Welcome to the story-worthy podcast. Here are your host, Christine Blackburn and Hannes Finney.

Welcome to Storyworthy.

I am Christine Blackburn, and I'm here with Hannesas Finney and we're here at the Kiss Museum

in La Trobe, Pennsylvania. Oh my gosh, is it truly in La Trobe or you made that up for me? No, it's true. No, it is in the guy's basement. Is it? A guy named Bob. Bob Smelter. You're making it all up. He has a huge kiss fan. that listen there so many kiss fans out there. And tonight's episode is called Gene Simmons. Did you know that on us? I did. Hence my. Tong hanging out of your mouth? Yes, exactly. I know that just has to do with a tremendous heat here in our enclosed room. Is that why you wore those big dragon heels tonight because of the topic, Gene Simmons?

No, I just, it was feeling really short.

I got a haircut and I got really short afterwards.

I'm going to say something, Honest, you didn't get a haircut.

You cut all the hairs.

You cut all of them.

That's right.

That's right.

I went back to my old, well, it's, I have a job right now where i'm out in the sun wearing a hat

all summer and i'm like you know what i i can't take it anymore i got to shave this off you can't pull it off

on us i do have a nicely shaped head you have a nice skin i do and you have a nicely shaped head so you

have two things right there yeah i got good skin because when as a child I never went in the sun because there was no sun. That's right. You were in Wisconsin. Same with where I grew up in Pittsburgh. You know, Pittsburgh gets, okay, I think it's 72 days of sun a year, and there's already been like 65. You know what I mean? So you do the math. And Pittsburgh. some people is some people who live in those climates will be like, oh, there's some

something, let me put some baby oil on myself. Right. And then they lay on a silver mat. And go lie there for 12 hours. They lay on a silver reflector. Yeah. It's crazy, isn't it? And those people today have retired to Arizona or Palm Springs and eventually just turn to dust. Oh, gosh. It is interesting, though, the tanning. I'm glad I don't do that.

Yeah, tanning, that was always a bad idea. Like, hey, you know, let's... Oh, when I was, yeah, when we were in high school, we always, we tanned outside on silver blankets with baby, or always, or Criscoe, right out of the can. Honest, I loved Kiss in seventh grade. Did I tell you that? I think it's a legal

obligation in seventh grade. I loved Kiss so much, not only because of the way they made their S's, you know, the cool S's. I mean, that was very specific. There wasn't a lot of fonts back then, or at least that I knew about, but that particular S, you know, really turned me on. And also Jim Murhut. He liked Kiss.

Ah.

And he was a bass player.

And Gene Simmons was a bass player.

You see what I'm getting out? I see what you're getting in. And I have to say this, kiss as a live act, you could not deny that. Nobody else was doing pyrotechnics. Nobody else was doing that sort of thing wearing makeup, you know, to that extreme. Right. Besides like David Bowie. But the point is, love them or hate him, Kiss got a lot of attention in the 70s, right? Right. There was a live, a live two. Anyway, and I think most of it was because of Gene Simmons. And you may recall, Honest, the character of Gene Simmons in the band Kiss, they actually took on like these comic, almost like comic book characters. Gene Simmons was what? I don't know. The demon. He was the demon now. Paul Stanley. He was Bob. The love child. The love child? I'm sorry. The love child? That's right. How do you paint your face as the love child? Okay, what you do is you put one star over one eye and you be hot like Paul Stanley. Ace Freely was the space man and Peter Chris, he was the star man. But here's the thing. It was really about Gene Simmons. The guy is an entrepreneur. That's what he is. He's an entrepreneur. And this is before Gene Simmons family jewels. This is before Tong magazine, by which he has, the magazine, tongue magazine. I know people who know Gene Simmons, and they say he's a cheap motherfucker.

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