Gene Simmons Wants to Write Songs With ABBA Member
Gene Simmons remains proud of having written material with Bob Dylan, but he revealed another ambition was to collaborate with ABBA icon Benny Andersson.
The Kiss star spoke of his admiration for the ‘70s pop group – which recently confirmed a reunion – while he was in Sweden delivering copies of his Vault set to those who’d paid top dollar for the deluxe version.
“There are a lot of dedicated Swedish musicians,” Simmons told Expressen (translated via Google). “Roxette and ABBA are two names that I’m thinking about. ABBA is phenomenal good. I thought so immediately. Their music is the most important music from Sweden. Everyone in the world likes ABBA – even Ozzy Osbourne.”
Simmons noted that Dylan was on his bucket list of collaborators. "I just called him, and a few days later we sat together and wrote songs together," he recalled. "He was amazing. After a little while it felt like we’d been friends for 20 years. I want to write songs with Benny Andersson from ABBA. I’m sure that, in a few hours at a hotel in Stockholm, we’d begin to shape something. You’d need an hour to find a feel for a song to begin with, me sitting with a guitar and Benny at a piano.”
Simmon’s bandmate Paul Stanley recently commented on Kiss' upcoming world tour, describing it as the “biggest” they’d ever done. Espressen called it a “likely farewell tour” but did not clarify whether Simmons confirmed the description. “It will be a three-year-long tour starting in January 2019," Stanley said. "It will be our most spectacular tour ever.”