For more than half a century, KISS’ Gene Simmons has been one of the most recognizable figures of rock and roll. Simmons rose to stardom as the “demonic” bassist and co-lead singer of the rock band formed in New York City in 1973.
“All my life I’ve been a chameleon. Everything is a costume,” Simmons said in an interview for “CBS Mornings” that aired on Wednesday.
But his devilish make-up and theatrical persona are a stark contrast to his very humble upbringing as the son of an immigrant single mother. Long before he became a KISS icon, he was known simply as Chaim Witz, meaning “life” in Hebrew.
The road to KISS
CBS Mornings 
“You want to be in a rock band?” Simmons recalled his mother asking. “That’s not going to fly, babe.”
Before moving to New York at age 8, Simmons was born in Israel – a child of Jewish refugees from Hungary. His mother, Flora Klein, survived the Holocaust.
“After the horrific unimaginable life my mother went through where she saw her entire family, our family, wiped out in front of her face, every decision I was going to make I thought about my mother first,” Simmons said.
Simmons vowed to be there for his mother every step of the way, reminding himself, “Don’t break your mother’s heart. Don’t do it.”
He said it was an observation his mother made that inspired him to be a musician. While watching The Beatles perform on “The Ed Sullivan Show” one night, Simmons recalled his mother coming in and commenting in Hungarian.
“I’ll never forget this…she said something like, in Hungarian, ‘They’re really weird people.’ And at that point, I thought they’re cool,” Simmons said.
The birth of “Rock and Roll All Nite”
After making some money from singing background for other artists at New York City’s Electric Lady Studios, Simmons and his pal Paul Stanley went on to form the legendary band KISS in their early 20s.
Eddie Kramer, who worked with The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, agreed to produce and engineer their first demo. But they struggled in obscurity until a challenge from their label’s president led to one of the most famous lines in rock history.
While buying frozen hot dogs and a can of beans in San Francisco, Simmons recalls Stanley turning to him and humming some of the lyrics to the song that would later become the iconic 1975 hit “Rock and Roll All Nite.”
“We were in San Francisco, we went downstairs to buy frozen hotdogs and a can of beans. And Paul said, what do you think of this?”
“That’s really good. What do you got? He goes, ‘That’s all I’ve got,'” said Simmons after Stanley sang the chorus. They eventually put more verses together.
“And that’s how the song was born,” he said.
By 1977, following the release of their concert album “Alive!”, they were one of the most famous bands in America. Today, KISS has more gold albums than any other American band and has sold more than 100 million records worldwide.
Though KISS retired from performing as a band, Simmons, now 75, is currently on tour.
“You’re running a race in a sense, the race of life and the finish line is coming up right ahead of you. What are you going to do? Slow down, or are you going to speed up?” Simmons said.
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