GENE SIMMONS: Losers Of The World Keep Saying You Don’t Need The Money; They Have No F*cking Clue

KISS bassist Gene Simmons talked about how 75-year-old Paul McCartney is a huge inspiration to him, saying on Talk Is Jericho (as transcribed by Ultimate-Guitar.com):

“So inspirational… The losers of the world keep saying, ‘You don’t need the money.’ They have no f*cking clue.

“It’s the pump of the heart. At 75 to go two and a half hours… and Springsteen jumped up and sang ‘I Saw Her Standing There.’ What’s the thrill of life if you’re not living it? Come on!

“No matter how much money you’ve got or how much money you don’t have – ‘Every day above ground is a good day,’ my dear mother says all the time. And you’re living in a free society and Western civilization.

“For f*ck sake, get out there and live it! Chase girls, have a great f*cking meal, sleep good but keep your heart pumping!

Focusing on McCartney, Gene noted:

“It’s not necessarily that he’s the best [bassist], but his sense of melody and not playing rhythm with the drums – it’s more like a string quartet, it’s a unique point of view.

“Whereas before, basses would lock in with the drums so that would be the rhythm section. In string quartet, everybody’s playing melody and it’s symphonic. And when the bass line is so good, the rest of the instruments join in and you have ‘Day Tripper‘ and ‘Lady Madonna‘ where the bass line becomes the hook.

“And that’s what I did with KISS. Paul would come in with ‘Black Diamond,’ I said ‘This needs a lick.’ And if the lick is good enough, like a horn part, when all the guitars do it you go ‘That’s cool!'”