If you go down the street and ask the general person, ‘Who’s Johnny Marr?’ they won’t know who you’re talking about

KISS‘s Gene Simmons has had his say on the prospect of a reunion of The Smiths.

Morrissey recently revealed late last month that Johnny Marr had “ignored” a lucrative offer from AEG Entertainment Group to reunite the band. Morrissey claimed at the time that he had agreed to the offer, which would’ve seen The Smiths tour “throughout 2025”.

The update continued: “Morrissey undertakes a largely sold out tour of the USA in November. Marr continues to tour as a special guest to New Order.” The statement came after Marr had responded to a fan’s call for The Smiths to return amid the huge Oasis reunion news.

Morrissey also said in a new post on his website that Marr had blocked a ‘Greatest Hits’ album by The Smiths. He went on to add that a re-issue of the band’s 1983 debut single ‘Hand In Glove’ has similarly been blocked from release by his former bandmate.

Now, Simmons has weighed in on the situation. In an interview with Forbes, he said: “Get rid of the guitar player and get somebody off. Nobody cares. They just want to hear the songs. I keep saying this over and over again. If you go down the street, and with all due respect to Johnny Marr, you go down the street and ask the general person, “Who’s Johnny Marr?” they won’t know who you’re talking about.

“[Hypothetically], saying no to $100 million dollars would be lunacy. What other job would pay you that!? Unless you’re willing to break your back and play football or something…”

The topic of The Smiths first came up in the interview when Simmons was asked about Morrissey’s current label battles. Morrissey recently gave a rare interview to The Telegraph where he claimed that he is being “gagged” over the release of his album ‘Bonfire Of The Teenagers’, which he recorded between 2020 and 2021 and remains unreleased. The album’s title track is a song he says is about “England’s 9/11”, the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017.

Simmons was asked for his thoughts on the idea of labels holding an artist’s music hostage over their political views, to which he said: “Morrissey and I have exchanged pleasantries. He’s a great artist, terrific. It’s funny to look at a gift horse in the mouth. We’re all alive, and every artist and every human being has a right to express their opinion. ‘Here’s my opinion on that. I think you should be angry’—or not. And that’s his opinion.

He continued: “I happen to agree with it. By the way. ‘Wokeism’ intentionally means well, but there’s a lot of garbage and bullshit involved with it and basically browbeating anybody who doesn’t agree with you, you know, like a baker who doesn’t want to make a cake because religiously he doesn’t agree with your lifestyle. At what point do your individual rights stop and you have to bow down to somebody else’s thing? Democracy is a messy thing.

“I say more power to [Morrissey] for speaking up. And by the way, if you want to take advantage of capitalism, which is to have a record company give you money, you can’t blame him.

“Record companies are a business. They’re not here for a social tool. And when you go through a jungle, you’ve got to figure out where you want to go. Life isn’t easy and then you die. That’s all.

“He’ll be okay,” he added. “His rent is covered and he’s got food in his belly. He’ll figure it out.”

In other news, last month Simmons was honoured with the keys to Niagara Falls city and North Tonawanda in New York.