A s the tongue-wagging singer for the rock band Kiss, Gene Simmons likes to brag about turning a band into a brand.

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 featuring uncensored music videos and celebrity interviews. Think Access Hollywood meets Girls Gone Wild.

Simmons, who describes himself as "Disney without the overhead," also still occasionally dons his Kiss getup to perform as "The Demon."

"I'm as ravenous as ever," he says. "I remember when my belly was empty and I didn't like the feeling."

Since January, he and entertainment industry veteran Richard Abramson, 58, have been marketing the Indy Racing League (IRL), 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 so-called "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.

The relationship began last summer, when Simmons met IRL marketing chief Phil Lengyel during a race at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.

According to Lengyel, Simmons pointed to an IRL sign and said: "Is that your logo? It stinks."

"We started off with a friendly confrontation," Lengyel says, "and we've been brutally honest ever since."

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 race track, you could just feel and breathe in the dust," Simmons says 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."

Saying "IRL" sounded like a disease, Simmons set out to re-brand the league as "Indy."

"You've got to personalize the experience. These are individual, personalized rocket ships streaking 350 kilometers per hour," Simmons says.

"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," says David 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 says, 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 so-called "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 Initial Public Offering (IPO) filing says.

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

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

And NGTV has yet to generate revenue, let alone a profit.

"It sounds like a great concept and maybe it is, but it's still just a concept," Taulli says. "It could take six to eight months before the product even gets out there."

The company's auditor says NGTV, which has racked up US$16.8 million (HK$131.04 million) in debt in recent years, might not be able to remain a "going concern" without the IPO proceeds, the prospectus notes.

"Hollywood is a hits-driven business, and you never know what the consumer is going to go for," Taulli says.

Simmons, who says Kiss has grossed more than US$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. The second season of Gene Simmons' Rock School, a VH1 show on which he trains British kids to rock 'n' roll, is airing in England, and his life also served as the framework for My Dad the Rock Star, an animated TV show on Nickelodeon.

On top of that, there is his record label, Simmons Records, and Gene Simmons Game, an upcoming magazine with an electronic gaming flavor.

Born Chaim Witz in Haifa, Israel, Simmons immigrated to New York at eight with his mother after his father abandoned the family. A matinee of Walt Disney's Pinocchio helped inspire Simmons to think big, he says.

"When Jiminy Cricket sang When You Wish Upon a Star, I thought that little bug was singing to me," he says. "I walked out of that movie theater and he had done more for me than any religious figure ever could. I was empowered. It was electrifying."

Simmons and bandmate Paul Stanley, who control the Kiss merchandising empire, trademarked the group's facial makeup and costumes early on and bought out guitarist Ace Frehley and drummer Peter Criss in 1980.

Simmons, who writes his autograph with dollar signs instead of the letter S, doesn't mind that Kiss was never a hit with music critics.

"Credibility, schmedibility - anyone who thinks popular music is about artistry is kidding themselves," he says. "Rock stars are not rocket scientists. There but for the grace of God any one of us is asking the next person in line, `Do you want fries with that?"'

The Simmons touch is not always gold.

The self-titled CD Bag, the first release from Simmons Records in more than a decade, has only sold about 100 copies since its release last fall, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Gene Simmons Tongue, the previous version of his glossy magazine, lasted 12 issues in 2002 and 2003.

Simmons met Abramson in 2001 at a pitch meeting for an MTV game show. Neither cared for the project but they struck each other as straight shooters and decided to team up.

The pair also started working last year as advisers to ITU Ventures, a Los Angeles-based venture capital enterprise.

ITU managing partner Chad Brownstein, a longtime KISS fan, says he was watching Gene Simmons' Rock School on VH1 late one night when he realized that the prolific marketer was being "underutilized" in the investment world. He retained Simmons and Abramson to analyze potential entertainment investments that ITU might pursue.

One deal they vetted involved a Boston wireless marketing company, g8wave, that ITU Ventures bought a stake in earlier this year.

The company, which has hired Simmons Abramson Marketing to help it develop growth strategies, enables entertainers and corporate clients to market their products via cell phone; Metallica, for example, can text message tour updates to its fans.

"When Gene and Rich say they're going to get involved, it's not like, `We'll talk in a few weeks,"' says Brad Mindich, g8wave's chief executive officer. "They got going right away and started pushing us to think about how we could refine what we were doing." Abramson was a talent manager, film producer and real estate developer before partnering with Simmons.

"What I've learned is, associate yourself with great people and good things will happen," says Abramson, who managed actor Paul Reubens' career as the Pee-wee Herman character in the 1980s and produced the film Pee- wee's Big Adventure and the Emmy- winning TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse.

Abramson and Simmons share the workload, but because of his entrepreneurial reputation, Simmons is usually the one who makes the first phone call, as he did with IRL's brass last summer.

"People will always give us one chance," Simmons says, "but once you get into that room you'd better have the goods."

LOS ANGELES TIMES