AP HEADLINES Accountants face grilling in Enron trial Back to Home > Monday, Mar 20, 2006... Simmons hopes to give Indy KISS

Behind the garish makeup, Simmons, 56, was the driving force behind a blitzkreig of KISS-branded products, from lunch pails to caskets. The band's heyday is long gone, but Simmons says he's far from finished.

The Beverly Hills-based impressario is starring in two reality TV shows, developing a magazine, running his own music label and launching an entertainment-themed pay-TV show that will feature uncensored music videos and celebrity interviews. Think "Access Hollywood" meets "Girls Gone Wild."

Since January, he and entertainment industry veteran Richard G. Abramson, 58, have been marketing the Indy Racing League, the once-dominant auto racing circuit that has suffered in the past decade since its split from CART, now the Champ Car World Series. Both open-wheel leagues lag stock-car racing's NASCAR in popularity, although Indy has the sport's signature race in the Indianapolis 500 and an emerging star in Danica Patrick.

A few days after the race, Simmons invited Lengyel and the IRL's top brass to Los Angeles, where he and Abramson pitched a marketing alliance. To launch the effort, Simmons wrote the foot-stomping anthem "I Am Indy" with the quirky one-man band BAG to serve as the league theme song.

"At the racetrack, you could just feel and breathe in the dust," Simmons said in an interview at his home, where his sprawling office is packed with KISS merchandise and memorabilia. "It was an old man's game in need of a makeover."

"You've got to personalize the experience. These are individual, personalized rocket ships streaking 220 mph," Simmons said. "With ‘I am Indy,' you're making a pledge of allegiance to the United Nations of Indy. The phrase knows no bounds - racial, sexual or otherwise. It applies to drivers, fans, sponsors."

Simmons Abramson Marketing might be able to help "bring together what has been a fragmented part of the motor sports industry," said David M. Carter, head of consultancy Sports Business Group in Redondo Beach and a faculty member at the University of Southern California's Marshall School.

Still, all a celebrity like Simmons or Jon Bon Jovi, who founded the Arena Football League's Philadelphia franchise in 2003, can do, he said, is "whet your appetite. It's then up to the sport itself to turn you into a customer."

Simmons and Abramson are uncharacteristically mum when it comes to their pay television venture known as NGTV, short for No Good TV, which will feature frank interviews and nudity.

The company plans to make a public offering of stock this spring and is in the "quiet period" imposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Simmons is chairman of the Beverly Hills-based company and Abramson is a board member.

Taped segments feature interviews with Ben Affleck, Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry and other celebrities, as well as appearances by musicians including Black Eyed Peas and Pink, the IPO filing says.

"The timing is right for this sort of leading-edge, uncensored programming in the pay-per-view business," said Alan L. Jacobs, chief executive of Capital Growth Financial, the Boca Raton, Fla., investment bank that is underwriting the deal.

Financial analyst Tom Taulli, author of "Investing in IPOs," advises investors to tread gingerly, noting that underwriter Capital Growth Financial has managed only a handful of obscure IPOs.

Simmons, who says KISS has grossed more than $1 billion since 1974 from the sale of records, concert tickets and 2,800 licensed products, could settle down to a cushy life with his companion of 22 years, actress Shannon Tweed, and their two children.

But that wouldn't be his style. Instead, like his contemporary Ozzy Osbourne, he is starring in an unscripted TV show about his life - "Gene Simmons Family Jewels," now in production for the A&E network.

Co-founder of KISS. With bandmate Paul Stanley, oversees merchandising of the "rock 'n' roll brand." Other media projects include TV shows "Gene Simmons' Rock School" and "Gene Simmons Family Jewels," record company Simmons Records and magazine Gene Simmons Game.

Once managed actor-comedian Pee-wee Herman. Produced the movie "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" and the TV show "Pee-wee's Playhouse." Arranged insurance-backed financing for movie studios, developed databases for use in forecasting film revenues.

This is cache, read story here