Twisted Sister’s Jay Jay French thinks young rock stars are no longer in the spotlight.
“People say to me, ‘What makes you say rock is dead?’ Well, here’s my take on that,” the guitarist said of why he thinks rock is dead in an interview with Sean P. McKenna on Rimshots With Sean for Barstools & Bandtalk.
He went on to detail his point, “When I was 17 years old back in 1969, all my heroes — Beatles, Stones, Who, Zep, Floyd, Hendrix, Dylan, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane; you name it, you name ’em all — none of them were older than 27. Now think about this for a second.”
“The greatest rock artists in the history of the world, when I was 17, were no older than 10 years more than me. Most of them were 25 to 27. Well, I say, name me a 27-year-old rock star right now. And nobody can name one,” French noted.
The rocker then clarified, saying, “I’m not saying that there are no rock bands. I’m just saying that the collective psyche that dictates current music trends and sociological impact of music, it’s not showing up in the rock world in terms of mass acceptance.”
French has talked about the decline of rock before. In 2016, he told Kaaos TV, via Blabbermouth, the same ideas and dismissed arguments supporting younger rock and metal bands. He stated at the time, “Someone goes, ‘Muse.’ They’re not 25 years old; they’re way older than that. Avenged Sevenfold: they’re not 25 years old; they’re way older than that. Slipknot: they’re not 25 years old; they’re way older than that.”
“So the next generation doesn’t seem to be there, and I don’t know the reason why. I wish I knew the reason why. Because pop music is huge; female pop stars are huge, right? And hip-hop is huge, and rap is huge, and country music is huge. So where’s rock? Rock is kind of not there,” he added.
The ‘Rock Is Dead’ debate has come up often since Gene Simmons first mentioned it, but Alice Cooper disagrees with Gene. He believes classic rock from the ’70s still works and that hard rock has stayed relevant for over 50 years.
