Rockstar Gene Simmons gave realistic advice in a Senate hearing on Tuesday when asked by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) for musical advice for his youngest son.
“Mr. Chairman, if you’ll indulge me, for Mr. Simmons, not on the bill itself, but my youngest son,” Padilla said. “His name is Diego. He’s 10 years old. He has quickly fallen in love — not with the bass, but the electric guitar. What advice do you have for him?”
“Have a fallback position,” Simmons quipped back.
The bassist said his answer was serious, pointing to reasons he came to testify before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property. He explained that when artists gain “minuscule amounts,” they are “barely able to get by,” pointing to the phenomenon of downloading and file sharing.
The hearing was held to discuss the American Music Fairness Act introduced by Reps. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Padilla, who support fair compensation for artists. The bill would ensure rates for small broadcasters are lower compared to those of commercial broadcasters, in an effort to protect local stations while also providing artists with royalties for their music.
Simmons testified alongside SoundExchange President and CEO Michael Huppe and Inner Banks Media President and CEO Henry Hinton in the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property hearing for the bill.
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Simmons went on to finish his advice by telling the senator he saved up money from his first handful of jobs to launch KISS.
“I was making $23,000 a year when that meant a lot of money,” Simmons explained. “But doing the Jewish way of living with your mother, not paying rent, and so on. So I amassed a large enough amount so that I could support the band. We were forming together without managers and everything else.”