For KISS icon Gene Simmons teaming up with Gibson brings it all back home. One of his first guitars was the Gibson SG Standard in his pre-KISS days and he played Gibson in the early days of KISS before designing his own basses.

Now, 46 years later, he and Gibson are teaming up for G2, a new line of basses and guitars announced this past week. As with everything he does, Simmons has big plans for the line. This isn't just a signature instrument as he tells Steve Baltin of Forbes. This is a partnership. An excerpt from their interview reads as follows:

Baltin: What does it mean to have you to the partnership with Gibson?

Simmons: "The relationship with Gibson is not new, I started in the Seventies, '75 or so playing Rippers and Grabbers and they sounded great. But as my outfits got bigger and clunkier and heavier I started designing my own basses, the Axe and the Punisher , which I manufactured overseas. And then Cesar [Guekian], who's the new CMO of Gibson called me out of the blue and said, 'I'm the new decision-maker here and you need to come home to Gibson.' And I said, 'I appreciate it, but I'm really not looking for another full-page ad in Guitar World next to, respectfully, musicians who you have no idea who they are and you've never heard of the band they're in. That just doesn't mean anything anymore.' Of course, by the way, if I was a new guy and I had a full-page ad I'd show everybody next door in Ypsilanti, Michigan."

Simmons: "But it's not longer that when as a kid I'd see [Jimmy] Page and [Eric] Clapton and you go, 'Yeah.' I wasn't looking for self-aggrandizement, which is a big word. I said, 'You want to really do something? Let's really kick it up.' So we're doing a joint venture, G2, small two like an Einstein theory. This is G squared, Gibson and Gene taking the Gibson brand and kicking it up a notch. The sound is better, the looks are better without diluting the Gibson legacy. So the instruments are going to be a full line — guitars and basses. In fact one of the first instruments is going to be a limited-edition guitar and bass, double the neck. And I'm gonna make sure I get the first one. So we have the Thunderbird, which was originally gonna be called Thunderbass. Somebody had trademarked that, so we can't use it. I played that first one in Dubai [on New Year's Eve], it sounded like thunder. There's going to be a Flying V, guitar and bass, also left-handed version. We're fooling around with lots of different models. There'll be different price points, there'll be the cheaper model, the deluxe . And I also want to do besides the left-handed versions I want to do a junior version, that first instrument that your kid picks up and starts to play where the fretboard is smaller for those smaller hands. I really want to do that because music is one of the best learning ways and it brings families together. So I'm all about that."

Read the complete article at this location.

(Photos - Gibson)