Gene Simmons talks about Rock School

Kiss bassist-singer Gene Simmons infuses a group of British schoolchildren with a little bit of rock and roll on the new VH1 series Rock School. He takes 10 classically trained kids from Christ's Hospital boarding school in England and assembles a band whose final exam is to open for the heavy metal band Motorhead.

Simmons said that turning the orchestra-oriented youths into free spirits on stage was more challenging than he had imagined: [ click here to listen if you have a Backstage Pass] "I thought, 'Gee, that's not going to be so difficult.' And then I found out they hardly know anything about rock and roll - didn't know who Mick Jagger was, didn't care about Kiss, how dare they, and in some instances had never played the instruments they would wind up playing in the band. There were also the internal sort of conflict and dynamics and the egos of prepubescent young people. It was a big job."

He added that he was tough on the kids at first because he only had three weeks to get them up to speed: [ click here to listen if you have a Backstage Pass] "Initially I went over and I think no one liked me very much. I had a big job to do: in three weeks turn people who in some cases had never played the instruments they were going to play in the band and have them open up for Motorhead in front of 5,000 people."
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