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TL;DR:

  • A group of Italian protestors proclaimed the band Kiss “fascist” and wanted to kill them.
  • Kiss’ Paul Stanley revealed what he felt about this incident and the prospect of getting killed by a mob.
  • Gene Simmons discussed his opinion of Neo-Nazism in the United States.
Kiss' Gene Simmons with a guitar
Kiss’ Gene Simmons | Jim Dyson/Getty Images

Many classic rock bands received their share of controversy. For example, Kiss was once accused of being fascist by an angry crowd. Decades later, Gene Simmons discussed his feelings about fascism in the modern United States.

Kiss’ Paul Stanley remembered the time protestors in Italy called them ‘fascist’ and wanted to kill them

In his 2014 book Face the Music: A Life Exposed, Kiss’ Paul Stanley discussed his band’s Unmasked Tour. “The second night of the tour, on August 31, 1980, in Genoa, Italy, we heard a commotion outside the locker room that was serving as our dressing room at the sports arena where we were playing,” he said.

“Then we started to hear people chanting, ‘Kiss Fascista! Kiss Fascista!'” he added.” Security started screaming, ‘Lock the doors!’ Baseball bats started pounding on the door and smashing things outside. They wanted to kill us.”

Kiss’ Paul Stanley discussed his relationship to politics

Stanley discussed his interpretation of the incident. “It was bad enough that we were going to get killed for playing music, but worse still that I was apparently going to die in platform boots and makeup.,” he said. “We consciously avoided espousing any political views, and yet to them we represented all the evils of American capitalism.” While all successful bands are capitalist, Stanley didn’t explain why a group of Italians believed the band was fascist.

“That was the first tour where people asked us about politics — Europeans’ way of thinking seemed more tied into politics and world events,” Stanley wrote. He revealed he had no interest in discussing politics. Stanley also said the band’s message was positive and promoted self-empowerment.

Gene Simmons discussed what he’d do to curb fascism in the United States

On the other hand, Kiss’ Gene Simmons has discussed fascism in modern America. During a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone, he discussed an infamous Neo-Nazi march that happened earlier that year in Charlottesville, Virginia. During the march, people shouted antisemitic slogans. Simmons said if he were in charge of the country, he would ban all forms of Nazism and send Neo-Nazis to jail.

Simmons noted there are people who “march with crosses but hate Jews,” without understanding that Jesus Christ was a Jewish man and a rabbi. He said Jesus’ teachings that we should “love one another [and] don’t judge lest you be judged” are forms of liberalism.

Simmons also said some of the greatest minds in history were Jewish, including Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Albert Einstein. In Simmons’ opinion, the Axis Powers might’ve won World War II without Einstein’s help. The singer cited Einstein as one of his personal heroes, alongside his mother, a survivor of the Holocaust.

Kiss was accused of fascism but Simmons has no sympathies for modern fascism.

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