Ace Frehley

Ace Frehley is one of the most influential guitarists to come out of the hard rock scene of the 1970s. As lead guitarist with Kiss, he inspired countless up-and-coming rockers to pick up the guitar during that decade, and by the next century nearly every contemporary rock guitarist name-checked Frehley's sound and style as having a major impact on their work. Embodying the platform boot-bolstered persona Spaceman, Frehley played with Kiss from the group's inception in 1973 to 1982, honing a rough, bluesy style dominated by thick power chords, low-end string bends, and solos rooted in the pentatonic scale. Frehley left Kiss to launch a solo career, releasing Frehley's Comet in 1987. He rejoined Kiss in 1996 for an international reunion tour, playing on the 1998 album Psycho Circus and staying with them through 2002. He returned to his solo work in 2009 with the release of Anomaly. Having beaten a severe addiction to drugs and alcohol in the interim (a story he told in his 2011 autobiography, No Regrets: A Rock 'N' Roll Memoir), Frehley enjoyed a creative surge in the 2010s, issuing a string of well-received albums like Space Invader (2014), Spaceman (2018), and 10,000 Volts (2024). Born Paul Frehley on April 27, 1951, in the Bronx, New York, Frehley began playing guitar when he received an electric six-string for his 14th birthday in 1965. Already a big fan of the Rolling Stones, he was blown away when he caught a multi-band live show in N.Y.C. in early 1967, featuring both the Who and Cream, among others, which solidified his desire to pursue rock guitar more seriously (and put a promising art career on the back burner). Frehley began playing in local bands soon after, drawing influence from Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix; around this time, he adopted the nickname "Ace." Eager for stardom though none of the bands he played with had taken off, he answered an ad in a local paper for a theatrically-based hard rock group in early 1973. A few weeks after his initial tryout, Frehley was hired as the lead guitarist for the new quartet, joining bassist and singer Gene Simmons, rhythm guitarist and singer Paul Stanley, and drummer Peter Criss to form the band Kiss. By year's end, the greasepaint- and costume-wearing band was signed to Casablanca Records, and by 1978, had become one of the world's top hard rock bands. 1978 also brought Frehley's first solo LP, which was released in conjunction with solo sets from Simmons, Stanley, and Criss; Frehley's album was the most commercially successful, producing a hit single in "New York Groove." Kiss's string of platinum albums and sold-out tours was at its peak from 1975 until 1979, until the trappings of fame led to discord within the group. Frehley's best friend in the band, Criss, left Kiss in 1980, as the group unsuccessfully experimented with more pop-oriented sounds. Frehley's ever-increasing unhappiness in the band led to an increased appetite for alcohol and drugs, and, by 1982, he'd exited Kiss. Within a year or two after his split from Kiss, Ace began putting his own solo band together, Frehley's Comet. The group played local N.Y.C. clubs, but failed to issue a record until 1987's self-titled debut for Atlantic and Megaforce Records. Instead of following the heavy metal direction of his 1978 solo album, Frehley's Comet tried to keep pace with the then-current pop-metal movement of bands like Mötley Crüe and Bon Jovi, issuing two other albums (Second Sighting and Trouble Walkin') and a live EP (Live + 1) by 1989. Around this time, Frehley put his old art talents to use once again as he experimented with computer graphics, with a few of his images being featured in gallery show. Despite periodic mudslinging in the press between Frehley and his former Kiss bandmates in the early '90s, all four original members made up for a 1995 taping of MTV Unplugged, with Frehley and Criss joining the current lineup for a few songs. The taping was such a success that it led to a full-blown reunion of the original lineup, with the band donning the makeup they'd abandoned in 1983, resulting in the massively successful 1996-1997 Alive Worldwide Tour. As the reunion continued, the original Kiss lineup went into the studio to record a new album, 1998's Psycho Circus. Frehley continued as a member of Kiss until the end of their Farewell Tour (lasting longer than fellow original member Peter Criss, who dropped out in 2001), though it didn't take long for Simmons and Stanley to revive Kiss with a new guitarist and drummer, wearing Frehley and Criss's instantly recognizable makeup. Ace occupied himself with live appearances, including a gig at the massive Rocklahoma festival, and sitting in with other artists (guesting on the Plasmatics' 2002 Put Your Love In Me: Love Songs for the Apocalypse and Kathy Valentine's 2005 Light Years), until 2009, when he released the album Anomaly on his own label, Bronx Born Records. In 2011 he published an autobiography, No Regrets: A Rock 'n' Roll Memoir, a detailed and frank account of his struggles with alcohol and cocaine addiction, as well as his musical career. In 2013 he celebrated seven years of sobriety and spent much of that year appearing at horror, sci-fi, and pop culture conventions. In April 2014, after years of lobbying from friends and fans, Kiss was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame; four months later, Frehley issued Space Invader, a solo album that took a heavier approach than Anomaly. Released in 2016, Origins, Vol. 1 was an all-covers album featuring songs from Ace's favorite bands, up to and including Kiss, with new versions of "Parasite" and "Cold Gin" alongside songs from Thin Lizzy and Cream. The following year, Frehley joined Gene Simmons on-stage at a Hurricane Harvey benefit for the Children Matter organization in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was the first time the former bandmates had performed together in over 16 years. In 2018 Frehley issued his eighth solo long player, Spaceman, which featured a power pop cover of Eddie Money's "I Wanna Go Back" and the rowdy single "Rockin' with the Boys," the latter of which was written during Kiss's '70s heyday. A second covers album, Origins, Vol. 2, appeared in September 2020. In December 2023, Kiss closed out their "End of the Road" tour with a pair of performances at New York's Madison Square Garden, which they insisted would be their final live appearances. Frehley, meanwhile, showed no signs of retiring, with another solo album, 10,000 Volts, released in February 2024.
© Greg Prato & Mark Deming /TiVo