Gene Simmons brings subdued rally revelry to the Buffalo Chip
STURGIS — It’s hard to accept that “The Demon” in KISS is not immortal.
The towering, vampire-like performer prowled the stage for nearly a half-century, managing to beguile crowds with his 7-inch tongue, his raspy scream and blood boiling out of his mouth as if he was dying right in front of fans.
He looked like a nightmare and performed like a dream, but “open your eyes, baby,” Gene Simmons says, having shaken off a decades-long hangover and a kink in his neck from the 30-pound dragon armor he donned.
While the monster sleeps, Simmons arises nice and easy now. He’s witty, affectionate with a side of raunch, thoughtful and funny and looked like he just wanted to hang out when he performed the night of Aug. 3 for thousands of bikers at the 85th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
“This is much easier now,” he says of his one-man show as The Gene Simmons band. “It makes me feel good.”
Simmons ‘introduced me to music’
Touring as part of the American rock band KISS, Simmons says “it was a traveling city,” with private jets, three double-decker buses, 20 45-foot tractor trailers, 5 miles of cable and more than 60 people to help set the stage for one show.
“When I was a kid, there was always that mote,” he said earlier in the week while hanging out with his five dogs in one of his houses on the West Coast.
His favorite metal bands Sly and the Family Stone and Loving Spoonful were untouchable, “where the enemy is coming right up to the castle but he can’t get in because it’s surrounded by alligator-filled waters."
“With my solo band, the draw bridge is down and anybody can come into the castle with me and have lots of fun," he said.
On Aug. 3 at The Buffalo Chip, he welcomed all 10 contestants from a bikini contest earlier that night — still in swimwear and that’s all — to sing along with him. There were no pyrotechnics to turn anyone who came on stage “into shish-kabobs,” and Simmons’ two guitarists Brent Wood and Jason Walker joined the girls on the same mic, like it was karaoke night in a small-town bar.
He asked the crowd what they wanted to hear, sang covers from Motörhead and often hung his sunglasses on his black T-shirt collar so he could wipe his sweaty jowls.
Then he quieted down the crowd to honor the late Ozzy Osbourne, only for them to rev their engines in respect.
“KISS introduced me to music,” said Blake Griffin, who with his fiancée, Hannah Hotchkiss, stood in the best seat in the house that night, hanging over the Wolfman Jack Stage at the Chip and bouncing in place like he was about to enter a boxing ring, his adrenaline unhinged.
He was wearing a cut-off KISS T-shirt he bought in 2008 when he last saw them perform and had a tattoo of The Demon on his lower left shin. This was his first time seeing Simmons onstage alone.
“He loves Gene Simmons more than anything,” Hotchkiss says of Griffin. “I’m so happy he gets to experience this.”
A redefining of rock shows
Simmons turned KISS into an omnipresent brand. Even if you had never listened to “Rock and Roll All Night,” “Beth” or “Shout it Out Loud,” you knew their makeup and most definitely saw someone dressed like them for Halloween.
“All that legacy stuff is self-aggrandizing,” said Simmons, 75, cooly forgetting that he was unapologetically, arrogantly indulgent his entire rocker life. “The only thing I ever hoped for, and that the band ever hoped for, was to raise the level of quality in a concert experience.
“With the advent of better technology, we decided to put all the money we made back into the show, and, yeah, that included flying off the stage and some pyrotechnics.”
Their daredevil approach redefined rock shows, “broke the barrier for what a band is supposed to be,” he said, and built a legacy for Simmons whether he wanted it or not.
Gloria and Graham Thompson traveled 1,500 miles from the Florida panhandle to weave through Needles Highway during the day and hit every show at the rally at night. They didn’t even mind that it was Simmons without The Demon persona.
They came for the nostalgia.
“We’re just old people enjoying our old age,” Graham said.
They parked their hog right in the front row for Simmons and had not moved since 6 that night. (Simmons came on around 10:30 p.m.)
“And we love it,” he said.
The KISS brand lives on
Last year, music investment firm Pophouse Entertainment purchased the KISS brand, including its entire music catalogue and trademarks. Simmons said he’s excited for the $300 million acquisition because now there will be Broadway shows, documentaries, comic books and “a chance to spread my wings and do whatever I want for s*** and giggles.”
Simmons also runs a chain of Rock & Brews restaurants and casinos, of which he started with KISS bandmates, and co-founded his own film production company in 2023 with producer Gary Hamilton. Simmons/Hamilton Productions has already finished their first horror film, “Deep Waters,” slated for a release later this year about an airplane that crashes into shark-infested waters.
The thriller persona will never completely die.
Today, Simmons’ face is on wines and vodkas, Harley-Davidsons and motor bikes, condoms and Tumblers, lunch boxes and even your own casket, if you wish.
But he’s no demon. He’s just the perverted grandfather who can still rock out in the garage with you. He’ll purse his lips, thrust his hips, grab his crotch, tap his metal boots that curl, then give you an endearing wink like he was in on the prank all along.
“We’re all here just to have a good time,” he said. “And this tongue can still whip up a good g--d--- froth if you want it to.”
