Ace Frehley: Rocket Ride Departure

By: Brian Tarquin | Photos: Larry Marano & Jay Skolnick

In The New York Groove:

Growing up in Manhattan on the upper east side in 70’s one of my early influences was Ace Frehley with KISS. They were a 100% New York with the attitude, glam and posture that made rock stars! I distinctively remember in 6th grade when that first KISS album came out with such killer tracks as “Cold Gin”, “Deuce”, “100,000 Years” and “Black Diamond”. I befriended this kid named Paul Aston in Catholic School who was a big KISS fan as well. What better way to rebel in such circumstances to the strict preparatory restrictions of Catholicism. We drove our teacher Mr. Ryan and our parents mad with rage from KISS albums and paraphernalia. I still recall a memory of my World War II ex-marine father getting drunk and so pissed at my music that he took one of my KISS albums and threw it across my room. Miraculously it didn’t break. That’s what I call a good day’s work of bucking the system on my part! BTW that album still survives to this day in my collection!

So, when I heard the sad news of Ace, our 1970’s guitar hero dying, a flood of memories came to me from those days at Saint David’s School in NYC - right around the corner from the Guggenheim Museum. It’s funny how people’s memories are so tied into music from certain times of their lives. As a homage I dug out old 70’s KISS albums and started to listen to them after all of these years. What struct me was the musicianship that Ace held, which I always thought was head and shoulders above the rest of the band. He always played the appropriate solo for each of the songs and his tone was great for the time. How can you beat a Gibson Custom Les Paul through a Marshal Plexi. He did come from a very musical family though. He once said, "I never went to music school; I never took a guitar lesson, but everybody in my family plays an instrument. My mother and father both played piano, his father was the church organist, and my brother and sister both played piano and acoustic guitar."

KISS
After spotting an advertisement for a lead guitarist in The Village Voice, Ace went to the long-standing Live Bait Bar in the Flatiron District of NYC on 23rd street for the audition. Paul, Gene and Peter were there going through guitarists. A very interesting note: Bob Kulick, the brother of later KISS member Bruce Kulick was at the audition as well to fill the lead guitarist spot. (Interesting fact that Bob is credited as lead guitarist on "All American Man", "Rockin' in the U.S.A" and "Larger Than Life" on the Alive II album.) Ace once reminisced that he showed up at the audition wearing one red and one orange sneaker and got a ride to the audition from his mother. However, as history proves Ace got the gig and became the persona of The Spaceman. During the early days of the band Ace really started to mold his guitar tone and his stage presence, writing such classics as “Rock Bottom”, “Shock Me”, “Parasite” and “Getaway".

But for my money it is the double album Alive II that we were treated to the sound candy of the lead guitar talents of Ace on the track “Shock Me”. I remember playing this track repeatedly especially the end guitar solo. It was simply mesmerizing the tone he was creating and the gigantic Marshall/Les Paul sound. Especially when you are a young kid struggling to play a bar chord in the 70’s, it was truly heroic for us. Plus, all the eye candy in the double fold album art and sleeves. This was the time of true albums. We didn’t call them vinyl-what the hell? We just called them albums, plain and simple people! When cassette tapes came out, we just called them cassettes and when CDs came out, we just called them CDs. You get the drift for you younger cats. Anyway, there we were opening the double fold up looking at this imposing picture of the band live on elevated stage platforms, smoke, fire explosions. How could you not love it-especially being a guy. Then reading all the credits, “Recorded at Live at the L.A. Forum, Engineered by Eddie Kramer, Mixed at Electric Lady Studios in NYC”. Plus, all the crew credits for lighting, sound, busing, costumes. It was such a great array of credits to read through while being amazed sonically.

I’ll never forget the TV movie KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park that I watched with a child friend of mine Lynn Marshall around Halloween in 1978 on NBC-TV. Admittedly not the greatest acting, however being a member of the KISS Army we were so psyched to watch it. It was campy, but a blast in any event. It took place in Santa Clarita, CA at Magic Mountain, a Hanna-Barbara production. It was like a live action version of a Scooby-Doo plot. Abner Devereaux (played by Anthony Zerbe) the park's engineer was plotting against the band because he was mad that they were playing the park overshadowing his series of animatronic attractions. So Devereaux creates a robotic version of KISS to create havoc and destruction at the park. Through a series of events using none other than a ray gun and stealing the band’s talismans that caused KISS to lose their superpowers. But never fear KISS retrieves the talismans and all is good in the end. In a recent interview Ace stated that he actually liked the movie and Gene and Paul were too serious about KISS. Either way it was great fun for us!

Solo:
As for the KISS solo albums Ace Frehely’s was the most successful and outsold the others. I think largely due to the Russ Ballard song “New York Groove”. It reached #26 on the US Billboard 200, # 48 on the Australian Albums, #34 on the Canada Top Albums, #30 on the Japanese Albums, achieving certified Platinum in the US and Gold in Canada. Also, for the first time the album featured other musicians than KISS like Anton Fig on drums and Will Lee on bass. The album placed Ace in the producer’s chair along with Eddie Kramer.

After leaving KISS in the early 80’s, Ace continued to use Fig on drums, bass player John Regan from Frampton, keyboardist Arthur Stead and vocalist Richie Scarlet to what would become his first album Frehley’s Comet. It peaked at #43 on the Billboard 200 again using a Russ Ballard song "Into the Night" that hit #27 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. The album also featured the track "Rock Soldiers" which was claimed to be an autobiographic song about a police chase involving Ace in White Plains, New York. After several personal changes this release was followed up by Second Sighting and Trouble Walkin', which featured Peter Criss on backing vocals on several tracks. It was the first time they performed together since 1979.

Ace continued to release solo albums up until his death, Anomaly (2009), Space Invader (2014), Origins Vol. 1 (2016), Spaceman (2018), Origins Vol. 2 (2020), 10,000 Volts (2024). Some of the highlighted songs are “Outer Space”, “Fractured Quantum”, “Quantum Flux”, “Space Truckin’ (Deep Purple Cover)” and “Stratosphere”.

Legacy:
I think the important thing to point out is that in 1974 there weren’t many American arena bands. We were still reeling from the British Invasion era with large groups like The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, etc. Yes, we did have American large bands however understand that 3 of the most important US artists died in the early 70’s, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. KISS along with Aerosmith and Boston brought in a new era for American arena bands forging the way for heavier rock bands to emerge. Keep in mind the 70’s larger acts were The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, Carole King, ABBA and Fleetwood Mac. So, this left a void for good hard rock music to evolve. KISS were representatives of good time rock, party music. Like the song says, “I Wanna Rock N Roll All Night and Party Every Day”. Hence, they filled the void and became the gate keepers of this new feel-good heavy rock. It is also worth mentioning that the mid-70’s was a bleak time for the country, as we really viewed it in NYC. I remember seeing returning Vietnam Vets at methadone clinics, living on the street, Watergate, the fall of Saigon – very unhappy moments for the USA. So, KISS came at a very opportune time for kids to lift all our spirits up and to forget the problems of the adult world. At the center of the arena was Ace Frehley flashing his 3 pick-up Gibson Sunburst Les Paul. How cool do those 3 pick-ups look - even to this day. I love it and I use to have the Gibson Ace Frehley Budokan special reissue. On top of that the stage antics were amazing with Ace’s guitar catching fire and smoke coming out of that middle 3rd pick up. Admittedly Ace confessed the middle pick-up was never hooked up, but like the rest of us he thought it was so cool looking he installed it in his guitar. Now to adolescent kids this was so over the top, it just mesmerized us to no end.

Ace leaves a catalog of guitar solos for any striving guitarist to study and shows that a kid from the Bronx can make the grade. As campy and goofy KISS was at times, for a young teenager of the 70’s like me, it was a real good introduction to fun rock guitar. By the end of the 70’s I had moved on to heavier bands like Van Halen. Who were discovered by Gene and Paul at the Starwood in Hollywood. In fact, Gene produced a 10-song demo with them recording such classics as “Runnin’ with the Devil”, “Somebody Get Me a Doctor” and “House of Pain”. (Funny note Gene dropped the band when the manager of KISS said Van Halen would never go anywhere-REALLY?) But more importantly Ace laid the groundwork for bands like Van Halen leading to the explosion of the Hollywood strip scene in the 80’s with bands like Mötley Crüe, Ratt and the plethora of other hair bands. But to me when I hear solos from Ace on songs, “Cold Gin”, “Rock Bottom”, “Getaway” and “Shock Me” it brings me back to wonderful memories of my childhood friends and pure good time Rock N Roll!