The hosts of a Montreal radio station's morning show got an early taste of April Fool’s – or Poisson D'avril as it's called in French – on Wednesday.
Marie-Claude Savard, Sébastien Trudel and Mario Tessier of 94.3 Energie, an iHeartRadio station, thought they had KISS bassist Gene Simmons on the telephone.
The hosts took turns asking questions and translating his responses into French for their listeners. The person they believed was Simmons said he only knew three French words ("ménage à trois") and asked if all his answers were going to be translated.
“It’s a French radio station, sir, so we don’t have any choice but to translate,” explained Tessier. “We’re live on air.”
As the interview went on, the rock icon complained “these questions are getting a little silly" and called the interview “slightly insulting” and “unprofessional.” He then blurted out an expletive and ended the call.
It was obvious to most KISS fans that it wasn't Simmons on the line – he didn't sound much like Simmons and got his age wrong. Plus, a man who has been with Canadian Shannon Tweed for four decades would not be so surprised to hear French spoken by Montreal radio hosts.
On Thursday, the real Simmons tweeted: “Hey Friends. Just a friendly note here. There’s a French language interview supposedly done by me out of Canada. It’s clearly not me. And incidentally, I don’t actually speak French.”
Turns out, the prank was pulled off by station management and the bogus Simmons was Jason Rockman, an announcer on sister station CHOM. "I hope they aren’t too mad at me," he wrote in an Instagram post.
“You who make pranks, phone calls to listeners all over Quebec, well, your three bosses here caught you for April Fool's Day," said Chloé Boissonneault, general manager of French-language radio stations in Quebec. “I want to tell you that … we got you good."
KISS will bring The End of the Road Tour to Montreal on Nov. 18 and Quebec City on Nov. 19. The band is also scheduled to make stops in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Toronto.