ciuman off: Gene Simmons on how to future-proof a brand, and when to take the make-up off 

KISS off: Gene Simmons on how to future-proof a brand, and when to take the make-up off

Gene Simmons is the most outrageous member of one of the most outrageous bands of all time: KISS.

There\'s a lot more to KISS than shock. It\'s the number-one gold-record-earning group of all time, at 30—when you include the four solo albums that band members released on the same day in 1978. Fourteen albums went platinum.

This is a band that\'s known for its hits: "I wanna rock and roll all night, and party every day" seems like it\'s a phrase as old as rock itself. The band is known just as much for its look. There\'s the black and white face paint, the pyrotechnics, and a few details that are signature Gene Simmons. There\'s the blood-spitting, the axe guitar, and of course the tongue so long it\'s almost a fifth band member. And guess what: They\'re still touring.

Fortt Knox sat down with Gene Simmons at the Studio Hotel in New York, to talk business and marketing. Simmons is a guy who not only managed to launch an iconic brand in his early 20s, he and co-founder Paul Stanley remade it several times along the way with different band members, different looks—and a voracious appetite for merchandising.

Simmons also managed to become a brand on his own.

He has had more than one turn on reality TV. He was on the "Celebrity Apprentice" with then star (and now president)

Donald Trump. Simmons also had had his own show, "Gene Simmons Family Jewels," that featured wife Shannon Tweed, and his kids Nick and Sophie.

Here\'s a sampling of some of the wisdom he shared with Fortt Knox, in typically colorful fashion.

It\'s not exactly shocking that a guy like Simmons doesn\'t recommend blending in, but Simmons has very strategic reasons for spectacle. He traced the lesson back to trying to sell fruit on the side of the road in his native Israel.

"The bigger of a nuisance and the bigger of a spectacle I made of myself, the more we sold. That\'s the first lesson of mother nature and in show business," he told Fortt Knox. "You have to grab life by the scruff of the neck and demand to pay you some attention."

In your workplace, that probably doesn\'t mean carrying an ax guitar and spitting blood. It probably does mean zeroing in on which of your skills benefit the organization most, and making sure they get noticed.

Simmons is very specific about this: When he appears on stage as "The Demon" it\'s not a character, it\'s a persona. The difference is, he\'s not pretending to be something else, as much as he\'s giving free rein to one aspect of his personality.

"If I put on the red lipstick and the star over my eye, I wouldn\'t be convincing," Simmons said, contrasting his persona with Paul Stanley\'s.

Lest we think personas don\'t have power, remember Steve Jobs, and think of Mark Zuckerberg. Jobs began wearing a black mock turtleneck and jeans later in life as a sort of uniform – or superhero suit.

Mark Zuckerberg used to wear jeans and a hoodie or fleece; now he\'s most often seen in a gray t-shirt. Jobs\'s persona drew attention to design and simplicity. Zuckerberg\'s communicates a connection to the programmers who try to keep the company relevant.

For more than a decade – from 1983 until 1996 — KISS took the makeup off. The band\'s popularity had been on a downward spiral. Aside from Paul and Gene, the band members weren\'t getting along.

"We decided, there\'s nowhere else to go. Let\'s take the makeup off," Simmons said. "It\'s much harder to be yourself. Much more difficult. You\'re aware people are looking at you."

Yet removing the masks that had made people pay attention, it turns out, proved to be a novel way of making people pay attention again.

Fortt Knox, hosted by CNBC anchor Jon Fortt, is a podcast about rich ideas and interviews with powerful people.

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