It's been nearly two years since Kiss star Gene Simmons made waves by declaring that rock 'n' roll was dead. Dozens of his famous peers have weighed in on one side or the other in interviews or written statements since then, but now Canadian hard rock veterans Helix have gone one step better by releasing a song titled "(Gene Simmons Says) Rock Is Dead."

The song's comical, charmingly low-budget video alternates between a news studio, a cemetery and a struggling local record store as the band shares the screen with a fully made-up Simmons stand-in.

While the lyrics concede that the genre, and the music industry in general, is in financial peril these days ("If rockin' is your business, well business ain't too good ... "), they also declare that the future remains bright as long as there are true believers out there: "... but tell that to the long-haired kid in any neighborhood. With a second-hand guitar, some sweat and blood and luck, he'll bring it to the people, he ain't in it for the buck."

In the now infamous 2014 interview, Simmons declared that file sharing and illegal streaming had taken away any chance for new rock musicians to make a living. “The death of rock was not a natural death,” he argued. “Rock did not die of old age. It was murdered. Some brilliance, somewhere, was going to be expressed, and now it won’t, because it’s that much harder to earn a living playing and writing songs. No one will pay you to do it.”

"(Gene Simmons Says) Rock Is Dead" is available on Helix's new album Rock It Science, a compilation that includes songs from their entire career. (And just in case you forgot, Lenny Kravitz and Prince held this same musical debate about the state of rock music back in 1995.)

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