Gene Simmons said people should “learn to listen” and “be more caring” in a discussion about his new book, 27: The Legend and Mythology of the 27 Club, which explores the history of the wide range of celebrities who died at that age. The notional club includes musicians Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones and Amy Winehouse, whose deaths all involved some elements of cultural or social failures. However, the Kiss star said there was a closer-to-home concept beneath the glamor of the subject.

“Your next-door neighbor, your friend may be suffering from something,” Simmons told TheStreet.com in a new interview. “One of the things you can do immediately is just engage in a conversation. Learn to listen.” Stating “life is tough, life is really difficult,” he sent a message to anyone who found themselves on a “walk into darkness,” saying: “Don’t do that. Even if you have to pick up the phone and call somebody and talk, and at the very extreme call the suicide prevention hotline, just talk it out.” He added: “All the rest of us should be there to listen.”

Simmons then explained: “I hope people are going to read just because of the pop culture part of it – the rich and famous, why do they disappear at 27? But the bigger idea is, it’s happening all around us, and not just because of drugs. Bullying and all this kind of stuff. All of us should be a little bit more caring. It could happen to your family member.”

In the same interview, which also covered the future of the U.S. stock market and international political situations, Simmons predicted that U.S. President Donald Trump had more achievements ahead of him. He said that, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average would drop several thousand points in the short term, it would reach a new high before the end of Trump’s first term. “And if that happens, in a year and eight months, our President is going to be re-elected, but in a landslide – this time with a popular vote,” he said, adding: “Unless he gets impeached.”

27: The Legend & Mythology of the 27 Club is published on Oct. 2 via Simmons Books.

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