Gene Simmons was eight years old when he immigrated from Israel to Queens. He didn’t speak English and could hardly fathom the frenetic buzz of America in the late 1950s. But to paraphrase Lou Reed, one day Simmons turned on a New York station and he couldn’t believe what he heard at all. He started shaking and his life was saved by rock ‘n’ roll. Now at 75, the bass player of Kiss is coming to New Jersey to continue the after-party following the phenomenally successful band’s “End of the Road” farewell tour. Simmons grew up in a one-bedroom apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens, with his mother, who relocated to Israel after being liberated from a Nazi concentration camp in Austria. Simmons’ mother worked six days a week in a sweat shop, barely making enough to keep them fed. He didn’t have money for records, but was moved when he heard Chuck Berry on the radio. Simmons never met Berry, but gave an impromptu eulogy at his funeral, choking up as he recalled what he had meant to him as a young boy. “I couldn’t speak English very well,” Simmons told NJ Advance Media in a recent interview. “But when I heard Chuck Berry especially, my body sort of moved. Chuck‘s music just grabbed me and literally shook me from the core.” Then on a Sunday night in 1964, Simmons saw The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and his life changed forever. “The bug bit me because I was an outsider,” Simmons said. “I spoke with an accent, which I couldn’t get rid of for a few years. When I saw The Beatles, I saw something else. …They were small guys by American standards. So all of a sudden I thought, ‘Oh, maybe I can do this too.’ You don’t have to look like a certain cookie-cutter example of what a rock star looked like in the image of Elvis.” He began to practice guitar and create fanzines in his apartment. Always the pragmatist, he realized he would have a better chance of getting into a band if he played bass, so he switched. “Immediately I got more attention from chicks,” Simmons recalled of his teen forays into rock. “I doubt the same thing would have happened if I announced I was planning to be a dentist.” In 1973, the band Kiss emerged from another band, Wicked Lester. They created stage effects and visuals, including their signature audacious black and white face makeup. Simmons became “The Demon,” strutting in enormous platform shoes and wagging his preternaturally serpentine tongue — spitting stage blood and breathing fire. From playing fourth bill at Manhattan’s Academy of Music on New Year’s Eve in 1973 (Simmons’ hair caught on fire during the show), word of mouth soon spread and headlining acts didn’t want to follow the Kiss explosive live show. While their initial albums were not big sellers, “Kiss Live” took off in 1975, due in part to the popularity of their anthemic “Rock and Roll All Nite.” What followed was 14 platinum albums, 30 gold records and more than 100 million records sold, making them one of the best-selling acts in history. Simmons — who never used drugs or alcohol — threw himself into the rock star lifestyle and became notorious for bedding thousands of women. He even dating Cher and Diana Ross. Eventually he began a long-term relationship with Playboy Playmate of the Year Shannon Tweed. He remained non-monogamous, though they raised two children together. “It takes straight guys a long time to grow up,” Simmons said. “We are arrogant, self-absorbed. Guys are like your nervous dog who, if you don’t keep on leash, just runs away. Not because it doesn’t love you, because it likes to run and do stuff and be free.” Eventually the demon became the mensch and proposed to Tweed. On their reality TV show, at Tweeds’ insistence, Simmons burned a box of photos of women with whom he slept with. “I’ve married her twice, and I’m making plans to marry her again,” Simmons said. “Because she put up with me and my wandering ways for 29 years and never left me. Yeah, I would have gotten rid of my sorry ass the first year.” Kiss — after fluctuations in its personnel, costumes and record sales — announced a final tour that ended in Madison Square Garden in 2023. The band eventually amended that finality, saying the shows were the last with their signature makeup. They announced a Las Vegas concert and talk for their “Kiss Army” fans this November. Working with visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic, they have created digital avatars that will do a “live” show at The Sphere in 2027. In the meantime, the Gene Simmons Band will play Kiss classics and deep cuts. Without the make-up and pyrotechnics of Kiss, Simmons is loose enough to mix it up with the audience. Recently he pulled a 15-year-old fan up to play drums with the band. Though Simmons would seem to have earned the leisure of kicking back, he has no intention of slowing down. “Once you’re the world champion of something, you compete to try to break your own record,” Simmons said. “Money is like the judges on the side holding up numbers….The people who give a (crap) about the money most are the people that were poor, because you know what an empty belly feels like.” He has several business ventures with and without Kiss, including a chain of restaurants called Rock & Brews and a Kiss-themed miniature golf course. “I’ve got a lot on my plate,” Simmons said. “But there’s nothing like getting up on stage. There’s a magic in that.” Official Kiss performances may be limited going forward, but this might not be the last chance New Jersey has to see Simmons. “They’re going to have to drag me kicking and screaming into the ground,” Simmons said. “I’ll tell you that.” The Gene Simmons Band will be at the Count Basie Center, 99 Monmouth Street, Red Bank, on May 5 at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $50-$199. For info, go to thebasie.org. The band will play at the Wellmont Theater, 5 Seymour Street, Montclair, on May 6 at 8 pm. Tickets start at $59.50. For info, go to wellmonttheater.com.