In the music business since the early 70s, the bassist, singer and songwriter Gene Simmons had the chance to see many incredible bands appearing over the decades. Besides being known as a talented musician and businessman, he is also remembered for being quite sincere about things.
He always gave his true opinion on things and talked about many bands, revealing if he liked them or not. One of those groups is Oasis, the successful Britpop band led by the brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher, which became one of the best-selling groups that appeared in the 90s.
What is Gene Simmons opinion on Oasis
When Oasis released their debut album in 1994, Kiss already was active for 21 years and were one of the biggest bands on the planet. But obviously, music was evolving and the British band became one of the most influential ones from that decade.
Now, in 2024 they reunited again and the first shows will happen in 2025. In an interview with Forbes, Simmons was asked about their reunion and gave their opinion on them. He revealed he is a big fan of them. Also that he has some kind of friendship with Liam, especially since one of the kids of the British artist is also called Gene.
“(I’m a) Big fan (Of Oasis)! Oh, it’s brilliant marketing, whether by hook or by crook, whether it’s by accident or plan. I know Liam a little bit. We ran into each other at a hotel and exchanged pleasantries. He actually pulled my leg and convinced me that one of his two boys—Gene and Lennon—that he named Gene after me.”
He continued:
“I doubt it, but he convinced me at the hotel! But that relationship between the two brothers, I mean I’ve read that story before, it’s always worked. Start with Cain and Abel and go right down. All the great pairings: Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards. They all turn on each other after a while, then they get back together again! It always works and good for them because, again, people want to hear those songs! They’ve got lots of fans and they’ll do great. Good luck! More power to them,” Gene Simmons said.
During that same conversation, Gene said that Oasis fans who complained about the dynamic ticket pricing of the Oasis concerts in the United Kingdom are “entitled to fuck off”. He said that “you have the ultimate power, supply and demand. Whatever the pricing is, is all academic. Somebody sits in a room and tries to figure out how far the rubber band can stretch. And if you’re not selling tickets, guess what happens? The price goes down. Capitalism! If you don’t want to pay that amount, don’t go,” Gene Simmons said.
He doesn’t put Oasis in the same category as Elvis and The Beatles
For more than a decade, the Kiss member has been saying that Rock and Roll music is dead. He blames the music fans who started to download the songs instead of buying the records for that. Because it represented the downfall of the music business model that kept the recording companies nurturing the bands until they could become big and come up with great music.
So he always questions which bands that appeared, for example, after the 90s that could be compared with the big incredible bands from the previous decades. In an interview with Dennis Miller Option in 2020, Simmons said he doesn’t put a band like Oasis in the same category as The Beatles and Elvis Presley, for example.
“Let’s just be clear; we love Oasis. In fact, Liam [Gallagher] named one of his kids after me, if truth be told. There’s Lennon and there’s Gene; Gene’s named after me, and Lennon was named after John Lennon.
“But the real answer is that if you walk down the streets to the masses and you said ‘Oasis’, I don’t know if a 35- or 40-year-old is going to know what that is. Universal stardom is – whether you like it or not, whether you never heard a song, everybody knows Elvis or The Beatles,” Gene Simmons said.