We gotta say it: Sometimes life and by extension the rock music scene are like junior high, far too rife with petty sniping and squabbling. Case in point for the most part: The recent back and forth and around among Gene Simmons, Nikki Sixx and Paul Stanley.
Backstory: It all started following the death of Prince. Simmons, who is notoriously straight-edge and anti-drugs and drink, said in Newsweek on May 10th that he felt that Prince’s death was a “a choice” and that it was “pathetic that he killed himself” – referring to Prince’s still-alleged if also likely addiction to prescription pain killers that probably led to an overdose.
Simmons almost immediately apologized on Twitter, saying, “I have a long history of getting very angry at what drugs do to the families/friends of the addicts. I get angry at drug users because of my experience being around them coming up in the rock scene.”
His Kiss bandmate Paul Stanley also Tweeted an apology.
Embarrassed by cold clueless statements re Prince’s death. Without all the facts better to say nothing. My apologies https://t.co/Arb5XQ4o7l
— Paul Stanley (@PaulStanleyLive) May 10, 2016
That should have ended it. But then Motley Crüe’s Nikki Sixx weighed in during a radio interview. “We have no respect for Gene Simmons anymore – nobody in rock does. And I’m not gonna sit back quietly and allow a bully to go out there and put down people he doesn’t know anything about… I think that Gene should call it a day, and that we should look at this beautiful catalogue of music that Prince has given us. And if you wanna compare Prince to Kiss… there’s no comparison.”
Important point of order: When Simmons made his controversial remarks on Prince’s death, he did praise the artist’s talents, saying, he was “heads, hands and feet above the rest of them.”
Then Stanley fired back at Sixx on Facebook: “Would you please shut up, find another way to be in the news and get off your self inflated pedestal.” Then Sixx posted some good natured comments on Facebook and soon after deleted them.
But how about this instead? Everyone just hold off and step back. Prince’s death was tragic. It appears he was in considerable pain. He wasn’t doing drugs recreationally. Make or score any points some other way. Peace out.
