As the towering bass player from KISS, Gene Simmons is not a man known for doing things by halves. More than 40 years since KISS first set the Australian singles chart alight with the perennial Rock And Roll All Nite, ‘The Demon’ has launched THE VAULT - arguably the most audacious box sets in rock history. THE VAULT collates a 50-year music career into a hefty package of unreleased tracks, amazing guest appearances and memorabilia, capped off by the fact Simmons will be personally handing over the set to fans who purchases this behemoth. In part one of I Like Your Old Stuff’s conversation with the 68-year-old superstar, Simmons reveals some of the rarities he has in store for fans.
“Without sucking up all the oxygen in the room, I’ve been around a long time,” Simmons admits. “It’s been 44 years with KISS, and somehow, by hook or by crook, KISS has become North and South America’s number one gold record award winning group of all time, in all categories. I’ve made a good living, let’s just be clear about that. And the people who have made that possible, are the fans. Without the fans, I’d be asking the next person in line if they’d like fries with that.”
Simmons says that THE VAULT is all about giving those ardent KISS supporters something very special from his personal archive before he heads to the great gig in the sky.
“I’m 68, happy, healthy, everything’s great, but now’s the right time, before the curtain draws shut. ‘Cause we’re all gonna, ya know, we’re all goin out one way or another.”
Weighing close to 18 kilograms and standing almost a metre high, THE VAULT is a formidable piece of memorabilia, with prices starting around US$2000.
“There will not be a cheaper version, the price of the Gene Simmons vault is like two iPhones,” Simmons says. “It’s got metal wheels, metal brackets, it’s built to last a lifetime, it looks like a safe. And every single vault is going to be hand deliver by yours truly, to you. Inside you’ll find 10 CDs, 150 songs that have never been released.”
Simmons’ quick run-through of some of THE VAULT’s demo treasures will have KISS completists salivating, as well as a Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame’s worth of guest stars.
“There are the original demos that became Rock And Roll All Night, Calling Doctor Love and Christine Sixteen and so on. The Christine Sixteen Demo, on 24 track, features Alex and Edward Van Halen and yours truly, and the three of us played on three songs that are gonna be in that box set. Bob Dylan and I wrote a few songs, all that’s gonna be in the vault. Joe Perry appears on Mongoloid Man from 1978, and all the KISS guys are in there and tons more surprises.”
One of the many things making THE VAULT such an attractive one-off is each set includes a hand selected piece of memorabilia, personally chosen by Simmons from your own collection. Simmons says he has been working towards this release for a decade.
“It’s taken 10 years – eight years of it had to do with searching for the songs. People may not realise that long ago we were recording to 24-track tape, 16-track tape, eight-track, even two-track tape, and over time, because of condensation and oxidation, and other big words, the tape would warp. So I literally, like a turkey, had to put it into a special kind of oven and cook the tape, so that you could play it at least once, and so that the tape wouldn’t kinda self-destruct. We finished about four months ago.
“I started at noon, I sat back, and started playing all the songs back to back, it took me 18 hours to get through it all.”
To learn more or pre-order THE VAULT EXPERIENCES, visit GeneSimmonsVault.com.
