Paul Stanley recently echoed the "rock is dead" sentiment put forth by KISS bandmate Gene Simmons earlier this fall. In this particular rant, he pondered how the face-painted band would survive if they started in 2014. "We'd be f--ked, in plain English," he told Joe Rogan and Ultimate Classic Rock.
"Because the music industry as it exists today isn't even an industry, it's just shambles," he continued. "And now artists are in a position to have to take what the public, so to speak, is willing to give them."
Like Simmons, Stanley had some harsh words for file sharing.
"'File sharing' is just a fancy way of saying 'stealing.' You can't share what you don't own. It's like me saying, 'transportation borrowing' and I steal your car."
And he also brought up a great point: how would KISS have been able to hide their secret identities these days.
"Now, you have paparazzi, [who] are a breed at this point, whereas back then, you could literally have somebody take your photo, and we would have guys run over and pull the film. You can't do that now. It was uncharted territory."
Check out the interview:
Simmons told the world "rock is finally dead" last month.
"I am so sad that the next 15-year-old kid in a garage someplace in St. Paul, that plugs into his Marshall and wants to turn it up to 10 will not have anywhere near the same opportunity that I did," Simmons said. "He will most likely, no matter what he does, fail miserably."
That is quite the dramatic outlook, but tough to argue. He continued:
"It's very sad for new bands. My heart goes out to them. They just don't have a chance. If you play guitar, it's almost impossible. You're better off not even learning how to play guitar or write songs, and just singing in the shower and auditioning for The X Factor. And I'm not slamming The X Factor, or pop singers. But where's the next Bob Dylan? Where's the next Beatles? Where are the songwriters? Where are the creators? Many of them now have to work behind the scenes, to prop up pop acts and write their stuff for them."
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