KISS co-founder and guitarist Paul “Ace” Frehley died today (Oct. 16) from head injuries suffered during a recent fall in his recording studio. He was 74.
“We are completely devastated and heartbroken,” his family said. “In his last moments, we were fortunate enough to have been able to surround him with loving, caring, peaceful words, thoughts, prayers and intentions as he left this earth. We cherish all of his finest memories, his laughter and celebrate his strengths and kindness that he bestowed upon others. The magnitude of his passing is of epic proportions, and beyond comprehension. Reflecting on all of his incredible life achievements, Ace’s memory will continue to live on forever!”
Frehley was born on April 27, 1951, in the Bronx section of New York and taught himself how to play guitar as a teenager while listening to Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin records. “Half of my friends are dead now or OD’d,” Frehley told SPIN in 1996. “My best friend hung himself at Rikers Island. It was a rocky road — but music got me away from those people.”
He joined the band that would become the face-painted, fire-breathing, blood-spitting KISS in late 1972 after answering an audition ad in the Village Voice. It wasn’t long before he rose to fame and fortune alongside vocalist/guitarist Paul Stanley, vocalist/bassist Gene Simmons and drummer Peter Criss, with KISS reigning as one of the most popular rock groups of the decade.
“I was in love with Zeppelin from the very first note I heard,” Frehley recalled to SPIN last year. “Jimmy Page is one of my favorite guitar players. I was determined to figure out all his solos. In those days, I had to slow the record down because some of his guitar playing was so fast. I couldn’t figure out the notes. That was a big pain in the ass back then because when you slow the record down, it changes the pitch. Then, I [had] to retune my guitar.”
In KISS, Frehley painted stars over his eyes and dubbed himself The Spaceman, owing to his childhood love for science fiction. He also wore enormous platform boots that often caused him to fall down — so much so that he would play solos while on his knees. Among the songs he either wrote or co-wrote for KISS are “Cold Gin,” “Parasite,” “Rocket Ride” and “Shock Me,” which was inspired by a near-electrocution onstage in Florida in 1976.
Criss was fired from KISS in 1980 and Frehley, who was always the moodiest, most down-to-earth person in the band and never as comfortable in the spotlight as Stanley and Simmons, left in early 1982 to pursue a solo career. He enjoyed a decent hit with his 1987 debut as Frehley’s Comet, but struggled with addiction and to compete with the nascent grunge movement of the early ’90s.
“There were some hard feelings when I left,” he told SPIN in 1996. “I had some substance-abuse problems at that point in my life. I wasn’t thinking straight. I was getting very suicidal, frustrated, the syndrome of too much too soon. The success of my solo album… that kind of planted the seed: ‘Hey, maybe I can do it on my own.’”
A lifeline came in 1996, when KISS’ original quartet reunited in makeup for what at the time was one of the most anticipated tours of all time. He exited KISS permanently in 2002 and only performed with the group once since, in 2018, although he was inducted with Stanley, Simmons and Criss into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2014.
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