Fans Can’t Believe Gene Simmons’ Flirty 1978 Interview

Kiss followers are overjoyed by the discovery of a TV interview with bassist Gene Simmons from November 1978. The interview can be watched below.

This clip is from the first-ever episode of the Toni Tennille Show, which aired in 1980 and continued for 104 more episodes in 1981. Tennille in case you’d forgotten, was a musician in her own right; she was half of the musical duet Captain & Tennille.

Simmons’s solo album was released in September, and he makes an entrance dressed as the Demon while the orchestra plays “Radioactive,” the album’s opening tune. After Simmons softly dabbed his lips on Tennille’s cheek, the rest of the interview was as easygoing and flirty as the rest of Kiss’s music.

Simmons then, after a coquettish intro with the host, began to explain how Kiss was formed. “The group started as kind of an experiment. We wanted to do everything we’ve ever dreamt of seeing onstage. The band that would stop at nothing to give the audience everything they could possibly conceive of.”

He added: “We’d go and see other bands in concert, and the thing we’d notice is that if the singer would have an off night, the whole band would perish. So, the premise behind Kiss was to put together a band with four lead guys, four guys who would do nothing short of going insane onstage to capture the attention of the audience.”

The fun didn’t stop there, as Tennille and Simmons discussed other stuff as well. Check it out here.

https://youtu.be/qYMceNTo24I