The KISS rocker insists there has been no true rock artists since 1988, whereas before then there was the likes of Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Stones and Pink Floyd.
He said: "The point is, yeah, rock is dead because if we play the game from 1958 until 1988, which is 30 years, you had Elvis, The Beatles, The Stones, Pink Floyd, and on and on and on. And you can go to the heavy part of it, which is Metallica, Maiden, if you want to put KISS in there, that’s fine. AC/DC, on and on and on. Even U2, Prince, Bowie, Eagles. And then you get to disco stuff, and Madonna, and that stuff, and Motown, of course. And then from 1988 until today, who’s the new Beatles?"
And despite the influx of boy bands today, Gene believes there's no one that compares to The Beatles.
Speaking to Consequence of Sound, he added: "I’ve heard a reaction of Foo Fighters, one of my favorite bands, but you’re kidding yourself. There’s also the boy bands: NSYNC, One Direction, BTS, and [sarcastically] XYZ, PTA, and good for them that they’ve got success. Don’t kid yourself. As soon as those girls are gonna grow a little bit older, that’s going to go away. It’s like sugar: you taste it, it gives you that little energy boost, and then it’s gone forever and you don’t care. But don’t kid yourself, it ain’t The Beatles. They don’t write songs, they don’t play instruments, it ain’t that. And we all love Elvis, never wrote a song in his life. There’s just nothing that compares to The Beatles."
