Alice Cooper argued that Gene Simmons’ famous comment about rock being dead applied only in a business sense and that, artistically, the genre was “where it should be.”

Kiss member Simmons made headlines in 2014 when he claimed that rock music had been “murdered” by technology and attitudes in the modern world. “Some brilliance, somewhere, was going to be expressed, and now it won't, because it's that much harder to earn a living playing and writing songs," he said at the time.

In a recent interview with NME, Cooper countered Simmons’ statements. “I would like him to do my taxes," he explained. "He's a businessman, and business-wise, it’s valid. But I guarantee you, right now, in London somewhere, in garages, they're learning Aerosmith, they're learning Guns N’ Roses – a bunch of 18-year-kids are in there with guitars and drums, and they are learning hard rock.”

He added that he believed the same thing was taking place in the U.S. “In some ways, rock ’n’ roll is where it should be right now," he noted. "We’re not in the Grammys, we're not in the mainstream. Rock ’n’ roll is outside looking in now, and I think that gives us that outlaw attitude. And I think that’s very good for rock ’n’ roll, ‘cause that’s how rock ’n’ roll started. We were all outlaws at the time, and then we became mainstream.”

You can watch the interview below.

Cooper asserted that the rock genre “started and never ended” and that the roots of newer styles of music could be traced back there.

He said that, through all those changes, “the Rolling Stones were still the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith was still Aerosmith, Alice Cooper was still Alice Cooper. We survived those things because guitar-driven hard rock is the only thing that will still be going 30 years from now, 40 years from now. And I think music will go all over the place, but you're gonna find those hard-rock bands still there.”

 

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