It’s like the Demon’s Hall of Serious Emotions.
Gene Simmons has also stuck his tongue out at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for allowing hip-hop artists to earn a spot in rock’s most exclusive club.
The 76-year-old KISS founder — who was inducted into the Cleveland shrine to play with the band in 2014 — appeared on the “LegendsNLeaders” podcast last week, where he answered a script from host Ben Weiss and asked which band had the most influence on him growing up.
When the 25-year-old athlete revealed that he was into “something close to hip-hop” in his youth, Simmons blasted the genre and pointed out that rap stars have earned points in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
“It’s not my music,” said the rocker, whose stage name is “The Demon.” “I’m not from the ghetto. It doesn’t speak my language. And as I’ve said many times, hip-hop is not in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, nor are opera or symphony orchestras.
“How did the New York Philharmonic not get into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?” sneak up.
Simmons doubled down, upset that metal giants Iron Maiden still haven’t reached the Hall of Fame while hip-hop pioneer Grandmaster Flash.
“Iron Maiden is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame where they can sell out stadiums,” he said.
The “Rock and Roll All Nite” singer then renewed his feud with Ice Cube over the rapper’s views on hip-hop.
“Ice Cube and I used to go back and forth,” the KISS frontman said, adding that he thinks the “It’s a Good Day” singer is a “bright guy,” and respects what he’s done.
“He replied ‘the spirit’ of rock and roll … I want to know when Led Zeppelin will be in the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame?
“Music has labels because it describes how to do it. Especially, rap, hip-hop is a spoken art,” he continued. Then you put beats behind it and someone else comes up with the lyrics, but we’re speaking verbally. There are some songs, but mostly it’s oral.”
The outspoken rocker has long blasted the Hall for his embrace of hip-hop — creating a rift between the “Detroit Rock City” singer and the rap beat.
When gangster rap legends NWA launched in 2016, MC Ren told Simmons, “hip-hop has been around forever – get used to it” during the group’s acceptance speech.
It came as a direct slap in the face to a 2015 Rolling Stone interview in which Simmons said he was looking forward to the “death of rap.”
The KISS bassist isn’t the only famous rocker to be skeptical of hip-hop.
Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards once quipped that “so many words, so little said,” and said the genre caters to a “deaf” audience in a 2015 interview with the New York Daily News.
“All they need is a drum beat and someone to shout about it, and be happy. There’s a huge market for people who can’t tell one note from another,” Richards said.
Psychedelic rock icon and Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia also said in the documentary “The History of Rock ‘N’ Roll” in February 1995 – months before his death – that “rap is not music.”
“It’s not music, it’s talking. That’s what it’s about, rap. Rap means talking. It’s talking in meters. It’s rhythmic,” Garcia said, but noted that he doesn’t have a problem with the genre as a whole.
