Kiss and Make-Up

Description

Gene Simmons was born Chaim Witz in 1951 in Haifa, Israel, to a carpenter and a Nazi concentration camp survivor. When he was nine, his mother brought him to New York, opening up his mind to American culture and sowing the seeds for Kiss. Kiss gave people great rock 'n roll music with an awe-inspiring theatrical show. Each member had their own look - Gene's was "The Demon" and his bat-like make-up, on-stage fire-breathing, tongue-waggling and blood-drooling made headlines worldwide. Simmons' life is extraordinary and his personality contradictory. He has witnessed and partaken in the highest level of debauched rock and roll behaviour, but has never touched drugs or alcohol. This uncensored book tells the real story of the man behind the make-up.

Gene Simmons was born in Israel in 1949; eight years later he arrived in New York City unable to speak a word of English. He played in a number of rock bands before co-founding the best rock and roll band of the 1970s- KISS. Over the successive decades, he has proved himself as one of the world's best bassists. He lives with his partner and two children in Los Angeles.

Readers may be surprised by Simmons's clarity and candour. How did Chaim Witz, the overprotected Israel-born son of Hungarian Jewish Holocaust survivors, become Gene Simmons, fire-breathing, tongue-flexing, blood-spitting rocker? * New York Times *