During a recent episode of “The Adam Carolla Show,” Gene Simmons reminisced about what he described as “one of the most iconic moments” of his life, which involved another legendary rocker.
Gene said: “Jimmy Page, for those of you who are 20 years old, the guy created, invented more riffs than any other person on the planet. LED ZEPPELIN, every [song] — just more riffs than anybody, than anybody. Every song was like that. So he came to see [KISS perform] quite a few times, and we became friendly, and I introduced [my son] Nick to him, who was so awed, he started crying in front of Page. ‘Jimmy, say hello to my son Nick.’ ‘Oh, how are you?’ He’s crying his heart out; he didn’t know what to say. Of course, Nick is gonna torture me now, because I’m embarrassing him.
“So, Page came to see us the first time when we played [London’s] Wembley — he came to see us some other times when we were there — and he came up to me after the show, my hand to God, and said, without doing an English accent, he says, ‘Mate, you can give [THE WHO‘s original bassist John] Entwistle a run for his money.’ And I was just about ready to pass out. That’s not true, of course, but the fact that he would even say that. [That’s the] highest compliment. For me, forget about it. The only higher one might be [Paul] McCartney coming over and saying, ‘You’re doing a good job,’ because nobody played bass the way McCartney does, because you can hear a song and remember the bass parts that McCartney played.”
Gene and his solo band performed their second concert of 2024 last month at the Summer Breeze festival, held at Memorial Da América Latina in São Paulo, Brazil.
Joining Simmons in the GENE SIMMONS BAND lineup are guitarists Brent Woods and Zach Throne, along with drummer Brian Tichy.
Reeder, the visionary behind Metal Addicts, has transformed his lifelong passion for metal into a thriving online community for metal aficionados. As a fervent devotee of black metal, Reeder is captivated by its dark, atmospheric, and often unorthodox soundscapes.
