Gene Simmons

Born: 25th August 1949, Haifa, Israel

Chaim Witz moved to US at the age of 9 where his name was changed to Gene Klein. Inspired to become a musician by The Beatles. Worked as a teacher. After meeting Paul Stanley they founded Kiss in 1973 and changed name to Gene Simmons.

By the end of 1975 Kiss had become a major rock act. The band's presentation was based on horror movies and comic books. Nicknamed "The Demon", Simmons took to the stage clad in stylized armor and spiked platform boots, with his face elaborately painted in white and black.

During the 1980's Simmons started working as an actor in films and TV.

A long time admirer of FZ he was invited to visit FZ at home where they would explore FZ's archives of material. After FZ's death Simmons asked Gail if he could use one of the unused riffs he had heard in the archives for a track he was working on. Over FZ's guitar Simmons added his bass and vocals with Dweezil adding guitar and Dweezil, Ahmet, Gail and Moon all on backing vocals. Finally adding snippets of spoken parts by FZ such as the introduction: "Alright kids, here's a real rock 'n' roll song". The track was released as Black Tongue on Simmons' solo album Asshole (Sanctuary 2004).