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Gene Simmons spent decades traveling the world as the fire-breathing bass player for KISS, taking with him the large road crews required for massive — and expensive — productions on some of music’s biggest stages. Since KISS’s final show in December 2023, Simmons has been traveling considerably lighter as the frontman for the Gene Simmons Band, playing KISS favorites, some rarely heard Simmons solo tunes and familiar classics by the likes of Van Halen and Motorhead.
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Simmons says he has stripped down the tour to the essential elements — the musicians — and pockets more money from a Gene Simmons Band show than he netted as a member of KISS. “The local promoters provide the back line, and we just get up there and play,” Simmons tells Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast. That’s a sharp contrast to the complex — and expensive — production required to take KISS on the road.
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As a solo artist playing festivals and theaters, Simmons has “no managers, no private jets, no 20 tractor trailers, no 60-man crew, no huge shows — and the pyro alone for every [KISS] show is ten grand, sometimes 50 [thousand dollars] if you go outdoors,” he explains. “Enormous, enormous costs for doing that.”
Simmons is “proud” to have performed those massive productions, but the Gene Simmons Band tour isn’t trying to replicate the KISS stage show. “It’s almost as if you decided to rent some amps in a garage and plug in,” he says, “and then everybody from the neighborhood comes in … It’s very informal and a lot of fun.”
Outside of the four band members, the band takes two additional people on the road, says guitarist Brent Woods, who manages the travel and concert production details: an assistant who helps with business duties and Simmons’ security, and one crew member for the musicians. As for equipment, Woods says the band — which also includes guitarist Zach Throne and drummer Brian Tichy — takes only its guitars and pedal boards, and Tichy may take his own snare drum on the upcoming tour. Otherwise, everything is rented. “It does save a lot of money,” says Woods. “And then in turn, everybody benefits, right? The band included. Everybody makes more money.”
The stripped-down traveling arrangement wouldn’t work with a larger group of people, Woods admits. Nor would it work if Simmons wasn’t comfortable riding in a splitter van and going without rock star trappings. “But Gene’s so easygoing,” says Woods. “He’s just so relaxed and he’s low maintenance. He doesn’t need a lot. He’s not the quintessential rock star that has to have a certain room or a suite that’s on this floor far away from the elevator. He just is not that way.”
Simmons readily admits he didn’t pioneer this approach to touring. “It used to be done by black musicians on the Chitlin’ Circuit, what used to be the black clubs, because they couldn’t play white clubs,” he said. Rock pioneer Chuck Berry took it a step further, touring only with his guitar and arriving in each city with a local band that had learned and rehearsed his songs. (Bruce Springsteen once played in Berry’s backing band for a concert in 1973.) “Now, I don’t do that,” said Simmons. “I take my band with me, but Berry would show up and would, you know, he’d tell the guys, ‘Study the records, learn these songs, I’m going to show up,’ and no rehearsal, nothing.”
To Woods, the Gene Simmons Band’s do-it-yourself touring approach is simply a longer version of the “weekend warrior” touring artist. “Bands go out Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and they play two, three shows. It’s the same thing. They’re flying to the destination, the back line’s there for them.”
Extending the weekend warrior approach into longer tours requires the knowledge Woods gained from decades as a traveling musician for decades, first as a member of the group Wildside and more recently as a member of Sebastian Bach’s band. “I’ve learned since the 90s,” he says, “when I started going out and touring. And you kind of learn by a lot of mistakes and your own mistakes and other people’s mistakes, and you finally figure it out.” Woods’ time on the road has also allowed him to built a network of professionals he can call to work at his shows in different cities. “It’s hard for younger bands to do that because they don’t know a lot of people,” he says.
Listen to the entire interview with Gene Simmons in the embedded Spotify playlist or go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, Podbean or Everand.
‘Tis the season for new holiday hits! On the latest Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Katie & Keith are taking their annual sleigh ride through a half-dozen Christmas songs impacting the Billboard charts this year. For 2024, we’re taking a look at Jimmy Fallon and Jonas Brothers’ “Holiday”; Cher’s “DJ Play a Christmas Song” remix with […]
On today’s (Dec. 6) episode of the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century podcast, we’re finally out of new rankings and pop stars to discuss — so we take a look back at the top 10, and the entire Greatest Pop Stars project, with some help from AJ Marks, moderator of Reddit’s r/Popheads forum and […]
On today’s (Dec. 4) episode of the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century podcast, we finally get to No. 1 on our list with the period’s true standard-setter, a pop star who set the bar 25 years ago and has only continued to raise it in the years since. (Read our No. 1 Greatest […]
It’s been a very musical couple of weekends at the box office, with the release of Wicked followed by Moana 2. And on Dec. 20, Mufasa: The Lion King also arrives in theaters. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Why are all these major musical movies converging at once? On the new Billboard […]
When the 2025 Coachella lineup was unveiled last week, we learned that Lady Gaga, Post Malone, Green Day and Travis Scott would headline the Indio, California, festival, and if you look below those big-font names, you’ll find there are quite a few A-listers scattered throughout the poster. On the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Katie […]
Lake Street Dive’s ascent from its music school roots to Manhattan’s largest concert stage is a story of an old-fashioned work ethic in an era of overnight TikTok stars.
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A decade ago, when Lake Street Dive performed in New York City, it played the 600-capacity Bowery Ballroom, a notch on the belt for up-and-coming acts. Not long before that, the band, which came together in 2004 at the New England School Conservatory of Music, played gigs at the cozy Rockwood Music Hall, wine bar-cum-music venue that could squeeze a couple hundred people at its biggest stage. In 2022, Lake Street Dive had taken its brand of pop-meets-jazz-meets-soul to two nights at Radio City Music Hall.
By 2024, the five-piece band was ready for the city’s most vaunted stage, the 19,500-capacity Madison Square Garden. Thinking about performing at the historic arena, which has hosted everything from the legendary Concert for Bangladesh in 1971 to a 10-year Billy Joel residency, gave singer Rachael Price “a fair amount of imposter syndrome,” she tells Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast.
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“But when we got there and we walked out on stage, and we felt the crowd, it was like every single person had seen us play at Rockwood Music Hall. That’s how they felt. The energy of the faces in the crowd, they all had this like knowing look on their face, [as if they were saying,] ‘I’ve seen you in this city for 10 years, and I knew you guys when.’ And so the whole thing felt kind of like a big homecoming. It felt like a graduation party.”
Drummer Mike Calabrese found himself with a similarly weak stomach before the show. “I didn’t sleep the night before, and I was nauseous all day until sound check,” he says. ”But then I realized, oh yeah, our fans are the best. We’ve played New York a million times. We know what we’re doing. Everything’s fine.”
Price, Calabrese and their bandmates — bass player Bridget Kearney, keyboardist Akie Bermiss and guitarist James Cornelison — reached another career milestone in 2024 when their eighth studio album, Good Together, was nominated for a Grammy for best traditional pop vocal album. For a self-described “genre-less band,” receiving a nomination that typically requires being placed into a genre came as a surprise. “We definitely have all said to each other — maybe to ourselves —[that] we will never get nominated for a Grammy,” says Price.
Success has a way of finding talented artists who persevere, though, and Lake Street Dive has put in the hard work to merit both a Madison Square Garden gig and a Grammy nod. “We have been doing this for 20 years — and steadily for 20 years,” says Calabrese. “And I’m not saying that everybody who does that for 20 years deserves a Grammy necessarily, but it’s very exciting, and we’re very honored. I also feel like we made a really good album. It would be one thing if we were a band that was one or two years on the scene and had this just massive hit and boom!”
Still, the Grammy nomination was so unexpected that the band didn’t contemplate leaving time in their tour schedule to attend the ceremony in Los Angeles on Feb. 2. “It wasn’t on our bingo card,” admits Price. Instead, the band will be enjoying a day off in Amsterdam while touring in Europe. “If someone wants to send their private plane to get us there — which we’re against philosophically — then we would go,” she jokes.
Listen to the entire interview with Rachel Price and Mike Calabrese below, or go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart, Audible, Podbean or Everand.
On today’s (Nov. 20) episode of the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century podcast, we reach No. 3 on our list with a pop super-duperstar who shined bright for 13 years of absolute pop world command, before ducking out to tend to her business and empire for most of the past decade. (Read our No. […]
When Sabrina Carpenter set up shop in Los Angeles for three dates of her Short n’ Sweet Tour, she brought out the big guns. There was Christina Aguilera. There was Jack Antonoff. And then there was Domingo. On the new Pop Shop Podcast, we welcome Billboard deputy editor Lyndsey Havens so she and Katie can […]
A few years ago, Gin Blossoms singer Robin Wilson had an idea for a band T-shirt with the song title of one of its most popular songs in the style of a satanic metal band. “It was all blood, and there were pentagrams, and it said ‘Follow You Down’ in old English script,” he tells Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast. “It was just blood and flames everywhere, and I loved it so much. I thought it was really funny and great.”
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The other four members of Gin Blossoms — a melodic rock band whose handful of lasting hits from the ‘90s alternative rock era have little in common with dark heavy metal — didn’t share Wilson’s enthusiasm, and the idea never got past the conception phase. Why the shirt didn’t get made helps explain how Wilson and his bandmates have kept Gin Blossoms going for 37 years: Wilson was outvoted.
“Part of what makes our band work is that everybody gets a vote,” says Wilson from his home in Arizona. “And despite the fact that I do more work than anybody else, my vote doesn’t count for any more. It wouldn’t work for us. If I made some power grab, that would be one of the things that could lead to the end of the band.”
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Formed in 1987 in Tempe, Ariz., Gin Blossoms first released an independent album, Dusted, before signing to MCA Records and releasing New Miserable Experience in 1992. The band’s catchy, melodic songs sounded drastically different than the heavier grunge sound that was capturing programmers’ attention at the time, but Gin Blossoms eventually found a welcome home at radio and MTV. Their breakout hit, “Hey Jealousy,” peaked at No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1993 and was equalled by “Found Out About You” the following year. A double-A side single with “Follow You Down” and “Til I Hear It From You,” and the 1996 album Congratulations I’m Sorry, peaked at Nos. 9 and 10 on the Hot 100 and Billboard 200 charts, respectively.
A four-year breakup and three studio albums later, Gin Blossoms’ democratic approach to running the band has proven effective. They spent much of 2024 criss-crossing the country playing playing music venues, fairs and festivals. In August, the band hit the road with ‘90s compatriots Toad the Wet Sprocket and Vertical Horizon. In January, the band will board The ‘90s Cruise in Tampa, Fla., that will also feature Blues Traveler, Everclear, Lit and Lisa Loeb.
“I think there was a lot of sacrifices made by the everybody in the band to stay together,” says guitarist Jesse Valenzuela. “But at some after 20 years, you start to see it as maybe, I guess, this is my life’s work, and what are you supposed to do? You better make peace with your situation and try to be positive and be the best person you can be. Try to be helpful to others and be honest.”
“Punctuality,” Wilson adds. “Punctuality is important. You don’t make your bandmates wait for you. You want to keep a band together? Get to the airport on time.”
Listen to the entire interview with Robin Wilson and Jesse Valenzuela from Gin Blossoms in the embedded Spotify player below, or go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, Audible, Podbean or Everand.