The first time I ever saw Ace Frehley was when I was six years old.
KISS was a relatively new act at the time, and my too-cool-for-school teenage cousin had four black and white glossies of the individual members. I can still vividly remember that my initial reaction to these very scary and odd-looking New Yorkers was a profound sense of terror.
So, I spent a couple of years avoiding their painted faces at all costs, until yet another cousin named Jimmy came to the rescue and pointed me in the direction of what ultimately became my favorite KISS record, Rock and Roll Over. Upon listening, I quickly made the journey from abject fear to complete and utter obsession, an occasion that marked my entry into a lifetime membership in the KISS Army.
All of those early KISS records captured the band’s joyful worship of British rock, catchy melodies, great songwriting, and unabashedly unserious lyrics, all ingredients that combined to make them America’s glorious answer to Slade. We can thank Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley for the songs and driving ambition, we can thank Peter Criss for the backbeat that set them apart, but Ace Frehley was the crackerjack, the unpredictable element of surprise in a colorful cocktail of ’70s glam excess.
Before he helped launch a generation of guitar slingers into the rock-n-roll wilds, Ace grew up in the Bronx as Paul Frehley, the third and youngest child of Dutch immigrants who filled their home with music. By all accounts, what he lacked in ambition he made up for with his desire to play guitar and score dates with girls; the latter, a talent that earned him his classic moniker. Infamously impulsive, he quit high school when his band Cathedral started making money but eventually listened to Mama Ace and went back for his diploma.
Soon after, he was bouncing like a rubber ball from one dead-end job to another, in and out of a variety of bands, until he came upon an ad placed by Gene and Paul looking for a guitar player with “flash and ability.” He couldn’t take his amp and guitar with him on the subway, so Mama Ace chauffeured him to the guys’ rehearsal space at 10 East 23rd Street in New York City, where he waltzed in wearing one red and one orange sneaker before plugging in to a 50-watt Marshall amp and proceeded to blow his future band members’ minds soloing over a brand spanking new tune called “Deuce.” Once they started playing gigs, it only took a mind-bogglingly short two and a half years for KISS to plug into the pop culture zeitgeist and become one of the biggest bands in rock history.
It’s easy for the modern-day rock fan to forget just how mysterious these guys were. Never seen without their trademark makeup, they also invented wildly imaginative biographies for themselves. According to an early press release from their management, Ace’s “parents were space explorers,” who were “stranded on Earth when their spaceship lost power within Earth’s magnetic field. They were able to descend to safety and soon adopted the language and habits of their new land.” It would later be noted that Ace was born on the planet “Jendell.” If you’ve ever seen Ace walking onstage like he’s still getting used to Earth’s gravity, this story should really come as no surprise to anyone.
The thing is, he was infinitely more fascinating in real life than anything KISS’ PR department could dream up. He was the band’s musical dynamo, a singular talent whose solos lifted the band’s songs to the stratosphere, inspiring guitar players like Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready, Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, and Duran Duran’s Andy Taylor. He also had an unmistakably infectious cackle that was usually unleashed when the mood in KISS world would become just a little bit too serious. If you’d like to experience a taste of this, check out the band’s infamous appearance on The Tom Snyder Show where a drunken but charming Ace takes the piss out of everyone in the room while unintentionally creating one of the most iconic interviews of all time.
By now, KISS fans are more than familiar with the tired verbal derisions aimed at the group, poking fun at the merchandise, the upcoming avatar show, and of course, their Hanna-Barbera-produced TV film, KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park. But take a listen to Ace’s song “Strange Ways” off of their second album Hotter Than Hell and tell me they weren’t a good band. Listen to any solo off of KISS Alive and convince me that Ace wasn’t a hell of a player.
I had the opportunity to meet Ace a few times, but the one that stuck with me was when I met him at the St Louis stop on the Gene Simmons Vault tour. For all of the alleged drama that seemed to dominate the intervening years, I got to hang out with them at the event, and I can tell you from first-hand experience—they loved each other. They all loved each other.
There would be no KISS without Ace, and though he had a successful solo career, he will always be remembered for how much he gave to musicians and fans everywhere when he was a member of the Hottest Band in the World. Not bad for a kid from the Bronx.
God bless you, Ace Frehley. Safe travels back to Jendell. | Jim Ousley
