Me, Inc.: Gene Simmons

Kiss and tell.

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‘How To Make A Million’ books are perfectly satirised in Peep Show, when Mark publishes Business Secrets Of The Pharaohs while working as a bathroom salesman. But the notion of a successful person letting you in on the secrets of wealth for the price of a hardback remains a seductive one, as Gene Simmons understands.

So here comes Business Secrets Of The Rock Stars, in which the ‘secrets’ turn out to be quite guessable: don’t take holidays, don’t buy anything you can’t afford, be prepared to fail and don’t work with losers (including, in this case, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss).

The revelatory part of Me, Inc is Simmons’ own story. He has already published an autobiography but through the filter of this format, the life of a child immigrant arriving in a strange country without speaking the language tells of the trauma and drive so often present in the overachiever./o:p

Jon Hotten

Jon Hotten is an English author and journalist. He is best known for the books Muscle: A Writer's Trip Through a Sport with No Boundaries and The Years of the Locust. In June 2015 he published a novel, My Life And The Beautiful Music (Cape), based on his time in LA in the late 80s reporting on the heavy metal scene. He was a contributor to Kerrang! magazine from 1987–92 and currently contributes to Classic Rock. Hotten is the author of the popular cricket blog, The Old Batsman, and since February 2013 is a frequent contributor to The Cordon cricket blog at Cricinfo. His most recent book, Bat, Ball & Field, was published in 2022.