Kiss legend Gene Simmons had admitted that his early success was simply motivated by "power and money".
The musician who grew up in humble surrounds, declared this on 'The UCR Podcast', adding that he would be rather be "rich" and "miserable" than be poor.
Simmons, who is of course renowned for his role in the famous rock band, KISS, said, "It's funny, I'm an only child to my mother and I grew up with the hard knocks of not being very romantic about what it all means".
He added: "I developed a harder skin and for myself, realised that everything was about the search for power and money, which is not a very romantic notion. But I didn't want to be poor, because I know what that felt like".
Speaking about his mother, Gene Simmons said that his outlook on life was largely shaped by her, as he believes that money and power play an integral part in his "survival". The rocker's mother had survived incarceration in Nazi concentration camps.
"My mother worked at a sweat factory six days out of the week and survived the Nazi concentration camps of Germany. You know, life is tough, so the romantic hippie dippie notation about life never worked for me", Simmons stated.
He added: "All I ever did was try to figure out how to become powerful and make lots of money, for survival. The only thing money ever does, really, is give you the freedom to do stuff you actually like doing. It's what it's really about and also to keep you safe, pay for your hospital bills, create jobs, give to charity, all of that stuff. A poor person never gave me a job".
Elsewhere, Gene Simmons once again asserted that it is better to be "a rich, miserable f***" than to be poor.
"Throughout KISS, fame was nice, but there are a lot of famous people who are relatively poor, that's not a lot of fun", he explained.
"But on the other side, there's a lot of industrial types whose names you don't recognise who are filthy rich. It's better to be rich than poor, it really is. And if you're a miserable f***, it's still better to be a rich, miserable f***. That's all I ever tried to do".
Last month, Gene Simmons also announced plans to allow one lucky fan the chance to be his roadie for the day. More on this from Nova here.
