Gene Simmons’ opinion on Lady Gaga

Having been in the music business for more than five decades, Gene Simmons played a crucial role in Kiss—not only as the band’s bassist and singer but also as the main songwriter alongside Paul Stanley and for his business vision regarding the band. He had the chance to see the evolution of music up-close and learned a lot about how everything works and when an artist is really good or not that much.

He has always shared his real opinions on other bands and musicians, having no problem saying whether someone is good or not in his view. One of the famous stars he has talked about over the past decades is the pop star Lady Gaga.

Gene Simmons’ opinion on Lady Gaga

Although Gene Simmons is a big fan of Rock and Roll music, he has a really broad musical taste and enjoys some Pop stars like Lady Gaga, for example. The Kiss member praised her many times and said she is much more talented than other Pop stars, like Taylor Swift for example. “It is in your favor if you have a fanbase that feels like they’re connected and they have the flag, like in soccer. That is tribalism. It doesn’t have to be mean-spirited. It’s an identity. ‘Swiftie’ (Taylor Swift fans movement) is a culture. They’re not just fans. She stands for something.”

“When you think about it, above and beyond the music and the lyrics and so on. ‘This guy broke my heart’ and these songs that Swifties love, above that is her as the Jesus of the movement. I mean, what’s Christianity as a movement, religion, without Jesus, right? So you need these leaders, these apostles at the top to encapsulate what the culture and that thing is about. So the thing that Taylor has is Swifties…”

“(Lady) Gaga, I think, is more talented than all the others. Because her songs and her are, ‘I was born this way.’ So the music is not just — and I don’t mean ‘fluff’ in a bad way, because there’s some wonderful fluff stuff. A lot of the British Invasion was all these great songs that you sang meant nothing. But when a song is saying (singing) ‘you want a revolution’, the song is about something.”

Simmons continued:

“And so if you have a body of work that’s about something, you get the beginnings of tribalism. And if you’re the embodiment of that tribe, now you’ve got something. Yes, Gaga’s fanbase is about that. And of course, she’s widened her thing by doing pop, Tony Bennett, and all this stuff. She’s the real deal. She’s got the musical chops. She can play, sing; (she is a) chanteuse,” Simmons told the Greatest Music Of All Time channel.

Lady Gaga is a fan of Kiss’ music and was even spotted at one of their concerts a few years ago. She had the chance to meet Gene Simmons and the other band members as well.

Simmons said Lady Gaga was the only real Rock star he saw during the past decades

Although she is considered a Pop star, Simmons calls Lady Gaga a Rock star. He even said in 2014 that she was the only real Rock star that he had seen during the past 20 years. The reason was because she really writes her songs and can play many instruments, something that many other stars can’t do.

The only real Rock star I’ve seen in the last 20, 25 years is Lady Gaga who just arrived on the scene. That’s a star. She’s actually got the musical (talent), she can play the piano, she can write songs, she can really sing. I’m not a fan of that kind of music but she’s got the goods. I appreciate all the Pop divas but if you don’t play your own instrument and write your own songs you can’t have my admiration which is not as valid as your fans’ admiration. If they’re buying your albums and especially if they’re going to see you live that is as much validation as you should ever have. Whether I get or not, Gene Simmons told Star Advertiser (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).

Lady Gaga almost sang on Kiss’ final album “Monster”

Released in 2012, “Monster” was the twentieth and final studio album made by Kiss. The record had 12 tracks and the most remembered ones are “Hell of Hallelujah” and “Long Way Down”. However, the album’s third track “Freak”, which has Paul Stanley on vocals, almost also had Lady Gaga.

The story was told by Gene Simmons in an interview with Billboard in 2012. According to him, Gaga liked the lyrics and felt like it talked about her own emotions too. First she would handle the vocals, then it would be her and Paul. But finally Simmons suggested that Paul should sing and that Kiss would do a new album which became “Monster”.

“When ‘Freak’ was being written, Lady Gaga got interested in singing on it. Because it espouses her emotions about being comfortable in your skin and all that stuff. And that’s a healthy message for everybody. For a while Paul and I were going to sing it, for a while I was gonna sing it, and then Paul and Gaga were gonna sing it. Then finally I suggested Paul should sing it by himself, let’s just do a band album. While it’s great that Gaga-who in my estimation is the only rock star out there, modern.”

He continued:

“There’s nobody else-talks about self-empowerment, all that stuff. We made our imprint and stuck our foot firmly into the ground almost 40 years ago and said, ‘This is who we are, take it or leave it.’ So in the days of tie-dyed shirts and hippies and anti-war stuff and schools being closed down, we didn’t care. We are Kiss, we are alive, we are our own definition,” Gene Simmons said.

Born in Manhattan, New York City in 1986, Lady Gaga started her musical career in 2001. She had the chance to release her first album “The Fame” in 2008, which was reissued one year later as “The Fame Monster”. Since then the musician released only four more albums as a solo act. During the past years she was also really involved in acting, being part of many important movies.