Kiss may have played their final ever show a year ago today, but bassist Gene Simmons shows no sign of slowing down. The demon surfaced on the soundtrack to this year’s Reagan movie – about former US President Ronald Reagan, with Dennis Quaid in the title role – and now a video of his contribution has been released by the film’s distributors.
A whiskey-voiced Simmons sings the jazz standard Stormy Weather, written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler in 1933 and first performed by Ethel Waters at the Cotton Club in New York City. He joins a list of artists to have covered the song that includes Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Etta James and Judy Garland.
“It seemed to me during the scenes where Ronald Reagan was sitting with Jane Wyman [Reagan’s first wife] at the club, there would probably be music playing in the background,” Simmons tells Newsweek. “I was actually thrilled that the producers thought my version of the song would work in the scene.”
Simmons also reveals that he’s considering recording a covers album along the lines of Johnny Cash’s much-vaunted American Recordings series.
“I sat down with producer Rick Rubin, who worked on those Johnny Cash albums,” Simmons reveals. “And we had a brief conversation about the very same subject.”
In other news, Simmons has once again claimed that rock is dead, this time during an interview with the Zak Kuhn show.
“Mike McCready [Pearl Jam guitarist] told me he was growing up with those Kiss records,” says Simmons. “In fact, one of his solos he took note for note from Ace Frehley. But that’s not my point. My point is if you randomly walk down the street and you ask the first young person you meet, a 20-year-old, and you say, ‘Name me anybody in Pearl Jam,’ good luck with that. ‘Name me or tell me a song. Hum a song.’ They can’t.”
