Farewell, Spaceman: Remembering Ace Frehley
Paying tribute to the legendary KISS guitarist, gone at 74
KISS was always cool.
But the epicenter of that coolness was Ace Frehley, who passed away today at age 74 following complications from a fall in his studio.
He was the American Keith Richards, possessing a rare kind of rock ‘n’ roll swagger that only few musicians can lay claim to.
He brought the streets to the kabuki theatrics of KISS, never allowing the gimmick to gas up his true persona behind the Space Ace visage. The reason why everyone from the Replacements to the Melvins to Nirvana covered them was because of Ace and that air about him, and the way he still emulated a jeans-and-T-shirt attitude despite being dressed like he was ready to take off to the Forbidden Planet.
“I heard about Ace Frehley‘s passing from Rick Friel who I played with in a band called Shadow,” wrote Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready on X, accentuating the impact Ace had on a whole generation of guitarists. “Rick was also the first guy on the bus in 1977 with a KISS lunchbox to tell me about Ace…just changed my life. I got a guitar in 1978 to join Rick‘s band Warrior which turned into Shadow. We covered ‘C’mon and Love Me.’
“All my friends have spent untold hours talking about KISS and buying KISS stuff. Ace was a hero of mine and also I would consider a friend. I studied his solos endlessly over the years…
“Just listen to ‘Alive,’ I used his solo from ‘She’ as a template. Ace jammed on ‘Black Diamond’ with Pearl Jam at Madison Square Garden…a dream come true for me.
“I would not have picked up a guitar without Ace and KISS’s influence.
“RIP it out Ace, you changed my life.”
“My first guitar hero, Ace Frehley, has passed away,” Tom Morello wrote on his socials. “The legendary Space Ace Frehley inspired generations to love rock n roll and love rock n roll guitar playing. His timeless riffs and solos, the billowing smoke coming from his Les Paul, the rockets shooting from his headstock, his cool spacey onstage wobble and his unforgettable crazy laugh will be missed but will never be forgotten. Thank you, Ace for a lifetime of great music and memories.”
“I am so shocked and saddened that this happened to my hero and my friend,” John 5 wrote. “I’ve known Ace since 1988 and we’ve been very close ever since then. Ace changed the world. He influenced millions of people and changed my life. I will miss you my friend.”
The influence of KISS on my own life loomed large. As a child born in 1973, the same year the band formed, their presence blew my young mind away, leading me to a life of KISS Mego dolls and Colorforms playsets, Rock and Roll Over T-shirts in kindergarten and a poster of Gene Simmons with blood dripping from his mouth on my bedroom wall.
Now, as an adult, I listen back to those early albums like Dressed to Kill and the brilliant Dynasty and really feel that street spirit in what Frehley brought to the band. I was actually recently listening to the 1978 solo album — always and forever the best of the four — and just marveling at how easy it seemed for him to convey his soul across the rock spectrum, backed by Late Night with David Letterman’s future rhythm section of Will Lee on bass and drummer Anton Fig to boot.
AUDIO: Ace Frehley “Trouble Walkin'”
And it was Fig who’d return in 1989 to work on Frehley‘s second solo album Trouble Walkin’, highlighted by the Paul Stanley co-write “Hide Your Heart” and a fantastic cover of ELO’s “Do Ya” along with the anthemic title track featuring Sandy Slavin of Riot on drums. Playing bass was John Regan, a member of Ace’s terribly short-lived post-departure band Frehley‘s Comet.
VIDEO: KISS perform “Rock And Roll All Nite” on MTV Unplugged
When Ace and drummer Peter Criss reunited with the non-makeup lineup of KISS on MTV Unplugged the day after my birthday on Aug. 9, 1995, to film the show, the subsequent broadcast and album release excited me so much I had to write about it in my college paper at SUNY New Paltz. The original lineup released one album, 1998’s Psycho Circus, and toured until 2002, when Ace left the band for a second time.
He would spend the next 20-odd years gigging, appearing at fan conventions and releasing a series of good-to-great solo albums, the latest of which — 2024’s 10,000 Volts — was produced by Steve Brown of Trixter and recorded right here in Ringwood, New Jersey.
In a statement, Stanley and Simmons said, “We are devastated by the passing of Ace Frehley. He was an essential and irreplaceable rock soldier during some of the most formative foundational chapters of the band and its history. He is and will always be a part of KISS’s legacy. Our thoughts are with Jeanette, Monique and all those who loved him, including our fans around the world.”
Simmons also added his own reflection on X as well: “Our hearts are broken. Ace has passed on. No one can touch Ace’s legacy. I know he loved the fans. He told me many times. Sadder still, Ace didn’t live long enough to be honored at the Kennedy Ctr Honors event in Dec. Ace was the eternal rock soldier. Long may his legacy live on!”
Criss, meanwhile, took to Facebook to express his sorrow with fans.
“With a broken heart and deep, deep sadness, my brother Ace Frehley has passed away,” he wrote. “He died peacefully with his family around him. My wife and I were with him to the end as well. I love you my brother. My love and prayers go out to Jeanette, Monique, Charlie and Nancy and all of Ace’s extended family, bandmates, fans and friends. May the Lord comfort you at this difficult time. As a founding member of the rock group KISS and in Ace’s solo career, Ace influenced and touch the hearts of millions of people. His legacy will live on in the music industry and in the hearts of the KISS Army. At this time I ask all of you to please be respectful to Ace’s family and allow them to grieve privately. To the KISS Army and Ace’s Rock Soldiers, my heart is with you all… Broken…”
VIDEO: KISS on the Tom Snyder Show 1979
If there’s one way I want to remember Ace Frehley, it’s via that footage of KISS on The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder from 1979, where Ace is cracking himself up to the chagrin of Gene and Paul, whose faces say it all. He had one of the greatest laughs, and that clip got me through some dark times these last 10 years.
So farewell, Spaceman. We weren’t ready to see you leave this planet just yet, but eternally grateful you were here. You will be missed beyond measure.
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This is so sad, all these classic rock deaths. Thank you for the nice write-up. I would never have gone as far as “the American Keith Richards,” but there’s something to your point about the swagger. I loved KISS so much and like others quoted, learned guitar playing their songs. I remember my high school band Rox covering one of Ace’s songs, “Talk to Me.” By the Unmasked album in 1980, the songwriting had really diluted, and Ace’s song was ridiculous, even dragging “me” into two notes in the end – “talk to me-he.” Terrible. (But not as bad as “Shandi”). And Ace couldn’t even be bothered to write a proper guitar solo, just doing a Chuck Berry riff. And yet … I remember every word and note.
I always felt that way about him. There was such an element of cool in whatever he did.