Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi: “I don't think rock is going to die”

Black Sabbath‘s Tony Iommi has waded into the “rock is dead” argument first kicked off by KISS bassist Gene Simmons.

Simmons first courted controversy in an interview back in 2014 stating that he believes the genre has no future, and doubled down on the remarks in a recent new interview.

“Rock is dead. And that’s because new bands haven’t taken the time to create glamour, excitement and epic stuff,” Simmons told Gulf News.

“I mean, Foo Fighters is a terrific band, but that’s a 20-year-old band. So you can go back to 1958 until 1988. That’s 30 years. During that time, we had Elvis [Presley], The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Rolling Stones, on and on.”

This prompted Alice Cooper to hit back, telling NME that a new generation of rock stars are currently preparing for greatness in their own homes.

Now, Iommi has shared his thoughts, telling Consequence Of Sound: “I don’t think rock is going to die. That’s been said for years. I mean, how many times I’ve heard that statement over the past 50-odd years? It’s quite a lot, really.”

He continued, “I think good music is not going to go. There’s always going to be a market for it. There are going to be an amount of bands that fall by the wayside – as there always is, there always will be.

“But there are certain bands that are going to stick out and going to be there. You’ve got Metallica, up there — they’re not going to go away. They’ve got a lot of fans and they’ve got a great fanbase. There are a lot of bands out there. No, the music is not going to go away.”

Simmons has also since clarified his recent comments on why he believes that rock is dead.

“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,” Simmons added.

“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?”