The accident happened in Malibu on October 7
KISS bassist Gene Simmons has been hospitalized after reportedly involved in a car accident in Malibu.
According to a spokesperson for the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station, an incident occurred on Tuesday, October 7, in which a vehicle struck a parked car in the 25,000 block of Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. The driver was taken to the hospital by the Los Angeles County Fire Department. The crash reportedly involved Gene Simmons, the bassist and co-founder of the rock band KISS, who is said to have “passed out or fainted” behind the wheel before his car careened across multiple lanes and collided with the parked vehicle.
Simmons, age 76, told responding deputies that he lost consciousness while driving. His wife, Shannon Simmons, later told NBC4 Los Angeles that he is now “recovering at home.” She also noted that doctors had recently changed his prescription medication. The sheriff’s office confirmed an incident matching the description of Simmons’s crash but did not immediately identify the driver by name.
On Wednesday [October 8], Gene Simmons release a statement on his official social media.
“Thanks, everybody, for the kind wishes. I’m completely fine. I had a slight fender bender. It happens. Especially to those of us [who are] horrible drivers. And that’s me. All is well.”
This news comes just ahead of a planned KISS reunion event in Las Vegas scheduled for November, marking the band’s 50th anniversary. The event is set to be their first performance together since retiring from touring in 2023. Also mentioned in the article is a recent interview in which Simmons made public remarks about wealth, supporting the idea that being “rich” affords greater freedom, remarks made in the context of defending his selling of high-priced packages for roles like personal assistants.
Last month marked the 50th anniversary of KISS’s seminal live album, Alive! Released on September 10, 1975, the double-LP transformed the band from a cult curiosity into a mainstream phenomenon and redefined what a live rock album could be. Capturing the band’s pyrotechnic swagger in grooves at last, Alive! quickly became the group’s commercial breakthrough, peaking at No. 9 on the Billboard 200 and ultimately staying on the chart for an extraordinary 110 weeks, the longest run of any KISS release. That endurance—combined with a galvanizing new hit single in the live version of “Rock and Roll All Nite,” which climbed to No. 12 on the Hot 100—turned 1975–76 into the moment KISS “came alive” for the masses.
In December of 2023, KISS bought their End of the Road Tour to a close at the storied Madison Square Garden. While the group are supposedly never touring again, the band announced after the show that they plan to continue peforming – virtually.
At the conclusion of their final show at MSG, KISS made a surprise handover onstage to their new digital avatars who will performed the encore, “God Gave Rock And Roll To You,” marking the withdrawal of the flesh and blood group, yet the continuation of the KISS journey into a new era. The band’s transformation into avatars will ensure their immortalization, while pushing the boundaries of rock and roll performances, as KISS have done throughout their career to date. This avatar performance will feature KISS as fantasy-based superheroes, and will provide a glimpse of just one of the many and varied ways in which KISS will live on as digital performers through their avatars in the future.
“The band will never stop, because the fans own the band.” frontman Paul Stanley said. “The band deserves to live on, because the band is bigger than we are.”
Achieved through a partnership with Pophouse Entertainment Group, the Swedish entertainment company renowned for its development of brand-building enterprises in music and entertainment, this end-of-show performance marks the official reveal of plans for a new era of KISS in the near future – which will see avatars of the band perform to fans for decades to come. KISS’s long history of experimenting with special effects and staging, as well as iconic personas and costumes, will evolve through pioneering technology.
The KISS avatars are created by the George Lucas-founded visual effects company (and Lucasfilm division), Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), who showcase their unique creative expertise and artistry using their advanced performance-capture technology. The technology has enabled ILM to capture the band’s face and body performance, forming the basis of the avatars in combination with ILM’s artistry and machine learning technology, allowing the creative essence of KISS to be able to live on forever. ILM’s previous work includes credits on iconic movies and franchises such as Star Wars, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and groundbreaking episodic series such as The Mandalorian, amongst others.
Following the physical band’s final performance, Pophouse Entertainment Group will continue to champion the KISS legacy for fans old and new, and for all generations. The new KISS avatar shows will be the second immersive, avatar-powered music concert project that Pophouse Entertainment is involved in – following the success of the ABBA Voyage show in London, UK, where Pophouse is the lead investor. Thierry Coup – former Chief Creative Officer, SVP at Universal Destinations & Experiences – is announced as the Creative Director of the upcoming avatar show.
To coincide with the reveal of their digital transformation, KISS members Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons joined Per Sundin (Pophouse Entertainment CEO), Thierry Coup (Creative Director, JOCOUP Creative), and Grady Cofer (VFX Supervisor, ILM) for a special discussion about the band’s history and the inspiration behind the move into innovative avatar-powered performance. The video of the discussion can be viewed below (and includes a glimpse of the avatars, which will feature at Madison Square Garden and in the future KISS avatar show).
In the discussion, KISS bassist and co-founder Gene Simmons comments that through partnering with ILM and Pophouse Entertainment, “We can be forever young and forever iconic by taking us to places we’ve never dreamed of before. The technology is going to make Paul jump higher than he’s ever done before.”
During the conversation, lead vocalist and co-founder of the band Paul Stanley comments: “What we’ve accomplished has been amazing, but it’s not enough. The band deserves to live on because the band is bigger than we are.” He later adds: “It’s exciting for us to go the next step and see KISS immortalized. I mean, we’ve spent 50 years building it to this point. And by working with ILM and working with Pophouse, we’re all sharing this vision of taking KISS to a completely different level beyond being just a music band. And we’ve always thought of ourselves as more than just a music band.”
Per Sundin, CEO of Pophouse Entertainment, comments: “Pophouse Entertainment Group is thrilled to embark on this transformative journey with KISS, and showcase to fans what is on the horizon as part of future avatar show. Our partnership will fuse the rich history and iconic status of KISS with cutting-edge technology, allowing fans – now and in the future – to experience the band like never before.”
It has been a wild run since the band embarked on their final tour. Since 2019, The Rock Revival has been along for the ride documenting the entire End of the Road Tour. Revisit our reviews and live photo galleries from Philadelphia (2019), Allentown (2020), and Atlantic City (2021).
“All that we have built and all that we have conquered over the past four decades could never have happened without the millions of people worldwide who’ve filled clubs, arenas and stadiums over those years,” KISS said in a statement before the initial launch of the tour. “This will be the ultimate celebration for those who’ve seen us and a last chance for those who haven’t. KISS Army, we’re saying goodbye on our final tour with our biggest show yet and we’ll go out the same way we came in – unapologetic and unstoppable.”
KISS are one of the most successful acts in music history, having sold over 100 million albums worldwide. The band broke into the mainstream in 1974 with their self-titled debut album. In 1977, the band won the People’s Choice Award for Best New Song for “Beth.” KISS were nominated for a GRAMMY® Award in 1999 for Best Hard Rock Performance.