Mark Tremonti believes Gene Simmons has only said rock is dead because the Kiss star is falling out of the limelight himself.
The Alter Bridge and Creed guitarist – who is currently working on his solo project’s second album – is the latest star to dismiss Simmons’ claim that the genre was “murdered” by the internet and falling record company support.
Tremonti says: “I think people’s waning interest in Gene Simmons as a person is what’s making him say that. I would say that maybe a portion of his career is dead – but the rest of us are still out there and loving it and doing it.
“Just because his career is coming to a close it’s kind of selfish for him to say that it’s dead. Maybe that’s his world, but not the rest of our worlds.”
Tremonti – whose comments come after Rob Halford,Dee Snider and Scott Ian expressed their feelings – has taken the business side of his career into his own hands, launching his own company Fret 12, saying modern musicians have to move with the times.
He says: “There’s a ton of rock band still doing it. It’s never going to go away – it’s always going to be a genre that people love. Europe has really kept our career alive and kept rock’n’roll thriving.
“It might not be the top genre at the moment, but everything is kind of cyclical. Hopefully our turn to be back on top with rock will be here in the next decade.”
Simmons has regularly courted controversy over the years, with 2014 being particularly busy. Most recently he said women should build a career before having children, while before his “rock is dead” outburst he said poor people should show gratitude to the wealthy and that he would urge suicidal people to “jump.”
Tremonti last week hailed bassist Wolfgang Van Halen for his work on the upcoming Tremonti album, which is due out around March 2015.
