It was the throwaway part of an interview. The part where the professionally outspoken Gene Simmons of Kiss, famous for spitting blood on stage, instead spit his venom, uttering things he never actually expected to land in the press, especially since most of it was vulgar.
And I certainly didn’t use it in a piece assigned last month by The Washington Post. But there was so much of the interview left over, I submitted it as an Q & A for the Songfacts website.
That got traction, first on a number of rock news websites but also places from Entertainment Tonight to Billboard. The articles concentrated on what he said about people who said they were depressed (“I’m the guy who says ‘Jump!'”).
Though the interview was conducted last month, that part of it, which seemed a leftover opinion of what he had after the suicide of Kurt Cobain (since he mentioned “a 20-year-old putz” from Seattle), was instead put in the context of Robin Williams, whose death by suicide this week was blamed in part on his depression.
Fellow hair rocker Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue issued his own reaction to Simmons’ rant on his Sixx Sense radio show.
“Gene is basically saying he has no sympathy for drug addicts or people who are depressed… I’m a recovering drug addict. If I had done what Gene Simmons said and that is to jump, so many wonderful things would have not happened in my life. We’ve just lost Robin Williams. He dealt with drug addiction and mainly depression. When I was young, I was depressed, drugs helped me suppress that. I came from a messed up situation not unlike a lot of people. There’s almost 15 million American that are depressed. Gene Simmons says I should have just killed myself…15 million people should just kill themselves?” … there is a 20-year-old kid out there who is a Kiss fan and reads this and goes, ‘You know what? He’s right. I should just kill myself’…
Things got serious when radio stations began banning Kiss music because of the comment. Power 97 and Bob FM in Canada announced it would no longer play Kiss songs; the same edict came from an Australian company operating rock stations in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. It was followed by a stateside boycott by an Albany, N.Y., rock disc jockey who called Simmons “an arrogant, unfeeling a..hole.”
Before it could spread further, Simmons issued two different apologies for the comments Friday, the latest of which, on the Kiss Facebook page says:
I want to make this statement about my views on depression for the record and to clarify my prior remarks.
To the extent my comments reported by the media speak of depression, I was wrong and in the spur of the moment made remarks that in hindsight were made without regard for those who truly suffer the struggles of depression. I sincerely apologize to those who were offended by my comments. I recognize that depression is very serious and very sad when it happens to anyone, especially loved ones. I deeply support and am empathetic to anyone suffering from any disease, especially depression.
I have never sugarcoated my feelings regarding drug use and alcoholics. Somewhere along the line, my intention of speaking in very directly and perhaps politically incorrectly about drug use and alcoholics has been misconstrued as vile commentary on depression. Unkind statements about depression was certainly never my intention. Fully, you will know that and I do not intend to defend myself here and now, by listing the myriad charities and self-help organizations I am involved with. Rather, I simply want to be clear that my heart goes out to anyone suffering from depression and I deeply regret any offhand remarks in the heat of an interview that might have suggested otherwise.
(At least he didn’t say he was misquoted. I still have the recording.)
Sixx, for his part, has said he accepts the apology and said the ban on Kiss music was wrong.
I wanted to take a moment to address the media that’s been picked up by everybody from Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Times, NME, Billboard and many more around Gene Simmons comments telling depressed people to kill themselves. I also want to address and compliment Gene for publicly apologizing. That was 100% the right thing to do. This has turned into a bit of an anti-Gene Simmons bashathon and I don’t condone that nor do I support that radio stations across the country who are banning Kiss (the guys in the band didn’t do anything). Gene said something that has been addressed and maybe in a moment of bravado he was just being cocksure and pompous?
It’s kind of what he’s been doing for 40 years.