Rock Community Slowly Awakening To the Enduring Reality That Gene Simmons Is A Boorish, Sanctimonious Loudmouth Who Says Outrageous Things To Get Attention

This week, Mötley Crüe founder and bassist Nikki Sixx joined the ever-growing ranks of musicians who have slowly begun to realize that Gene Simmons is not a cool, outspoken, just-callin'-it-like-he-sees-it rock legend, but in fact a hopelessly immature, judgmental douchebag whose calculated and outlandish proclamations only underscore how insecure Gene is becoming as he enters his final decades. This time around, Uncle Gene slammed Prince for dying — well in advance of an official cause of death — telling Newsweek, "How pathetic that [Prince] killed himself. Don’t kid yourself – that’s what he did. Slowly, I’ll grant you, but that’s what drugs and alcohol is. A slow death. When we all start out, we have these big dreams. You finally get your wish, you have more money than God, and fame. What is that insane gene in us, well, a lot of us, that makes us want to succumb to the cliche of cliches, drugs and alcohol?”Gene's not wrong- drug and alcohol dependence are very real forms of terminal illness for which treatments abound, but no cure exists. And having had a front row seat to the bludgeoning realities of substance abuse in his own band, Gene could be forgiven for adopting a tough love stance on the epidemic. Except the only love Gene Simmons seems capable of cultivating is a sloppy, passionate, if-this-is-wrong-then-I-don't-wanna-be-right kind of love for Gene Simmons. He issued an apology, which he qualified that he was delivering because his family gave him shit. You've got to admire the swollen, tractor-sized cojones it takes to slam a colleague's death while the body's still warm and to then begin an apology with "Poor me."But Nikki's not having it! Speaking with FM99 this week, Nikki boldly proclaimed his newfound faith in a power other than Gene Simmons. On behalf of all rockers near and far, in housekeeper-filled mansions and in tiny, piss bottle-filled vans, in the wooded hills of Finland and in the bustling favelas of Brazil, the denim, the leather, the spandexed rockers of Planet Earth, he said, "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."The last thing that me and Gene got into is he said that if people are depressed, they should kill themselves.“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. Prince has been an amazing artist. He's kept his standard high over the years and was never just about money and ego – it was about music.”Tough talk, indeed. The virulent, hard-hitting stuff of morning commute sports radio hot takes. But Nikki saved the real shit for his own radio show, Sixx Sense, when he strapped in to the Verbal Beatdown Machine and railed, "Nothing that Gene Simmons says resonates with me. When you're in Gene's position, you should have a little bit more than a narrow-minded, bullying sense of what's happening on the Earth. And he said that if you're depressed, kill yourself. He is pro-Trump, he is pro a lot of things that I think are negative." Then, flying off of the top rope, coming down on Gene chest-first, Nikki said, "I think that Gene is [an] overrated, lucky guy that dresses like a clown. [He] wrote some good songs, [but] hasn't in a long time, and loves to brag about himself."When Nikki Sixx is the voice of reason in any situation, I can't help but feel optimistic for all of us. https://soundcloud.com/fm99-wnor/sixx-am-interview-with-fm99-rock-girl-misa