FOO FIGHTERS Respond To GENE SIMMONS' 'Rock Is Dead' Remark

According to The Pulse Of Radio, FOO FIGHTERS have a response to KISS bassist Gene Simmons' recent comment that "rock is dead" and it's "not so fast." The band posted its reply on Twitter, good-naturedly referring to Simmons as "Mr. God of Thunder" after his signature KISS song.

Simmons told Esquire magazine last week — in an interview conducted by his son Nick — that "rock did not die of old age. It was murdered. Some brilliance, somewhere, was going to be expressed and now it won't because it's that much harder to earn a living playing and writing songs. No one will pay you to do it."

Simmons went on to elaborate that as a result of file-sharing and other issues, record label support for rock music was not available like it was when KISS was coming up, concluding, "It's finally dead. Rock is finally dead."

FOO FIGHTERS frontman Dave Grohl has been a tireless champion for not just rock music the last few years, but music played on real instruments by real musicians.

He said at the Grammy Awards in 2012 that the music industry has been too reliant on technology to make "perfect" music. "The human element of making music is what's most important," he said. "Singing into a microphone and learn to play an instrument and learning to do your craft, that's the most important thing for people to do. It's not about being perfect. It's not about sounding absolutely correct. It's not about what goes on in a computer. It's about what goes on in here (head) and it's about what goes on in here (heart)."

The last FOO FIGHTERS album, "Wasting Light", was recorded in Grohl's garage on analog tape, while the new one, "Sonic Highways", has been tracked at legendary recording studios around the country while the band investigated the local music scene.

The "Sonic Highways" album is due out on November 10, while an HBO documentary series about its creation, also called "Sonic Highways", will premiere on October 17.

FOO FIGHTERS just announced four U.K. shows in addition to appearances at the Life Is Beautiful festival in Las Vegas on October 26 and New Orleans' Voodoo Music + Arts Experience on November 2.