Gene Simmons has claimed that Kiss was responsible for for popularising the downtuning – before heavy metal and other genres such as grunge made it commonplace
Unlike Black Sabbath bassist Tony Iommi, who detuned his instruments to make playing less painful on his fingers, Simmons says that the Kiss members did it to preserve their voices.
“Unlike other bands, we were running around on stage on seven and eight-inch platform heels,” says the musician in a recent chat with the Zak Kuhn Show [via Ultimate Guitar]. “And the weight and the physicality of doing this stuff, you’re constantly out of breath.”
“I don’t know if you saw early videos of stuff, all those moves, the back and forth. It was a very physically demanding show. And you’re screaming, you’re trying to push.”
“And we noticed early on that our voices started to go if you tune ‘A440,’ which musicians will understand, it’s the higher key that’s predominantly… So if you say the E string, there is an actual E note. And so we started to detune half a step down,” Simmons explains. “So all the strings on the guitar went up, but we all went down half a step so we could reach the high notes. And by the time we quit, we actually tuned down a full step.”
“We detuned the instruments so that our voices wouldn’t break,” he continues, noting how Kiss ended up paving the way for other rock guitarists to detune their instruments too.
“Well, not only we started doing that before there was a thing called ‘metal’ or the Seattle stuff, we just did it to save our voices. And then it became commonplace,” he says. “So, when you hear Metallica and everybody else, they’re detuned because it sounds thicker and bigger.”
In other news, Simmons has proclaimed that “rock ‘n’ roll is dead” thanks to “freckle-faced kids” who don’t value the music they consume.
Attributing the downfall of the genre to music piracy, Simmons said, “Unfortunately, the business model is dead and new bands don’t have a chance, especially rock bands.”
“The freckled-faced kid next door to you, who is a good kid with a good family and everything, has become entitled — feels entitled to be able to download and file share and get all of this music for free.”
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