From Kiss to soda pop: A day with serial entrepreneur Gene Simmons

Forty-five years into his life as a tongue-wagging, blood-spewing, rock star business mogul, Gene Simmons knows his fit.

“I’ve worn these pair of pants every single day for a week,” he said, riding in the back seat of a dark SUV along the I-190, the Niagara River to his left.

Simmons’ business partner Paul Janik, co-owner of the Johnnie Ryan soda company in Niagara Falls, was driving. Seated up front next to Janik was Terry Wills, Simmons’ press agent. She has been traveling with Simmons as he promotes his new book, his restaurants, and the Simmons-branded soda he is now producing with Janik’s company.

When Simmons mentioned his pants, Wills turned and smiled. “They stand up on their own,” she said.

The hulking, stiff-haired 69-year-old Simmons is most famous as a founding, face-painted member of the rock band Kiss, and secondarily as a media personality. But he is also a serial entrepreneur. Simmons is the co-founder of a restaurant chain, the CEO of a Canadian medical cannabis company, and now the face of a new line of soft drinks. He was in Western New York Thursday to promote that beverage, Gene Simmons MoneyBag Sodas, which is being manufactured in Niagara Falls by a Johnnie Ryan subsidiary, Rock Steady Sodas.