For a man who's been making a living as a professional bass player for more than 40 years his technique and ability is rather disappointing (imho).
Tsk, tsk, tsk - how nasty you can be, Rob. Rather than showing an old lady what perhaps he can do better, he's taking a lesson. And I was actually expecting him to be that way because he is a polite person when he's not playing his role or trying to offend people with butch low pc remarks, it's as much part of his act as blood spitting, fire breathing and the makeup.
Simmons was never above learning something on bass - his signature bass run on Detroit Rock City was hand-taught to him by Bob Ezrin (who had lifted it off a Stax recording) and Simmons practiced it all night to get it right for the recording. It's an unusual bass run for the song because while Detroit Rock City is a pure shuffle, the bass run is not quite triolic throughout, but mixes triplets and duplets in feel.
Simmons has never been either very fast or agile on bass, he's even a bit heavy-handed (which makes Carol's style not so easy to replicate for him, because she has a light touch and strums the bass more), but he puts thought in his bass lines. If you listen to old Kiss recordings, he's no root note thrasher at all. That said, rhythmically he is mostly meat and potatoes (but so is Paul McCartney, who excelled in melodic and harmonic bass playing).
