In a recent conversation with ET’s Denny Directo at the Los Angeles premiere of ‘Godzilla x King Kong: The New Empire,’ Gene Simmons revealed he decided to leave the face paint behind.
The band played the last show of the End of the Road world tour in December. After KISS’s farewell, the bassist focuses on his solo career. His bandmates are Brent Woods, Zach Throne, and Brian Tichy. Simmons shared:
“We’ve got a little side band called the Gene Simmons Band, and we’ll be headlining festivals across Europe, South America… No more makeup for me.”
Although he moves forward, the rocker expressed his respect for the past 50 years with KISS:
“But we’re the luckiest people in the world. And yes, yes, we were old enough to watch the very first season of ET, before it was ET, it was just Entertainment Tonight.”
How The Gene Simmons Band Started
Gene’s solo project began with a corporate event gig and turned into the Gene Simmons Band. He explained in a 2018 chat with Australia’s Advertiser:
“The Gene Simmons Band was not a plan or anything. About a year ago, a corporate event asked me to be keynote speaker… Then they said, ‘Won’t you get up and sing a few tunes?’ I explained that you can’t just do that; you’ve got to have a band and rehearse and all that. They said, ‘Well, we’ll pay you X dollars more,’ and I said, ‘I like you!’ So I put together a band from Nashville — these guys back up Kid Rock and lots of other people — and without a single rehearsal, I just told them which songs I wanted to do, and they learned them.”
In January, the bassist announced a show with his solo band at the Summer Breeze Music Festival in Brazil in late April. Simmons also collaborates with film executive Gary Hamilton and director Renny Harlin in a film project named ‘Deep Water.’