Gene Simmons I Remember…

Rock legend, actor, one-time ladies’ man and TV personality Gene Simmons, 69, has sold more than 100 million albums as bassist and co-lead singer with the American band, Kiss.

- Simon Hemelryk

…MY FIRST KISS, AGED ABOUT 2. Some relative or neighbour came to our home in Israel, where I was born, wearing bright red lipstick, which I’d never seen before. There wasn’t a lot of infrastructure in the country, back them, so my mother, Flora, didn’t use much make-up.

I wound up dancing a jig on the coffee table and this woman squealed and kissed me. I was horrified. It affected my attitude to kissing for a while—until I stuck my tongue out for the first time and the earth stopped.

…BEING TERRIFIED BY SOMETHING HIDING IN MY HAT. We had to wear caps to keep out the sun at school, and one day, mine just wasn’t sitting right— because there was an enormous spider sitting underneath. I was scared of insects for years. Then, after Kiss formed, I found a black belt with a huge tarantula on the buckle. I must have worn it every day for more than a decade— it was a sort of confront-your fears approach.

…BEING TAUGHT TO REALLY VALUE LIFE BY MY MOTHER. She died recently, aged 93, but had been in a concentration camp as a teenager, and to say her family was wiped out is too soft. They were tortured, starved and finally put into gas chambers. She didn’t talk about it, but it gave her a decidedly different world view.

My father abandoned us when I was about six and my mother had to work 12-hour days to provide for me, but she made sure I had a stand-up, be-proud attitude, and didn’t use drugs, smoke or drink. Being alive was too precious, she thought. You only get about 80 years—and you’re asleep for a third of that. And I have yet to consciously get high, drunk or smoke cigarettes.