GENE SIMMONS: Fans Killed The Music-Industry Infrastructure That Is Needed To Support New Artists

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/gene-simmons-fans-killed-the-music-industry-infrastructure-that-is-needed-to-support-new-artists/

June 19, 2015

Planet Rock's Wyatt conducted an interview with KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons prior to the band's performance at the 2015 edition of the U.K.'s Download festival, which was held last weekend in Donington Park. You can listen to the chat using the widget below.

Asked if he thinks today's artists give up too easily and they "don't wanna be rock stars anymore," Simmons responded: "No, it's really not that. I blame… This is gonna break your hearts… It certainly breaks mine. I blame the fans. Because the fans have decided en masse — in other words, the masses have decided — that they should get free music, download, fileshare… And you're not hurting KISS; we've been around a long time and we make a good living. You're killing the next Elvis and THE BEATLES and the next KISS and the next whoever, because you have to give your music away for free. And who did that? Big corporate entities? No, they didn't do that. Actually, big corporate entities — record companies — gave bands money that they never had to pay back — ever! If the band failed and the records were a complete disaster, the advance money was all [the band's]. What other business would give you that? If you go to a bank and they give you a million dollars, and your business goes under, they don't care it failed; they want their money back."

He continued: "Record companies were a gift from heaven. Yeah, they're greedy, they're this… but they wanna make money just like you do. But they gave you money — millions! And if it wasn't for record companies, there'd be no SEX PISTOLS, there'd be no punk, there'd be no nothing. There would be punk, but it would be in a small club. It would never become huge."

Asked if the music industry today disillusions and disappoints him, Simmons said: "It's not the industry; it's the fans… It's disappointing, because they would prefer not to support a new band. Remember, it doesn't affect [KISS]. It affects the next great band, who won't have a chance. Why? Because the talent isn't out there? It sure is. The fans killed it. They killed the infrastructure. Imagine England existing without the value of the pound, if things were free. You would have chaos."

Simmons previously said that illegal music downloading was largely to blame for the music industry's decline and accused the music industry of not reacting fast enough to curb the problem of illegal file sharing.

•••••

While speaking at the MIPCOM convention in Cannes, France in October 2010, Simmons said that harsher punishments must be given to those caught downloading music illegally.

"Make sure your brand is protected," Simmons insisted. "Make sure there are no incursions. Be litigious. Sue everybody. Take their homes, their cars. Don't let anybody cross that line."

The rocker continued by saying that lawsuits against illegal file-sharers should have happened sooner.

"The music industry was asleep at the wheel," he said. "And [they] didn't have the balls to sue every fresh-faced, freckle-faced college kid who downloaded material. And so now we're left with hundreds of thousands of people without jobs. There's no industry."