Gene Simmons is an American musician. Also known by his stage persona "The Demon", he was the bassist and co-lead singer of the hard rock band Kiss, which he co-founded with Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss in the early 1970s until their retirement in 2023. Simmons was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 as a member of Kiss.

Simmons was born as Chaim Witz on August 25, 1949, at Rambam Hospital in Haifa, Israel, to Jewish refugees from Hungary. His mother, Florence Klein (1925–2018) was born in Jánd and survived internment in Nazi concentration camps. She and her brother, Larry Klein, were the only members of the family to survive the Holocaust. Simmons' father, Ferenc "Feri" Yehiel Witz (1925–2002), was a carpenter. Simmons spent his early childhood in Tirat Carmel and was raised in a practicing Jewish household. He has said that his family was "dirt poor", scraping by on rationed bread and milk. At the age of seven, he began to pick wild fruit and sell it on roadsides together with a friend.