KISS frontman Gene Simmons said Friday he knows President-elect Donald Trump "well enough," but he never got a call for his band to perform at next month's inauguration.
But at any rate, he's not sure why people should care what a rock star thinks about politics.
"Why does anybody give a squat what a guy in a band thinks about or anything like that?" the rock legend told Fox News' "Fox and Friends" program. "The last thing I want to do is ask President [Barack] Obama what he thinks about Led Zeppelin."
Earlier this month, Simmons was stopped by a TMZ photographer while coming out of a Hollywood restaurant with wife, Shannon Tweed, and their daughter, Sophie, and asked if KISS would play at Trump's inauguration.
While Tweed shouted "No!" repeatedly, Simmons said KISS would be performing in Europe at the time. Tweed eventually told the photographer that Simmons had "politely declined" the invitation.
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But on Friday, Simmons told Fox News that "nobody ever called me. I know Donald Trump. I know our president-elect well enough I suppose, but I never got a call."
Simmons, though, didn't answer definitely if he'd perform at the event if he was asked and had time on his schedule.
"The problem with even talking about this is everything has become so polarized, people should give it a rest and stop trying to use politics or what our president-elect means or doesn't mean as some kind of tool," Simmons said. "Look, a wake up call is al-Qaida and Brexit. They don't like Americans. Maybe we should sign up for the American political party and get used to it. We have a president-elect. Now let's move on."
Besides, Simmons said, if you're in America on Jan. 20, you're at the inauguration.
"There's going to be a new president-elect and everybody [should] just take a rest," Simmons said, pointing out that it's "never just one person" in charge of the United States.
Simmons said he's known Trump "well enough over the decades" and describes him as a "good family man."
"Let's talk about the important issues," Simmons said. "He's a good father. There's no drugs, booze, no craziness going on.The rest of it, do what the founding fathers of this country actually sort of created. There's a ballot box. You vote your conscience. You draw the curtain and that's the end of it and it's nobody's business who you vote for. We should all take a deep breath and get on with our lives. We should be blessing this hallowed ground call America every day. Warren Buffett is going to invest in America and so will I."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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