finished their farewell tour in 2023. Beyond his musical career, Gene Simmons has leveraged his stage personality into a career as an entrepreneur, appearing on reality television and launching a successful merchandising empire. In today's episode, Gene tells the story of his family's persecution and immigration to the United States, how his upbringing shaped his personal philosophy, and his journey to becoming an iconic rock star. He also shares the reason for his deep American patriotism, as well as a few hard-learned lessons about love.

Simmons' impact on American music and culture is undeniable. Don't miss the legendary Gene Simmons on this episode of the Sunday Special. Gene Simmons, thanks so much for stopping by. I appreciate it. It's my pleasure. You're actually better looking than I thought you were. Wow, I didn't think that was even possible, since, as everyone knows, I'm just like a godlike specimen. Well, as we both know, these are semantics, but I'm not anti-semantic.

Okay, so I want to begin with sort of your recent foray into anti-woke politics. You've been speaking out pretty openly about the evils of wokeism and the extreme left. You sort of consider yourself a political centrist, is that right? Well, I think it's fair to say that I'm completely unqualified in the body politic, especially worldwide body politic, because our perceptions, perhaps yours, mine, and

The rest of the populace is based on what we see, hear, and feel emotionally from social media. Having said that, why anybody would care what I have to say about anything other than the fact that I stick my tongue out for a living? By the way, I would have done that for you right away, but the floor is a little dirty. So I think it's fair to say that the powerful and attractive man you see before you votes on issues that

rather than political parties or personalities. So by the way, some of the things you've said I completely disagree with, and other things just make sense to me. And that's what I highly recommend to the rest of the populace of this third stone from the sun, which is to say that life gives you a menu, and you're lucky and blessed to be living in a free society,

Pick and choose the items that make sense for you. You may not be changing lots of stuff, but at least you'll be voting your conscience. So am I essential? I don't like labels because they limit who and what you are. A free spirit, generally very liberal in terms of humanism.

Generally speaking, love thy neighbor as thyself. Most of the time, I don't treat Nazis the same way as I would perhaps you. You know, love thy neighbor. You know, don't, what's that phrase? Do unto others what they would unto you. In other words, don't do the stuff you think will hurt. Well, that also generally applies. A sadomasochist.

might slap you in the face. And I'm going, what are you doing that for? He goes, well, I'm a sadomasochist. I like that. I thought you'd like it too. So we can apply, everything's just general. There's always an exception to it. So the short answer, although you've opened up a can of worms because you can tell I love the sound of my own voice, is that I respond to issues, mull them over, and sometimes I

Sometimes I think it makes all the sense in the world to build a wall around any sovereign state. And it's interesting to note, by the way, that not too long ago, the Pope, who I'm a big fan of, I think is good for humanity and generally speaking, provides uplifting messages, said, and I'm almost quoting, that building a wall, especially between America and Mexico, is not humane.

It's not good, it's not nice and all that stuff, except for the fact that the Vatican has a massive wall around itself. So I believe good fences make good neighbors, and you're talking to an immigrant, a legal immigrant. I know I don't look Swiss. I was born in Israel, and in a lot of ways I...

Consider myself American. You know, this idea of Jewish American or Israeli American or African American. So, you know, get used to it. You're American if you love it. And I should probably stop. Otherwise, it's going to be the Gene Simmons show, not the Ben. By the way, you know what? You're...

You know, I speak Hebrew, Hungarian, German, English, a few other languages. You know what your name means, don't you? In Hebrew? Yeah, I do. But why don't you give me the explication? Well, full name is Benjamin. Literal translation is son of Jamin, which would be the family of Jamin. Shortened means Ben. Benjamin.

Most people don't know that Ben, and by the way, our Semitic brethren use a similar word, Ben, like Ben Laden is the same thing. It's the son of the family of Laden. So when people watch Ben-Hur, you're 12, right? So you're not familiar with that movie, right? Never heard of it? Yeah. It's really about a Jewish guy, you know, who tried to survive and

Roman times, but the literal translation of his name is the son of the family of her. Yep. Well, I mean, whenever I'm called to the Torah, that is the way that you're described, right? I'm Benjamin Aharon ben David Yaakov, right? Meaning the Benjamin Aaron, the son of David Jacob. I notice you're speaking semi-American Sfaradit. Exactly. Instead of

instead of Ashkenazi. My wife's Moroccan. That's why I got it. I started integrating all of her habits into my Hebrew pronunciation. Well, always do what your wife says. You know why men die younger than their wives? Because they want to. Don't tell your wife that. So I want to talk to you a little bit about the sort of heterodox politics that you describe. Because

It used to be in the United States that that was sort of considered the norm, is that you could hold a wide variety of views, sometimes in conflict with one another, that the heterodoxy was sort of the way of the world. That is the way that you approach political issues. It wasn't straight line partisan. You could hold by one party. You could hold by the other party. You could have a mix of the two. And now it seems as though all the heterodoxy seems to have moved to one side of the aisle. That's one of the bizarre things that's sort of happening in American politics today. If you look at the left side of the aisle, there's not a lot of ideological diversity there.

If you look to, for example, the Trump coalition, you have people who disagree on pretty much every issue that it's possible to disagree on. You have pro-choicers and pro-lifers inside the Trump coalition. You have people who are pro-big government and pro-small government. You have people who are interventionists and isolationists all inside sort of the same coalition. And I wonder how much of that has to do, you think, with, say, Donald Trump. And how much do you think that has to do with the sort of increasingly censorious nature of the left? Well, in the full interest...

Full disclosure before the fact, I knew the gentlemen somewhat, ran into each other and spent a little time with Mr. Trump. And, you know, in some ways I'm a big fan. In other ways I have a problem. I would say that the extreme left has taken over the left and the extreme right has taken over the right.

And the vast majority of us, which is why the polls got it wrong again, and they will continue to get it, because the big swath, that big middle,

don't really want to get into arguments and stuff. They just want to do what the founding fathers in America designed when we used to have curtains and you voted. You vote your conscience and it's nobody's damn business who you're voting for. Nowadays, families get split down the middle when the kids vote one way and dad votes another way. But I think it's a wake-up call for everybody. It's twofold. One is...

have a sense of humor, you know, just laugh a little bit. You're not going to die tomorrow. It's going to be okay. Two, it bears noting that no matter how extreme somebody's views are in America to you, in the same way that American currency has two completely different parts that don't resemble each other, it's their America as well, certainly as well as yours. So we can agree to disagree,

And I would prefer to have conversations that don't start off politically and find out what makes us, you know, Americans, which is, hey, you like burgers? I love them. And do you like, you know, find the stuff that you go to when you have a camera that goes across a football field or a baseball field or any public thing. You'll find people of all kinds of denominations, races, political views and all that stuff that

Everybody's allowed to be in that game. Or do you have to sign in and say, are you a Republican? Are you a Trumpian? Are you a thisian? Are you a thatian? Mostly it's Armenians that have the I-A-N. Or north or south, depends. It could be a Y-A-N. I'm here with life lessons. So I would recommend some of my best friends are toe the line Republicans.

The cult of personality, basically. From step one to step ten, whatever our current president says, they fall in line with. And I'm kind of in the middle. I'm Gladys' president. My crypto holdings in the millions are doing very well, thank you. Dow Jones industrials are way up. And I think that has a lot to do with perception. And so far...

It's been very good. I think it bears noting, and most people don't know this, is that our current president, and I think it bears noting that before he became a political animal, because once you become a politician, your tail grows and your fangs come out and it's adversarial stuff. That's what it's all about. He was actually a big supporter of Democrats. And Bill and Hillary Clinton went to his wedding and they were pals.

And if you take a look at when Barbara and the original cast of The View were on and Donald Trump came on, kissy-kissy, hug-hug, they loved him. Even Whoopi. I knew Whoopi a little bit. So...

I think people have a mistaken sense of what the body politic is all about. So I would recommend everybody start off with before you can easily list what you don't like about somebody. I don't like what Trump said here. I don't like what's it. Well, first of all, use the word president, because if you don't like the person in office, at least respect the office he was elected to. He is President Trump.

If you don't like it, next time vote for somebody else. That's democracy. So find good things to say about other people. He's not a Nazi. My mother was a concentration camp survivor of Nazi Germany. The rest of our family wiped out. I know what a Nazi is. He's not a Nazi. It may not align with your version of what it is to be liberal and stuff, but maybe I don't either. And trust me, I'm not a Nazi.

His children, well, none of them smoke, drink, get high, any of that stuff. Neither do I. I've never been high, never been drunk, never smoked cigarettes. That's a pretty good indication. If you come to Hollywood, the most liberal, most progressive folks have really messed up kids. Some. Rehab, shmehab, shmehab.

On and on and on. The permissive society, wokeism and all that. So I think it's a fair statement to say that yours truly is, I take up a lot of space in the middle and then in the menu of life, I choose the things that make sense for me.

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Early on, I'm sure, realized it's difficult to get a tiger in a cage and, okay, now behave. Now you're in the middle of a cage. He's a tiger. Those are the stripes on the animal. So he basically said what he wanted to say. And he was kind enough. I had a roast where all kinds of good comedians cut me a new one. And he was kind enough to send his five or ten jokes that made fun of me.

Look, at the end of the day, if you didn't know somebody and they didn't talk about politics, you'd have no problem sitting down because you probably recognize the human part of that. And I would urge everybody to, when you first meet somebody, it's not a litmus test.

Don't start talking about, do you want to transition? Or don't start the conversation. Wait, it'll come up. Don't worry. Don't talk politics, religion. There's always going to be something you're going to object to, and you're not going to win the argument. People are allowed to live and decide for themselves what makes sense for themselves.

And if you like being around them, that's fine. But hi, nice to see you. I'm Gene. Are you a supporter of Donald Trump? Well, you're not going to get very far.

So you mentioned earlier your story that you come from Haifa in Israel, that your mom is a Holocaust survivor. You have an amazing American story. Can you tell me about how you ended up being a child growing up in Israel to being one of the great rock stars in the United States of all time? That's a pretty great story. You just figured out the secret. Ego, ego, ego. You just fed the beast. Good job, Ben.

Good job. Well, I had nothing to do with it. My father, unfortunately, left us, and yours truly. I'm an only child for my mother, who has always been my hero, my moral compass. Without her, I would have veered right into darkness. So by the time I was seven,

My mother found herself having to get up at the crack of dawn and working six days a week from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. at night. And Israel in those early days was, we didn't have an infrastructure. You'd go once a week down to the

um place where the government officials are and they give you a uh newspaper that's cut out and you get a slab of butter and i remember this uh with the print you know being falling off onto the food you get bread um a slab of meat and so on and that was supposed to you know some other stuff fruits vegetables that was supposed to last you for a week

There were no paved roads or anything. I never saw a television set, never heard of it. We didn't have a radio. There was an outhouse, literally a hole outside the front door. We had a one bedroom. I remember as a kid, and there was a big hole right above the, well, the living room was the bedroom, was the kitchen. You know, the kitchen was over there. It was just a sink. There was no refrigerator. There was an icebox. Once a week, you'd get ice and

That was it. I know it sounds like another century, but most new countries start that way. And when we, my mother had two brothers who escaped Nazi Germany and all that before World War II and succeeded, my uncle George, my mother's brother, became a

Period, period, it's a big word. Basically, he made bridges, fake teeth. I have to tell you, one of the first impressions when we landed with El Al Airlines, we got out and I think it must have been close to winter because there was a big billboard and there was Santa Claus, who I'd never heard of before. I never heard of Jesus or Santa, any of that.

and he's sort of leaning back, holding a cigarette over here. And in the background, I'll never forget this, there were reindeer over there with the chariot or whatever they pull. And he's like that, smiling with the big beard. You know, all I knew was, oh, that's a rabbi. That rabbi is smoking a cigarette. And I didn't know that. And then when we came to my Aunt Magda's house, the wife of my

Mother's brother, Larry, who, bless him, had his own bakery and made a small fortune. And my waistline is proof of that. And I want to tell you that I saw my first television set at Aunt Magda's house.

And it must have been at the right time in the afternoon. They turned it on and I was, I had a spoon in a schmucker's jar and I was eating the jam because I'd never tasted anything like that in my life. And both my aunt and my mom were laughing, tears and everything. I never saw a refrigerator. I know this all sounds like, hey, I never saw a fridge. I

I said, you know, Hungarian, because my Aunt Magda spoke Hungarian, not Hebrew. Mios! Okorokit kici. You know, like, I want a little bit of that. Can I taste it? And she said, of course. And she gave me a spoon, expecting me to just take a little bit. And I put a little bit in my mouth. And I thought she said, sure, you can have that. So, you know, I started eating that. And they turned on the television. And I put down the jar, because what I saw was a guy flying through the air with a cape.

I'll never forget that. And no matter how good this was, what is that? You know, look up in the sky. It's a bird. It's a plane. This amazing land where you had movies and images and people flying through the air and big buildings. I was afraid. I swear to you, I was afraid to cross the street at my Aunt Magda's house because there were cars going by. You know, scared to death.

Anyway, I could go on forever. So you're growing up now in New York. You're a kid. How do you get into music from there? First, my mother, to keep me off the streets, put me in yeshiva. I was a Lubavitch. Well, what can I say? It kept me off the streets, but then I discovered girls. And it's been the bane of my existence ever since. On the other hand, you could take a look at it biblically.

all the chasing, the skirt is really biblical. If you think of it, it's at spread thy seed. And that's what I've been doing. I was just doing the Lord's work. That's what it says. See what I did there. And so, so, um, I'm minding my own business. I always had a job delivering newspapers, working at a butcher store and

Just, you know, always worked. Even when I was six years old in Israel, picking cactus fruit and selling it with Shlomo, my Moroccan friend, Solomon in English, to bring some pruta, you know, the shekels, the Israeli pennies of the time, and bought my first ice cream when I was a little kid, six and a half years old, and I still remember

That taste, I'll never forget that as long as I live. Because nothing is as sweet as something you, you know, by the sweat of thy brow, it says in the good book. Nothing is as sweet and rewarding as something you worked for. You don't have to thank anybody. It's all yours. And then I put all the rest of the money on the table in front of my mother. And she was amazed. And I remember her hugging me and saying, that's my little man.

And ever since then, I've been working for women. Without the money, I don't get much attention. So I must have been 13 or something, and it was a Sunday night. And of course, Sunday, I went around getting everybody's money for delivering the newspapers and all that. And by the early evening, I was at home at my mother's apartment.

And the Ed Sullivan show came up. And the Ed Sullivan show, for those of you that don't know what it was, was the biggest show on television. When the Beatles were on, literally 75 million people were watching this. At the time, half the population of the United States of America. The total population at that point, 64, 60 something, was about 160 million. So...

Again, I put my, I remember what I had. I had faschirt, which is Hungarian hamburger, and peas, which I hated. And I remember putting, my mother always treated me like a king, so I had like a

a little stand with legs on it so I could stand in front of the TV, sit in front of the TV and watch it. And I'm watching the Ed Sullivan show. And, you know, they're singing and stuff. And I, I never saw or heard anything like that. They looked very feminine, little guys with cutesy haircuts and, you know, hair above their ears. I've got some hair left as well. And,

That sound, that high-pitched sound of girls in the audience screaming like turkeys about to be let, you know, to get their heads cut off. I'd never heard anything like that in my life. What the hell is that? And the cameras kept panning to their faces. You know, they looked like they were having a conniption. Outside of New York City, you think it's a connish. No, it's not.

They were like having seizures. I never saw anything like that. And then I figured, that's probably not a bad job to have. And then right after that, by about 14, I joined a band. I couldn't play an instrument then. And I started to talk like that, you know. Yeah, you know, I started to put on a...

an accent, and I got the response. You know, the girls were saying, oh, you're not from here. No, not from here. And they go, oh, all of a sudden you get more attention. Basically, Ben, dress British, think Yiddish. See what I did there? And the Beatles changed my life because I didn't realize it. I didn't know how to verbalize it early on, but they made it okay for

to be different. They spoke with an accent, and so did I. Talk like this, you know, like Israelis with clipped vowels. And they looked different, and I sure didn't look like I came from Sweden. They made it okay to be different. Not only okay, they were the, you know, top of the pile. And so I taught myself how to play guitar initially, and then pragmatism rules, big word like gymnasium,

I picked up a bass guitar because, a cheap Japanese version, because I realized everybody wanted to be a guitar player or drummer. Nobody wanted to be a bass player, but every band had a bass player. So increase your chances of being in a band, play bass. Sure enough, everybody wanted me to be in their band because I could sing. It's a matter of opinion. And thump away at the bass guitar and it's fine.

made me a pretty good living since then. I was thinking of buying Rhode Island, as a matter of fact. We'll get to more of this in a moment. First, let's talk about something that affects all of us responsible, hardworking Americans. Taxes. Yeah.

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So how do you go from being a teenager, just like, you know, a million other teenagers across the United States? You want to be in a band. You start playing. It's still a pretty long journey from there to the top of the heap in terms of rock music. So how does the band come together? Well, initially, what I noticed about being in a band was in the patois of the street, there are a lot of chicks.

I mean, if I announced or held a sign of I'm studying to be a dentist, they're just not going to care. Later on, they do. Once they realize you're making good living and that's what it's about. And so it was the payoff was immediate. You get more popular, you get more girls and all that because that's our primordial, you know, the urge to merge. That's what we, well, I'm giving you a lot of stuff here. You're going to be able to use this in

political discussions. And so...

At the same time, I was working. I became the assistant to the director of the Puerto Rican Interagency Council, a government research and demonstration project. I was the only Jew there, but because it was a government research and demonstration project, there was a percentage of non-Puerto Ricans who had to be there. And I was the one because I took typing classes in high school, pragmatism, because all the girls...

We're taking the typing classes. So I signed up. I also signed up for another class where only girls took it. Greg and Pittman. It was called Shorthand. I signed up. And that gave me the ability to get hired by Kelly Girls, which became Kelly Services, that hired me out for lawyers, real estate companies, all that. In fact, I became...

the assistant to the director of the research and demonstration project. And then I became the man Friday to the editor of Vogue magazine, again, on a floor where there are only girls, bottles and everything else. Then it was terrible. I got to tell you, it was just torture. Couldn't wait to get out of there. And at the same time, decided to get serious about putting a band together and happened to accidentally meet another member of the tribe,

That's failed language for the rest of the world. May not know what that means. And Stanley Eisen became Paul Stanley. And we put a band together. And the idea was, even though we weren't able to verbalize it, let's put together the band we never saw on stage. Almost the way girls really have it in their DNA. There's a club and she calls ahead because she wants to know what's going on. And she gets the word, uh-oh.

Just beware, all the girls are wearing short black minis. So she thinks and goes, I think I'm going to put on a red short mini so that you stand out. Shakespeare figured it out. The whole world's a stage and, you know, figure it out how to get people to look at you. Once you get the attention, it's what you do with it. And KISS was formed way before you were born.

in 19 at the end of 1972 by new year's eve 1973 we played our first show we didn't have a record contract the first record came out in february 1974 within a year and a half before mtv before voicemail before digital before anything no cell phones

Rock was not heard on radio or anything. We were headlining Anaheim Stadium in California. It just exploded. In those days, magazines and imagery was the way it impacted stuff. In the same way that TikTok is the modern version of stuff, you know, like how do you become Mr. Beast? Well, go on. You know who that is? I do. Yep. Yeah. Or how do you become Ben Shapiro? Well, do this stuff. And that's the modern version of it.

And so KISS exploded. And that's been, I know it's difficult to believe, that was about 53 years ago. But for 50 years, and we finally sold our IP and all that in December a year ago to an amazing company called Pop House. And they paid a pretty shekel, Ben. And we continue on. We're doing new stuff and everything.

But during the course of Kiss's active years, every year we'd tour and stuff and kept breaking the rules by making toys and games and licensing and merchandising where other bands were concerned about things like credibility. That never entered into our minds. That's for losers. Credibility? You never even went to music school to learn how to

to learn the basics of music. You can't read or write music. Lennon, McCartney, Hendrix, the Stone, they can't read or write music. You just kind of make it up. You're completely unqualified to do that, but you're concerned about credibility. Get out of here. You know, it's noise. You're lucky enough...

If you can make some money and the chicks chase you and then you die. That's all there is. What does it mean? Where is this going? Do I have my mother's hips? Shut up. Just be lucky you didn't have to join a symphony orchestra where you'd have to pay your dues. Learn about Tchaikovsky and Chopin and all that. And music. You know, just an idiot like me picks up a thing and like a caveman, you sort of fumble through it. And if you can't sing...

Then write a song called Wild Thing. It goes like this. Wild Thing. You make my heart sing. You make everything. You know, you don't have to sing well. Ask any rapper. Going to 7-Eleven, going to go to heaven and stuff. You know, you're not talking about musical mind-sos. But you can be enormously popular and wealthy just singing.

Scientists call it a singularity, having the right thing. And the right thing can be as idiotic as Gangnam Style, which was billions and billions of downloads. Not the Beatles. No. Not Beethoven. No. It's this guy with Gangnam Style, you know, who came from Korea, could barely speak English, but it caught on. You know, became a thing. And

And there was also one about the shark. And the shark said, or is it the fox? I think the fox said. What does the fox say? Yep. Of course you know it. Of course. Yes, and my kids. Yep, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, because you didn't memorize that yourself. No, no, no. I've never listened to such tripe. No, of course not. Yeah. Either as if I was a rich man. So it's, I think the scientific version of it, the headlines are having the right thing.

at the right place and the right time. So before the advent of sort of modern social thought, you know, those things, you, no matter how good looking you are with a kippah on your head, would have tried this a few decades ago, wouldn't be as easy. It's a more, except culture is a moving target as people get more

educated to the idea that not everybody looks like you, walks like you or talks like you. You have an advantage. Yeah. Yeah. And I was going to I was going to ask, you know, so obviously you come up with this characteristic look. How do you come up with the face paint and the sticking out of the tongue and all this? I mean, obviously, you're somebody who is thinking in advance of how do you differentiate yourself from the crowd? How do you come up with that form of differentiation?

I think part of everything that we do is part of the puzzle of our DNA and our experiences early on. And I happen to have been born with a prodigious oral appendage. Ben, you wouldn't believe it. It's a hideous looking thing. Yeah. And I mean, I would do it now except the floor is dirty. I would show it to you.

And, you know, it seems to have a life of its own. And I remember in sixth grade, should I pause, pregnant pause while you want to laugh? Okay. So I was always the tallest kid in class and a clown because I wanted attention. And they'd stick me in the back of the room. Of course, Stella and Irene, I remember their names, sixth or seventh grade,

In the middle of the class, I'd get in trouble because they'd whisper, hey, Gene, do that funny thing you do when you stick your tongue out. And I thought it was like, oh, you know, like a funny face. So I'd stick it out and wiggle it and make it twirl around because, you know, it can do those things and yours can't. And they'd go, okay, Mr. Klein, get

my mother's maiden name, get over here, what were you doing? I was just sticking it out. Show the class what you were doing. I'd stick it out and they would all laugh. And so again, Singularity, the four original members of KISS, John, Paul, George, oh no, that was another band. Myself, Paul, Ace, and Peter, we were lucky enough to find each other in the beginning.

Not everything lasts forever. Not everybody's designed to run a marathon. It's just life. But in the beginning, all for one, one for all, we had written some songs, pretty good. We found the right guys. We were in a rat-infested loft, 10 East 23rd Street, only 10 blocks from 33rd Street, Madison Square Garden.

And then one day, I can't remember who, said, hey, let's go downstairs to Woolworth, which was a New York store, and bought makeup and black lipstick and red lipstick and decided to put on makeup. Bought some mirrors. And pretty much on that very first day, what became possibly the four most recognized faces on the planet, more recognized than Mount Rushmore,

Yeah, that's a marketing truism. If you ask people on the street, just a close-up of Teddy Roosevelt on Mount Rushmore, and say, who's that? They have no idea. Well, who's on Mount Rushmore? Elvis? No. But as soon as you show those faces, they go, oh yeah, Kiss. Even if you hate the band. And I'm talking Africa, Southeast Asia, anywhere you go. It doesn't mean it's the best band. It just means that the imagery...

connected in ways no other band connected. You don't know what everybody in Farner looks like. You just don't. And they had hit records and all that stuff. So there was a decided difference in who and what Kiss was, which enabled us to

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When you talk about doing all of this, and obviously so much of this is transgressive and designed to gain attention, but there's also the music. And the fact is that a lot of people now consider rock music to basically be a dead genre. It is. So why do you think that happened? Why did rock die? Well, music changes because new generations come along. And when I first started,

When my mother and I first came to America, this was pre-Beatles in 1958. Sometimes I think it's 1858. The first music I heard was Chuck Berry, even though I couldn't speak English. Chuck Berry, Little Richard. As a matter of fact, ironically and strangely, I did the eulogy for Chuck Berry's Open Casket concert.

When he passed away, the Berry family asked me to do that. It's on YouTube. And again, when the Beatles came along, it was a seismic shift. So before the Beatles, there was a sound. Before Chuck Berry and everything. My darling. Music used to be that way. It was called doo-wop.

Doo-wop, because it was New York-based, wop was a derogatory term for Italians. The passports, W-O-P, without papers, a wop. And even Little Richard, a wop, babaloo, wop, a wop, bamboo, toot-a-froot-a, you know, all that. So music kept changing based on the way the ears were tuned, what people heard, and

Soon as Elvis started doing black music, it changed white music. In those days, it was called race music. You couldn't hear that stuff on radio. Elvis opened the doors for black music that was shamefully not allowed to be played on regular radio. So as you go through the different eras, there was the big band era, the so-and-so era, populations and tastes change.

And even through rock and roll came in based on Chuck Berry. And they stopped doing that. And it became riffs. You know, the Zeppelin thing that moved it a little to bigger sound, less complex, bigger riffs. And so we're a product of all those English bands, actually. But even during our reign,

As the Gallup pulled number one band on the planet three years in a row, 77, 78, 79, above the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and the Bee Gees, there was something going on. It was called grunge. It came out of Seattle, and it was a different form of music. Then there was new romance, new wave, alternative. Music keeps changing. There was once something called big band music.

It was, you know, they had the template, which is lots of horns, and that's what you did. And the Beatles came along, and all of a sudden, it was less about the temptations and four or five guys singing,

moving together with steps with a big band in back of them and it was just four or five guys in the front playing their own instruments writing their own songs so music will continue and now we finally come to uh the end of days when you can be an edm artist and make an awful lot of money and the expertise goes in front of 50 000 people the expertise goes something like this

The finger presses up, boom, bop, boom, bop, boom, bop, boom, bop. You see 50,000 people jumping up and down because of this computerized, pre-recorded stuff with lights and everything. But all the guy's doing is, what's up? You know, jumping up and down with them. And by the way, I fully support that. Life is short, and if music in any way, shape, or form makes the experience of living beautiful,

at this planet for another day, I'm all for it. It doesn't have to make sense for me or be my taste. I never understood rap. That's just, in my day, it was talking. You know, it is just talking. And culturally, I don't understand and don't care. But there is music for everybody, including the guy who picks up his finger. Oh, see this finger? He's about to press it. Here we go. Boom-bop, boom-bop, boom-bop, boom-bop. So...

And by the way, with the future, which is right around the corner, you won't have to do the thing. You just say, go. I've got a modern, massive place. Ben, I'm really rich. So I've got a huge place in Malibu, one of six houses. God bless America. And this thing is so computerized and so everything, I talk to it.

Let me see if it goes. Hey, Josh, turn off all lights. Well, I'm in the back. So maybe you didn't hear. But there's literally you just talk to it. And hey, Josh, get me, you know, a hot, hot Sunday in the background. And all of a sudden.

Well, yeah, I have to say I did my musical education wrong. I'm the normal Jewish kid who took violin lessons from the age of five till the time I was maybe 17 years old, and it got pretty good. And then I realized that there ain't no money in classical music, and I learned at school talent shows that the guy who could play three chords was definitely going to do better with the girls than the guy who was playing Fritz Kreisler and Beethoven. So just lessons that you learn along the way, for sure. It's worth noting that you don't even need...

Three chords. Bo Diddley by Bo Diddley is one chord. It never veers away. There's no bridge. There's no nothing. And funky Broadway. Never veers away from that one chord. Wow. Yeah. I wasted a lot of time. And then it turns out actually that my greatest musical accomplishment was having a number one charting rap

single. That literally was me talking, as you mentioned. So that was the thing that we did last year. Oh, come on. You got to give me a little bit. How did it go? Let's see. My riff was, I've got the facts. I've got the stats. My money like glue in my pockets are fat. That was a little bit of sample there. Have you ever heard somebody make the observation that

that you're like the Flash Barry Allen. You probably should have been doing commercials because you talk so fast. Oh, man. Those of us... Oh, yeah, when I get to the disclaimers at the end of the commercials, that's when I go into my mode. Yeah, exactly. No, when I'm reading NMLS numbers and stuff and giving the warnings at the end of the drug commercials, that's where it's at. I mean, I missed my calling.

But when you're making a political or observational point to somebody who doesn't like you, those of us who are slower, the pregnant pause, it doesn't respectfully impregnate my slow mind until after you're done.

Well, that's a thing. I'm planting seeds. And then a year later, people realize what I'm saying and realize that I was right all along. I wish I could slow it down, but that's the bane of my career. Literally my entire career, people have been saying I speak too fast because it's true. And I've been trying it to slow it down. And, you know, hopefully as my brain ages, then it'll gradually. How old are you? I'm 40 at this point. And maybe I'm a little slower than I was when I was 30. I don't know.

75, bitch. So I want to ask you about, you know, I have to ask you about the women, obviously, because, you know, there are some I've noticed. So but but now you're a proponent of monogamy. You dated your wife for 28 years before you got married. That is that is a long time to date your wife. I barely dated my wife for 28 days before.

before we got engaged. It was literally about three and a half months, and then we got engaged and married for, let's see, 16 years. And so that's a long delay between meeting somebody and marrying them. You don't hear a lot of 30-year engagements. Well, I have to be completely upfront. I was raised by my mother, and I've always worshipped the ground that women, especially single mothers, walk on.

because there's so much pressure. Not only do they create life, but once the man walks out, they've gotta earn a living and be mother and father and protector and all that stuff. So the highest form of life on the planet is a single mother. You and I just work here. We can't create life. So my mother has always been my moral compass, but I was aware that I was the male of the species.

And I never wanted to get married. I mean, I always had the appetite. Some of us have a larger appetite, some not. But we're attracted, the heterosexuals among us, which is predominantly the life form on the planet. Predominantly, the vast majority are heterosexuals. There might be 10% or so, but, you know, males going after females, biological. And

I think it's worth noting that I didn't figure this out until much later in life. I didn't want to turn into my father. I didn't want to start something. Now I can verbalize it, but then it was just a feeling. And the feeling was, well, let me put it this way. I lived under the roof of my mother who did everything. So she was able to lay down the laws. Don't do this. Don't lie. Don't this. And of course, without that, I would have been in darkness.

So you can't wait because you think you're so important and know everything to get out from under your mother's roof. And no sooner do you leave your mom's house than you meet a girl. And if you decide to move in with her, same questions. Where are you going? Where have you been? And I'm going, when do I get to be free and who wants to know? Well, I don't want you to see another girl. Why not? So there were all those new rules. You're living with your mom. There are these rules.

And then there were new rules. So I was too busy and too selfish and arrogant, but it made business sense. You can't have it all. How many hours in the daytime? Totally devote all the man hours to myself because sometimes what's more important, your band or me? Well, actually the band because you're not going to pay my rent. And first I got to make money and then I can afford you.

These are not romantic notions, but pragmatism has always been the key. And so I never wanted kids. I never wanted to get married. But along the way, I was attracted to women, Cher and Diana Ross, you know, no greater, classier women. The best, I'm the luckiest guy to have ever known them, much less.

much less living with them. But I actually, and it always comes back to you. It's not about self-aggrandizement or anything. It's just about the realization, do you know yourself? Who are you? And I'm finally comfortable in my own self to realize that my father was one person. I don't have to be my father. I can be my own ethical, moral, loving father,

husband, all that. I never, I never imagined that I'd be, that I could be like that. Well, Gene, it's, it's been great. I really appreciate you taking the time. I learned, I definitely learned some things that I didn't know. And so for that, I appreciate the education and, and really thanks for stopping by. I appreciate the time. The Ben Shapiro Sunday special is produced by Jessica Kranz and Matt Kemp. Associate producers are Jake Pollack and John Crick.

Editing is by Olivia Stewart. Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina. Camera and lighting is by Zach Ginta. Hair, makeup, and wardrobe by Fabiola Cristina. Title graphics are by Cynthia Angulo. Production intern is Sarah Steele. Executive assistant, Kelly Carvalho. Executive in charge of production is David Wormis. Executive producer, Justin Siegel. Executive producer, Jeremy Boring. The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday special is a Daily Wire production. Copyright Daily Wire 2024.

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