Dear Mr Simmons,
As a writer I appreciate the imagery of your words when you paint a picture of a murdered rock n’ roll, I can almost see the stab wounds. Your statement that “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. No one will pay you to do it.” Makes me believe that you have forgotten your roots (if they were ever yours at all). The kid that makes his fingers bleed learning his favorite Beatles song, or the Muse fan who’s parents have to constantly tell him to “turn that nonsense down” as he struggles to learn the baseline to every song on The Resistance, the girl who is learning guitar and singing her own personal lyrics because she just HAS to get them out…. Rock n’ roll is as alive as ever to them.

I agree that illegal file sharing is indeed, stealing. As a woman who is personally affected by this very theft, I ask you, when was the true spirit of rock n’ roll all about money? Isn’t the money a possible result instead of the REASON to rock? You know what? I think you’re a grumpy old business man who may have never understood the magic of rock n’ roll. I think that you count your money instead of your blessings.

Some people might say that being loyal to your bros and remembering where you came from is part of the spirit of rock. Your refusal to allow your two fellow founding members of KISS to perform at your induction to the hall of fame, for the very genre that you now openly mock, is kinda shity. I mean, do you think you came up alone? Maybe it’s not rock n’ roll that’s dead, maybe it’s something inside you.

“Don’t quit your day job.” Is, indeed, fantastic advice. A career in rock n’ roll is a crap shoot. There are millions of uber talented people out there who will never have the ear of anyone “who matters”. They will never play to a crowd and will never be discovered… But rock n’ roll is alive in them every time they touch those strings or pick up a pair of sticks. Why? Because rock n’ roll is a feeling, it’s a state of mind that is not defined by a paycheck.

Keep rockin’ kids! Prove this old fart wrong! Have faith that like many industries that have faced what seemed like certain death because of technological changes, rock n’roll will figure it out. There will be shifts and changes and there will still be rock stars! Rock n’ roll will never die!

Sincerely,
Jenny Klooster, mother of two kids that rock