Gene Simmons didn’t get into rock for the companionship.
The 73-year-old KISS rocker has had a successful career, but opened up about his preferences for solitude in the latest issue of Goldmine magazine.
“Even today as I sit here, other than Paul Stanley, and we only get together when we do stuff for the band. How do I say this without sounding inhuman? I don’t have friends.”
“Yeah, if friends means, ‘Gee, I don’t know what I’m going to do this afternoon. Hey, you want to come over and hang out?’ I’m more interested in what I want to do, and I don’t want to pretend that I’m interested in what you want to do because I am not.”
Despite Simmons’ solo tendencies, he and Stanley, 70, have been a team for decades — even if their initial meeting didn’t exactly go smoothly.
Stanley told Oprah in 2014 he did not like Simmons’ at first because he thought Gene was full of himself. Then added, “And nothing has changed!”
But as we know, the two eventually joined forces, and with KISS, released dozens of albums and sold more than 100 million records. Simmons and Stanley, along with bandmates Ace Frehley and Peter Criss, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014.
Simmons has also had a decades-long partnership with actress and model Shannon Tweed, whom he married in 2011 after nearly 30 years of dating. The musician and Tweed, 65, share son Nick, 33, and daughter Sophie, 30.