In a recent interview on Thunder Underground podcast Gene Simmons blamed the fans for “killing new bands”. When he was asked his opinion about streaming music services like Spotify he wasn’t in a loss of words to express his objection. I am not a supporter. I do believe in free market economy — supply and demand and all that kind of stuff — and I support Taylor Swift and Metallica and anybody else who doesn’t wanna play the game; The Beatles didn’t wanna play the game for a long time. “Look, it doesn’t affect me,” he continued. “we have our fans, they show up, that’s great. We sell truckloads. We outsell The Beatles and Elvis on licensing and merchandising combined, as well as any other ten bands put in there. But imagine you’re a new band and you have your passion and your music and you really love it, you can’t do it. There’s nothing else. They can’t show up live, because they don’t know who you are, so somehow you’ve gotta get the music out there. But if you wanna earn a living, you can’t get the music out there. So you’re living in your mother’s basement, you have to have a dayjob and the kids get your music for free. ‘I’m just promoting my live shows.’ It doesn’t work. And the people that killed all the new bands are the fans themselves. It wasn’t corporate America, it wasn’t aliens from space. The people that killed the music they love are the people who love the music.”
