Kiss star Gene says comments are simply false

Jewish Telegraph, May 2004

ROCK star Gene Simmons has claimed comments he made attacking Islam are false.
The Israel-born Kiss bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons is reported to have said to an Australian radio station: ‘‘This is a vile culture and if you think for a second that it’s willing to just live in the sands of God’s armpit, you’ve got another thing coming.
‘‘They want to come and live right where you live and they think that you’re evil.’’
Simmons, born Chaim Witz in 1949, also allegedly claimed that the western world is under threat from extremists and a culture that treats women worse than dogs.
‘‘You can send your dog to school to learn tricks, sit, beg, do all that stuff — none of the women have that advantage,’’ he reportedly said.
But on Sunday, Simmons posted a message on his official website, saying: ‘‘Lately, comments that have been attributed to me in the press have been printed. They are false. Please use your own logic and best judgment when reading media.
‘‘Sometimes media is responsible and sometimes, it is not. You know me. And, I believe your instincts will guide you in determining what is real and what is not.’’
Simmons, who changed his name to Eugene Klein after emigrating from Haifa to America in 1958, releases his second solo album, A**hole, on June 8.
The album includes the track Waiting For The Morning Light, written with Bob Dylan.
‘‘I picked up the phone and said, ‘Bob, we’ve only run into each once or twice socially. I’ve always admired you and it would mean the world to me to write a song with you’,’’ the self-styled God of Thunder revealed.
‘‘And he said, ‘Sure’. He came over, we sat down with acoustic guitars and Bob started playing some chord changes. I immediately started humming this melody. At the end of the day I didn’t know what we had but I recorded the whole thing.
‘‘A few weeks went by, I had the arrangement down, I went into the studio with Tommy Thayer and two other guys and demoed it. All I had were nonsensical lyrics. Bob came down to check it out in the overdubbing stages. He liked it a lot. It had a kind of Traveling Wilburys sound to it.
‘‘Then I ran into Bob when we were on tour. I told him, ‘I have this track, please write the lyrics so we can finish it’. And every time he’d say, ‘No Mr Kiss, you write it’. I said, ‘I can’t write the lyrics. You’re Bob Dylan, the preeminent lyricist!’
‘‘So finally when the solo record came nearer and nearer I literally wrote the lyrics as the track was being recorded.’’