EXCLUSIVE — Kiss bassist Gene Simmons descended on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to testify before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee in support of a bill that requires the radio industry to pay artists when their music is played.
Ahead of the hearing, the rock superstar told the Washington Examiner in an interview that this bill is about protecting the next Elvis Presley.
“America invented the music of planet Earth: rock ‘n’ roll, blues, jazz, hip hop, country and western,” Simmons said in the interview. “The king of rock ‘n’ roll was born in America, Elvis Presley, and all of his millions of times you heard Elvis’s music when he was singing on radio, AM and FM, everybody got paid, the radio stations made almost $14 billion.”
“Do you know how much Elvis Presley was paid for all of those millions of times?” Simmons asked. “Nothing.”
The American Music Fairness Act was introduced by Reps. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and
Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Alex Padilla (D-CA), who support that artists be fairly compensated. The rates for small broadcasters compared to those of commercial broadcasters are lower, in an effort to protect local stations while also providing artists with royalties for their music.
“It ain’t just about the past, you’ve also got our children who are going to become the next Elvis and the next Sinatra because talent doesn’t stop at the end of a generation,” Simmons added.
Simmons is testifying alongside SoundExchange President and CEO Michael Huppe and Inner Banks Media President and CEO Henry Hinton in the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property hearing for the bill.
The bill aims to close the loophole and require radio corporations that made $13.6 billion in advertising revenue last year to begin paying recording artists for using their music.
Simmons has been busy in Washington leading up to the hearing. He was recognized Sunday at the Kennedy Center Honors by President Donald Trump, who said he was closely involved with picking the honorees. Trump was also the first president to host the awards.
Simmons told the Washington Examiner that after spending time with him this week, he knows the president will sign the bill if Congress passes it.
The hearing comes after many artists sent a letter to congressional leaders urging them to take up the legislation earlier this year. Alongside these artists, more than a dozen conservative groups have also begun a push in support of the legislation by sending a separate letter to congressional leadership.
A markup was held earlier this year at a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing for a bill that would make it mandatory to install AM radio in every new vehicle manufactured in the United States. Artists are demanding that performers not be left behind when considering legislation that benefits the radio industry.
The corporate radio industry made $13.6 billion last year and played 240 million songs on AM radio without paying the performers. These radio platforms are the only ones that do not pay the performers. In contrast, streaming services such as Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, and SiriusXM all pay songwriters and performers, leaving the U.S. as the only democracy in which AM and FM radio do not pay performers.
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This issue goes long beyond recent years. It was championed by Frank Sinatra in the 1980s, as he sought to enlist many other major stars in his fight.
“Our goals can only be achieved with the strong support of recording artists like yourself,” Sinatra wrote to Bruce Springsteen on Dec. 12, 1988. “As you can imagine, such an undertaking will require substantial financial resources to enable us to gather support, prepare legislation, and lobby for passage of such legislation — first in California, then in Washington.”
