Kiss bassist/front man Gene Simmons has made it no secret in recent times how he feels about the current state of the music industry; especially after making comments like "rock is dead". In a recent interview with Planet Rock Simmons states once more that he feels it's the fans that are killing the music industry with all of their file sharing and illegal downloading.
Simmons says:
"Record companies were a gift from heaven. Yeah, they're greedy, but they wanna make money just like you do. But they gave you money — millions. And if it wasn't for record companies, there'd be no Sex Pistols, there'd be no punk, there'd be no nothing. There would be punk, but it would be in a small club. It would never become huge.
Record companies gave bands money that they never had to pay back. If the band failed and the records were a complete disaster, the advance money was all yours. What other business would give you that? If you go to a bank and they give you a million dollars, and your business goes under, they don't care it failed – they want their money back.
The fans have decided en masse that they should get free music, download, fileshare. And you're not hurting Kiss, we've been around a long time and we make a good living. You're killing the next Elvis, the Beatles, the next Kiss and the next whoever."
As much as I hate to say it, Simmons does kind of have a point. When you illegally download and share files you're seriously hurting an up and coming artist's chances of being successful. It costs money to tour, make merch, and also have money to live. However, millions of people don't seem to care just because they feel they are entitled to get the music for free and that artists should just be happy that someone is listening. I have news for those folks, though. Artists need to eat and pay bills too. If you want them to keep making the music you love and be able to do it better and full time then you should actually buy their music.
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