Gene Simmons' Rock School, Episodes 2 & 3: No One Is To Blame

It is the second week of the class for the kids in Gene Simmons’ Rock School class and they are busy studying rock history. Nothing terribly hard in the quizzing if one has seen even one minor documentary on the musical genre, but one has to also remember that these teenagers haven’t had that much experience to the form. As the group mingles together, Josh/Emperor stands off to the side with his headphones on singing along to “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The others look at him as being off in his own world and a bit goofy. From what we see of Josh bouncing around and acting out the singing as one would if they were ten, it is hard to disagree with why the others want to keep their distance from him. Gene, however, proudly looks at Josh. He’s even further away than the kids, but he’s still proud.

After a week of having the kids listen to music, put posters on the walls, watch KISS documentaries, and do a bit of clapping and stomping, it is now time to get serious about things. At least, that is what one would expect a teacher to do at this point. Instead, Gene has the kids scream and then dance around while playing air-guitar to Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild.” Perhaps Gene had them also looking at the financial side of the business (an area that Gene has stated many a time he has a forte in) or the basic three-chord structure of much of rock music; possibly even spend time dealing with sub-genres in rock music that go for a more orchestrated feel – such as bands like ELO, Kansas, Moody Blues, or even KISS’ own attempts at such structures in their Music From “The Elder” album. If he did, we certainly didn’t see it on the show.

Instead, for all we know, he had them playing air-guitar and screaming most of the week. While it is cute, it doesn’t really seem to be teaching the students anything beyond how to act up in class. This, therefore, is a situation that will come back to the surface soon enough in the show.

Camilla is not feeling very good about the whole process at this point. She states in an interview that she feels a bit of the outsider anyway because the rest of the students appear to have known each other from before joining the class. Moreso, she represents a certain creative type that cannot just jump into things without feeling emotionally a part of what they are doing. Gene has the kids jumping up and down just to jump up and down and she’s not seeing what the point is to it. It’s silly to her and, as she goes on to say in the interview, she doesn’t feel it is right.

Gene does notice something is up with Camilla, but feels she is just being timid and all he will need to do is crack through her shell in order to get her to be like everyone else in the class. A rather shortsighted view of the inner-workings of such creative individuals – trying to force someone to open up merely gets them to close down even further. But Gene has never been one to understand what drives people creatively in the first place.

For a change of pace, it is decided to have the school’s debate society issue a motion on whether rock and roll music should be in the school. It’s a harmless debate team type setup and Gene treats it as a bit of a goof. Gene’s defense of rock and roll music starts off okay, dealing with his long-held view of rock music being a type of folk music and therefore significant at least in a historical manner. He then fumbles a bit by going into another long-held belief that, when it comes down to it, rock music is good only to make money (“I made $100 million in this industry. Don’t you want to make $100 million? If not, then give your money to me.”). It an argument that comes off as pompous and not good debate form (i.e. I have a hundred pair of stretch-socks; you don’t; therefore, I win), and it is hardly one that would win over students who had spent their time in school being taught about the creative freedom that music can bring into their lives. Gene’s argument that music is just a three-card monte scam to make a quick buck from the suckers doesn’t win him points with the crowd. In fact, the vote by the students is very close, with rock music staying just barely squeezing by.

Nor does Gene win over the students in his class. Both Jesse and Dudley state they don’t care for his ideals on money and sex. They see it as superficial posturing and rather meaningless. Gene blows off such comments – which he had heard many, many times before over the years – as being the complaints of people who just wish they were him. It’s the other side of the “hundred pairs of stretch-socks” argument, and while one sees Gene sticking to his principles, it also demonstrates a closed-mind attitude towards other perceptions … and, unfortunately, his students.

While the debate turned out to be rather meaningless, the students move on to choir practice where Gene demonstrates a song for the kids. The Deputy Head of the school, Mary Ireland, is a bit concerned about how reverent Simmons will treat the class. As Gene stands with his guitar in the center of the hall with the students to the left and right of him, Gene tells them, “a few years ago, we wrote a song…” He then goes into “God Gave Rock and Roll to You.”

Okay, now some of the regular readers here may remember I brought up this song in the review of Episode One. I pointed out how the song was originally written by Russ Ballard of the group Argent and was a hit for that band back in 1974. So how does Gene get away with saying that “we wrote a song”? Well, this is where music can get a bit tricky. Gene, Paul Stanley (guitarist and lead vocalist of KISS), and producer Bob Ezrin took Ballard’s song, changed some lyrics, twisted the music around a little and voila – they claimed a song credit, made some royalties off of the sucker, and could lay the claim that they “wrote the song.” So there you go. Would it have looked better if Gene had done a song that he and/or the other members of KISS had fully written? Yes, but “Murder in High Heels” probably wouldn’t have worked well in choir practice.

But back to the show.