There are some pieces of advice that stay with us for life, right? And when the Metal God receives wise words from another music legend, then they'll definitely never leave our minds.
This was the case with Rob Halford , who credited Gene Simmons of KISS for brilliant advice about the music industry that Rob carried with him throughout his life, as he reveals in an interview with Jay Jay French of Twisted Sister for the podcast The French Connection . “We have a great friendship with Gene and Paul [Stanley] from KISS. And [Judas] Priest was on a big tour, we were invited to open for KISS, and I was talking to Gene about the music business and he said, 'Let me just say this: it doesn't matter what they say about you, as long as they have your picture and spell your name right'.”
“Especially in music, where there are so many opinions, and so many different points of view, it’s out of your control, and you really have to figure things out, because the way some of that negativity can interfere with your personal life: ‘You suck,’ ‘I hope you die of cancer,’ and all those terrible things, you have to deal with that. You see that particularly in popular music with younger people,” Rob continues.
“When young people become famous quickly, how can they handle it? You need experience,” he says. “You need wisdom. And then that simple message from Gene, I still remember: ‘It doesn’t matter what they say about you as long as they have your picture and spell your name right.’ And that has some validity.”