Gene Simmons explains why British bands were better than American ones

Rock and Roll music evolved from the Blues in the United States but the real revolution of the music genre was caused by the British bands in the 60s, like The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. Although the United States had many incredible Rock bands over the decades, the Kiss bassist and singer Gene Simmons believes they were “leagues apart” from the ones of the United Kingdom. That’s what he said in an interview with Terrie Carr of WDHA-FM 105.5 FM.

Gene Simmons explains why British bands were better than American ones

“We (Kiss) were Anglophiles. We loved the English version of what the Americans invented, which was rock and roll and blues, and it became rap and all that. It all started here, but come on, the English gave us The Beatles and Zeppelin and stuff, and we gave them The Grateful Dead.”

“It’s just leagues apart. Nothing American ever rose to that level with people who play guitar. Nothing — not even close. And when you list the top — I don’t know — 10 bands of all time, they were all English or Irish. The Beatles and The Stones and the English invasion and stuff — on and on and on. Amazing songs.”

“And so we started writing songs like that, and not copying or anything, but within that vein. And it came easy. Paul and I were long students of songwriting and the English bands and everything. The Kinks — oh my goodness, those early years. ‘Waterloo Sunset’ was so, so simple, stripped of even production.”

He continued:

“The thought behind those songs (From Kiss’ debut album) was we wanted to put together the band we never saw on stage. So on one hand we had sort of this love of Anglophile music and those English bands, but then there was the sameness of, if you didn’t know much, you couldn’t tell the difference between The Kinks or The Stones or The Beatles and everything.”

“They all had basically the same hairstyle type, same age — except The Beatles, everybody sang, everybody was a star. That was a major, major difference. And so we looked at The Beatles as a template. Wouldn’t it be great if everybody sang lead? That was like, ‘Wait a minute.’ In The Stones, it was Jagger. In The Kinks, it was Ray Davies — like on and on and on. Aerosmith, it’s Steven — nobody else sings. But in KISS, everybody sings songs. And that was a thing that was appealing to us,” Gene Simmons said (Transcribed by Blabbermouth).

Since Kiss did their farewell show at the Madison Square Garden in New York City back in 2023, Gene Simmons has been touring all over the world with his solo band. He plays Kiss songs, solo tracks and also a few Rock and Roll covers.