Ace Frehley In His Words: From KISS To Going Solo & Getting Sober [Episode 335]

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The story of Ace Frehley, told by Ace himself. Author
Greg Prato on the show to talk about his brand
new book, talk to Me Conversations with Ace Frehley. That's
next on booked on Rock.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
To Rock and Roll. I mean got to leave you.
You're reading Little Hands says it's time to rock and roll.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Roll up, I totally booked. Welcome back to book don
rock the podcast for those about to read and rock on.
Eric senach as he promised he was going to put
out an Ace Frehley book. He promised it a few
weeks ago. He is back and he has come through
with that promise. The brand new book is a compilation

(00:43):
of interviews that he did with Ace over the years.
The book is titled Talk to Me Conversations with Ace Frehley.
It is Greg Predo. Greg, thanks for coming back on
to share some of what's in this brand new book.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Hello Eric, thanks for having me back on. I definitely
appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Ace passed on October sixteenth. You were able to get
this book out in less than a month. I imagine
you had some late nights working on this book. Talk
about the process putting it together. You had comments from
several people paying tribute to Ace, including Joe Bonamasa, David Ellison,
Kim File, Alex LIFs in a Rush.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Well, you know, the thing is honestly, like the title says,
it's The idea for the book was after Ace passed,
I was very sad listening to a lot of his music,
and then I had the realization, you know, I interviewed
him many many times over the years, and we covered
a wide variety of topics, both his professional life, personal life,

(01:35):
you know, kiss, solo, career, everything, And I realized, you know,
what about if I compile all these interviews into a
single book, similar to the book called Eruption, which was
by Brad Tolensky and I believe a second gentleman, I
forget the name of There you go, Yeah, and they combined,
they combined all the interviews conducted with the great Eddie

(01:56):
van Halen. So I figured, well, that was such a
great book. What about for because Aces is I think
a fantastic, very highly influential guitarist as well. So I
did that, and then I happened to over the years
have made you know, friendships and also acquaintances with several
renowned rock musicians and also rock names, So I reached
out to people. I reached out to a few people

(02:17):
just saying I'm working on this book about Ace. I'm
gonna be compiling all my interviews. Would you be interested
in being also interviewed for this book so I could
include several tribute interviews, brand new interviews. And I was
lucky many of the people that I asked were like, yes,
absolutely so yeah, the people that you just mentioned, most
of them were phone interviews. Alex Liveson was through a
email Q and A, but he still told some pretty

(02:41):
good stories. He gave the story behind the character called
the Bag. Are you are you?

Speaker 1 (02:46):
I did not familiar with that, Eric, Oh I did.
I've read it in the book. First time I ever
saw that.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, it's a famous thing of people. I may not
know when Kiss and Rushed toured together back in seventy
four seventy five, Ace and Peter were the partiers of
Geddy and also Alex were the partyers of Rush, and
they would often congregate after shows and they would hang
out drink and party, and Alex came up with a
character called the Bag, which I guess they get a

(03:14):
little stoned or drunk, and Alex would put a paper
bag over his head and make a face and he
would start insulting people and as in particular fan that
character to be hilarious. So he actually mentioned it during
one of our interviews. And I know he talked also
Eddie Trunk over the years about the character called the Bag,

(03:36):
So yeah, that was talked about. And yeah, also Kim
Thile from Soundguard, and I was very very very nice
to him to take out. He took out time while
they were rehearsing for the whole Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame induction.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, I saw that performance.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
And also even the great Eddie Trunk was on a
cruise I believe, or he was like on some vacation.
He wasn't on a vacation. He was m seeing a
rock event somewhere. I forget. I don't know if it
was a cruise or where was. But yeah, I call
you know he's like, yeah, I'm gonna be kind of busy,
but I'll try to make time for you. And too,
he was a man of his word. He also made time.
Also Matt Pinfield was about to leave to go on

(04:12):
a cruise or something for Coed and Cambria, and he
made time. And that became the books forward, So that's cool. Yeah,
I'm very happy with a lot of the great people
and yet, and what's great is it's a wide variety
of people and from a wide variety of different musical styles.
And it's great that all shows the wide variety of
musical styles that a'ce Freeley and also Kiss touched over

(04:34):
the years.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Absolutely, and you interviewed Ace a lot. He talked a
lot with you. Was he easy to get stories out
of him? Or was he was he did you have
to pull things out of him? I don't get that feeling.
I think he was open to talking about anything, right.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
No, his life was a complete open book, which was
I think so so great about him just as a
person and also his career. Yeah, I was lucky to
do once a face to face interview with him back
and I think it was like two thousand and nine.
It was while he was promoting his well not his
first solo album, but this first solo album in many,
many years is an album called.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
Anomaly, one of my favorites from him.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, I went, I went into New York City and
you know what's weird is I can't I can't remember
the exact place but it was like a rehearsal type
studio that I think was owned by Gibson Guitars at
the time. But I don't think. I don't think it's
around anymore because I haven't heard anything about it. It
may just been like a short lived thing. I'm not sure.
But I had a full hour just just me and

(05:30):
a sitting in a rehearsal type studio place. And yeah,
it was great speaking with him. And over the years, yeah,
I realized I interviewed him so many times for either
book projects, sites magazines, So yeah, it was great to
speak with him. And again it's a wide variety of topics,
everything from his guitar gear to his personal life, songwriting.

(05:52):
Everything was great. And then also, since you're a big
Van Halen fan, I had to do to gentlemen. His
name is Paris Mayhew. He He is probably best known
as the original guitarist of the band The Cromags, which
were a very influential hardcore type band back in the eighties.
He put in an album that tends to get overlooked
from nineteen eighty six called The Age of Quarrel, which
I highly recommend. It's like Black Sabbath meets hardcore. It's

(06:16):
very original, great great album. But yes, this gentleman, the
guitarist Paris May he was now in a band called
it is called Agros, and he's a big, big Ace fan.
I've become friendly with him over the years, and on
Facebook he's always posting things about Ace, how he was
a big fan of Ace growing up. And I answered
him for the book and he dropped a bit of
a bombshell that if you're a van Halen fan, he claims.

(06:39):
Now when he said this, I was like, wait a second.
There is a unaccompanied guitar solo on Kiss Alive two.
It's at the end of the song shock Me. So
it's Ace Frely just by himself, live on stage playing
and he said, Paris said this, go back and compare
that solo to Eruption. And Paris's theory is that Eddie

(07:02):
modeled Eruption after that solo. What really And if you
go back and listen to it, I'm not gonna say
Eddie ripped it off note for note. But there are
definitely some comparisons, Like he says, there's a point where
he's fingerpicking, there's a point where he does dive bombs.
Although Ace isn't he didn't have a Floyd Rose tremlo.
He did. Ace did a thing that used to be

(07:24):
called dinosaur Benz, which you would take the sixth string,
the e string and bend it. In fact, I asked
Ace about this and he talks about he talks about
this in the book. But yeah, he's doing all these
things that if you listen to Eruption and compare that
side by side, there are definitely some similarities.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
And that's the live version solo.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah it is. Yeah, it's on the live two album.
The song shocked Me. It's not the guitar solo in
the middle of his song. It's at the it's at
the end of the song. They go into a jam part.
Then Ace just does a unaccompanied solo by himself. And
that's what he's talking about.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Okay, because that's gonna rile up the diehard Eddie fans,
it is, how dare you? But I'll give it a listen, Okay,
I'll give it a listen. That would have been Where
was that recorded? Was that recorded at the LA Forum?

Speaker 2 (08:10):
That was at the LA Forum in nineteen seventy seven.
And I also interviewed Ace once and he claims that
in nineteen seventy six, Eddie Van Halen saw Kiss perform
Madison Square Garden because I once asked Ace about how
if he was one of the first rock guitarists to
do the two handed tapping thing, and to Ace's credit,
he said, yeah, you know, Eddie saw me do it,
but you know, we all. He didn't necessarily say that

(08:33):
like Eddie ripped him off. He just said that rock
guitarists are influenced and take things from everyone.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
So oh, absolutely yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
If he inspired him to do it, then he was
very happy to hear about that. But of course the
famous thing that, of course Eddie van Hallen says that
he saw Jimmy Page doing the thing live where he
put his hand up and he was just doing like
a pull off thing. And then Eddie Van Hallen realized, well, wait,
if he's doing that, what if I use my finger
as like a nut and move it up And then
he experiment and that so he came up with the

(09:01):
tuna tapping things supposedly.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
To leap to that he's ripping off Ace. That's not
what it is. All these guitarist musicians play off of
each other. They see something and they inspire each other.
And that's very, very possible that that's where it is.
And that's why I asked if it was at the
LA Forum because obviously that's closest to where Eddie lived
and in nineteen seventies.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah, yeah, nineteen seventies six. But then according to Ace
Eddie I get. You know, what it could have been
is when Gene flew Van Helen out to do the
demo in seventy six. Maybe Kiss was playing Madison Square
Garden around that time and they got to see Kiss perform.
That's at least what a says. Okay, Yeah, he was
playing Madison Square Garden. He looked in the audience and

(09:41):
he saw the Van Hellen there.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Interesting. Well, well, you talked about Ace being open to
talking about anything, and his sobriety was something he talked about,
something he was really proud of. He was proud of
the fact that guitarists were influenced by him or inspired
by him, but he was really proud about being sober.
There's a comment that he told you in two thousand
and nine. I'm assuming I think this is the one

(10:03):
that you went to New York City to interview him for.
And he said, for the longest time. He would get sober,
but then still want to drink and eventually go back,
but at that point he was done with it. And
he was proud of the fact that people would come
up to him, like a fan would come up to
him and tell him, I got sober because you inspire

(10:25):
me to get sober, and that I get the feeling
that meant a lot to him, because he brought up
his sobriety. I think in every interview you did with him.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
It did. Yeah, it did. Yeah, I think it definitely
meant a lot to him. But you know, like one
thing that you know, I interviewed for this book also
David Ellison, the former bassist from the band Megadeath, and
I asked him, I said, you know, because Dave David
Ellison also struggled for a long well not a long time,
but in the eighties. It's not a secret that he

(10:53):
and also Dave Mustaine were addicted to heroin and also
other substances, but they both wanted up getting clean. And
I asked David Ellison if you ever had the opportunity
to sit down and speak with Ace about this, and
he said, yes, actually we didn't. He talks about the
whole thing. And something that him and Ace agreed on
is that they didn't you know, they would, I guess

(11:15):
mention they would discuss this in interviews, but they kind
of felt like that it was up to the individual
to kind of come to that decision themselves that they
wanted to get clean and sober. It's not something you
could really like make someone do. And that's really you know,
it's something I talk about in a lot of my books,
like you just had me on recently talking about the
Alternative for the Mass's book. You know, just some people

(11:39):
it clicks like they just get so fed up and
they with you know, doing drugs or drinking and they're
just like, I'm done with it. It's over. Whereas other people,
like sadly, of course, like you know, Lane Staley or
the great Shannon hun who have talked talked about a
lot over the years, it just they just never get
there and it just winds up, sadly, ultimately killing them.

(12:00):
So you know, but I definitely got the vibe for
Ace that he would alway that he was very happy
that if someone seeing him get sober may have inspired
them or at least showed them like, look, you know,
if Ace could do it after many, many years of
struggling and not being sober. If he could do it,
then I could do it. I think that definitely was
a major thumbs up from.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
Him and no coincidence that as soon as he gets
sober he becomes really productive. That's another thing. He was
really happy to talk about six studio albums between two
thousand and nine and twenty twenty four six, and you
could see how focused he was on the music during
the years that you talked to him. Talks about the
track Genghis Khan from Anomaly, which I love that track.

(12:41):
I love that album. How it took five years to
get it just right? What comes to mind for you
when talking to him about his music and how focused
he seemed to be once he was sober. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
You know what's funny is in the time that Ace
put out six albums, Kiss put out maybe just like
one album or something like that. So it shows, yeah,
either one or two albums compared to Ace's six.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
And yeah it might.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
There was Monster, There was Monster, and uh, what was
the other one?

Speaker 1 (13:10):
The one before that with Modern Delilah, Sonic Sonic Boom.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, yeah, so those were the two. But yeah, I mean,
I can speak from experience. I was lucky to see
Ace three times over like a five year period. Like
at the last time my song was twenty nineteen, and
I saw him a few times right before that, and
he still played great still, you know. I mean, of course,
Ace would tell you he wasn't like a Freddie Mercury

(13:35):
type vocal talent, but he still sang the song similar
to how it sounded on the albums and everything he
you know, like live some you know, the solos maybe
weren't as like on point as they were back in
the Kiss days. But he even would say during interviews like,
look like I'm seventy years old now I can't play
the same way I did back then. But he still
absolutely had the spirit, the drive, and to be honest

(13:59):
with you, watching some of the YouTube clips of Kiss
on their last tours, I think Ace sounded really just
as good because also Ace had a fantastic backing band.
He always surrounded himself with great musicians. That's one thing
you got to give him credit that he had a
good eye and a good ear for picking out great
you know, band members, going all the way back to
of course, the drummer Anton Figg who played on his

(14:20):
nineteen seventy eight solo album and then later went on
to be a David Letterman Show band member.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
And as you know, he's on Unmasked.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
Yep, exactly, Kiss, Dynasty and also Unmasked Nasty Too. I forgot, yeah, yep,
Dynasty too.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
And there's a famous story too that for one day
he was a member of Kiss. After it was clear
that Peter Criss is going to leave in nineteen eighty,
Ace went to Gene and Paul and said, look, I
think Anton Figg should be the drummer. And they're like,
all right, that sounds good. And then Ace called Anton
and said, look, you're in Kiss. Then the next day,
Gene and Paul call Acet and like, you know, we
thought about it. We don't think that's going to work.

(14:55):
Maybe because Anton Figg had already been in a band
that put out an album, so people knew his face.
And that was when Kiss didn't want people to know
what they look like. Sot had to call him back,
had a cool Anton back and said, look, I have
bad news. You know, it's not going to work out. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
I remember Anton just saying it never worked out, you know.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
Yeah. And then and then of course they wound up
getting uh. Of course Eric Carr, who wound up being
a great.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
Drummer as well, who Ayce loved.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
Yep, Ace loved.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
He loved it.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Of course. I did a book about Eric called The
Eric Carr Story, which yep, Eric Carr a great, great drummer, yep. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
December twenty twenty three, you interviewed As and he brought
up the topic of mortality, since so many musicians from
his era were passing. He seemed to be in good health.
He told you about his doctor being impressed by his
blood work got better each year, so he seemed to
be okay.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
He did.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Do we know I'm hearing that he fell twice, that
he fell once, he was he was recovering, but then
fell again.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah. When I interviewed Eddie Trunk for the book, he
was in regular contact with Ace up until the very end.
What happened was he fell. It was either in his
studio or at his house. He fell once. He hurt himself,
but it wasn't bad. Eddie got in contact with him
and he said, you know what happened to You're okay?
And he says, yeah, I'm fine. He took a spill,
you know, I just it wasn't that bad. I'm I'm

(16:15):
gonna be fine. And then they left off. They were
they were going to get together sooner or later for like,
you know, dinner or something like that. And then word
got to Eddie a while later that Ace took a
second fall, and this was the really bad fall. I
think he fell downstairs and he hit his head and
that led to brain bleed, I believe. And Eddie tried

(16:40):
reaching out to I tried texting him, had no response,
called him, no response. Then I think he got in
contact with Ace's actual family and that's when he was
told that yet very serious. And then sadly, of course,
on October sixteenth, twenty twenty five, he passed away.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
So no indication, there was no condition or anything, I
mean what led to him. But he was always kind
of like he would even joke himself about being a
little bit clumsy.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
Right well, he even had an album title called trouble Walking,
right yes.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
I mean, is it that simple, and it's it's hard
to hear that you'd like to you'd like to think
that there was, you know, maybe a more reasonable explanation,
like his health is failing.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
You know, there's no real really. I mean, one thing
that actually Eddie Trunk was very clear during my interview
is that Ace was sober until the very end. So
it wasn't like he was drunk. It wasn't like he
fell off the wagon. It's just all those things. Yeah,
this is maybe you get older, maybe his like balance
wasn't what it once was. You know, we're not too
sure exactly what, but yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
That's what I loved about me. He had that kind
of stumble and then get himself together on stage type
of thing. He had that really cool rock and roll
kind of you know, that stride. Yeah, never in a rush,
never in a hurry, you know. Just a little One thing.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
I've never shared with anyone that I'll actually share with
you and also your viewers and listeners is when I
did the face to face interview with him in two
thousand and nine, when we were given a tour of
like what was the like Gibson factory and there was
like a rehearsal studio and everything, And while we were
given the tour, I could tell it looked like he
almost walked with like a slight limp. So I don't know,

(18:12):
because again, of course you know, back in the early
eighties he had a really big car accident and all
this other stuff. So I don't know if he had
like a problem with his legs slightly or something like that,
but yeah, I could have sworn he walked a little
bit with a limp that one time I met him
in two thousand and nine.

Speaker 1 (18:27):
You mentioned the dinosaur Benz that Gene Simmons came up
with that term, but he also talked about the use
of the kill switch on the guitar came from Pete Townsend.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
Yes, it did. Yeah, but Pete Townsend used it a
bit on some of the sixties era Who songs. But
I think it's really Ace that perfected it and really
brought it to like a wide audience, specifically metal shredder
type guitarists. Yeah, basically, what you do is the Gibson

(18:56):
lest Paul has two pickups, and you just turned the
volume down on one pick up up so it's totally dead,
and the other one, you you know, have the volume up,
so when you're doing the toggle switch, it creates a
what they call kill switch effect.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
Right.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Would Ace pretty much popularize, but it's been used elsewhere, like,
for instance, in the Pretender's song Tattooed Love Boys, which
is one of my favorite songs and favorite solos by
the late great James Honeyman Scott. At the end he
does that, he does the kill switch thing to wrap
up the solo at the end.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
Dave Mannichetti Ryan T.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
I know the helicopter sound, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah, right, yeah. Many people have used it. I believe
John Five, maybe Bumblefoot. I believe there's other people that have. Oh,
I believe Buckethead. I think is also a kill switch guy,
if I'm not mistaken.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
But that was always a cool part of Ass's style.
He isn't that kill switch during his solo? He once
wrote it for Jimmy Hendrix. He has. He always had
some great stories to tell. He was a great storyteller too,
just the way he told him. So you asked him
if it was true, if he rooted for Jimmy Hendrix,
and he went right into a great story. What did
he say about whether that was true or not?

Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah, what happened was it was the summer of nineteen seventy.
I believe it was the last time Jimmy Hendricks ever
played New York. It was a place called Randall's Island,
which was a like I said, an island. It was
a outdoor venue that would sometimes have shows and it
was a multi bind bill. I forget what the name
of the show was, but there were other bands I
believe like Mountain was on the bill and also some others.

(20:26):
And Ace was there. This is a good three years
before he joined Kiss, and no one knew who he
was or anything. And he said he was there. He
was walking around and he saw the backstage area and
he said, in nineteen seventy he wasn't like what it was,
just like a few years later that they had security
and things like that, you could pretty much if you
wanted to just walk right back there. So he said,

(20:46):
you know, I'll just walk right back there, pretending like,
you know, like I know like what I'm doing, or
like I'm part of the you know, crew or something.
So he walks back. He's looking around and one of
the guys comes up to me. He's like, who are
you And he's like, Oh, to be honest with you,
I'm just a fan just walking around. He's like, well,
what do you do, Like, do you have any talent
or anything. It's like, well, I have I've experienced setting
up drums and he's like, all right, well come on,

(21:08):
and he wound up setting up Mitch Mitchell's drum set
that night, which was a very My name's Paul.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
All right, can't come on in, right, can you? What
can you do? The battles that he had with Kiss,
the former members that he worked with, Gene and Paul,
they were publicized so much, and I wondered if Face
got tired of talking about it, But it didn't seem
that way. I mean, you would ask him about it.

(21:38):
He never He never gave you an indication like I'm
tired of talking about this. He just he was open
about it, wasn't he No.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
I'll tell you when I think about Ace, he would
talk about everything. I mean he's talked about in interviews,
not necessarily with me, like other people, like very personal
things about his like sex life and things like that.
Like I don't know if you saw this thing that's
come that's getting a lot of views after he passed away,
because everyone's looking class took, like you know, Ace interviews.
He was interviewed by Loudwaire and he talked about a
wild weekend he had with Diamebag Darrel and he gets

(22:07):
very graphic about it. Oh what he did, Yeah, he
should check that out, like it's pretty He was His
whole life was a complete was a complete open book.
So you gotta give him credit that he was just
he later all on the line.

Speaker 1 (22:20):
I thought it was interesting his view on on that
whole story of the kiss, the war and between the
members that he never I don't know, like he didn't
seem to be he didn't. He would take things personally.
He'd get pissed off. I remember he was on Eddie
Trunk get really pissed at Paul Stanley about something. But

(22:41):
then like a month later, even less, he'd just be like, yeah,
you know, it's no big deal. I just talked to
Paul the other day and everything's fine. It's like I
just went back and forth. They kept in touch. It
was this weird kind of like, hey, it's show business.
This is what it is. I still love those guys. Yeah,
you know, we we don't fight, and there's a lot

(23:02):
of stuff. There's a lot of business dealings. Like Jean
said that Ace and Peter were invited to be part
of the End of the Road final show but they
said no, And I think they said Ace wanted more money,
So there was never any real definitive It was just
a back and forth thing that just seemed to go
on even when they were together. It seemed that way.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yeah, there was. And I also once they asked Ace,
not only once, but twice, I asked him about like,
what's the story with your makeup design? Do you own
it and just Kiss? Like yes, you know, like does
Kiss pay you a fee to use it? Or what's
the story? And Ace, to the best of his knowledge,
he said, he said, I never signed it away to Kiss.
But if I think what probably took now, I send

(23:43):
that to back up a little bit. Peter Chris did
sell his makeup design to Kiss sore they completely own that.
Ace for many years did not sell it. I think
what probably happened is he would license it to Kiss.
So what happened is Kiss or and Ace talks about
this one of the interviews that it was in perpetuity,

(24:04):
which means I believe like forever. So if I kind
of am trying to connect the dots, if I take
a guess, I would say that he must have least
he must have signed an agreement with Kiss that they
could use it as much as they want, but he
I think received some kind of compensation for it being
used on merchandise and things like that. To the best

(24:24):
of my knowledge, Peter Chris did not make anything off
of March and stuff like that. So that so that
to me probably makes the most sense, because I know
Paul Stanley has gone public saying no, we own it,
but then Ace would say, no, you don't. They don't
own it. I never I never sold it to them outright.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
His relationship with Paul the nyn damnic there is interesting
because he's the three books that were written by the
by Paul, Jean and Peter, and in terms of what
Ace thought of them, it's Paul's book that he kind
of took the most offense to. He didn't like some
of the things Paul said in the book, and he's
been vocal in interviews where he'd be pretty pissed off

(25:03):
with Paul. But then again, going back to what I
was just saying, then he'd be on Paul's solo album. Yeah,
So you know, it's it's like, what's I don't know,
It's just like this back and forth. And even with
like Gene when Jeane did his Vault tour, a showed
up and there's a video on YouTube where they're doing
a press conference doing a Q and A, and you
could just see Gene is so respectful to Ace, you know,

(25:25):
he just he really loved him. So it's just that
weird back and forth thing that that's different, I think
from other bands. It's not like with Van Halen, you're
not gonna see You're not gonna see like Dave and
Sammy there, you know and having a love fest.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
Or I mean, you could maybe say it wasn't as
venomous as the David Lee Roth Van Halen brother relationship,
but deadly Roth and the Vanillen brothers were able to
co exist from time to time. I don't think it
was ever that there wasn't that much dislike between Ace
and Jane and Paul, but just it seemed like was
a very very laid back fellow. He never really held

(26:04):
things in as much. It seemed like Gene and Paul
were always very like, especially in interviews, very vocal about
like bad mouthing former Kiss members and things like that,
or his Ace would sometimes say things like, for instance,
he was pretty honest with me, he asked, I mean,
he told me once and this is in the book.
Towards the end of his last go around with Kiss,

(26:26):
which would have been in the early two thousands, he
said it was getting to the point again that Gene
and Paul were driving him crazy. And then but to
Ace's crit and he says, but I was also making
them crazy, you know, so at least he could see
the thing with the only exception I have as a
Kiss fan, like, I understand, no one is completely, like,
you know, totally innocent. I know that Ace does did things,
Peter did things, Geene, Paul, they no one's perfect. But

(26:51):
I just think that I'm trying to think how I
could word this.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
Ace is more willing to take his half of the responsibility.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
I think that's what it is, and that he was
willing to let bygones be bygones kind of and yet
not like in kind of take the high road and
maybe even just admit, like you know, there's the famous
saying that it takes two to tango, but in that case,
it was four, you know.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
And I think he hit the nail on the head.
And like you said, he's very laid back, lets things go,
he moves on, right. I think that's really it.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
I'm pretty sure one of the times. Yeah, you know,
I'm thinking about it. You know, I'm not just saying
it because I just wrote a you know, because I
just compiled a book about Ace. But he he did
during our interview say some pretty insightful, enlightening things about
him not wanting to hold things in, you know, like
it's not worth carrying around the baggage and all that
type of stuff. To me, you know what it probably

(27:46):
I would imagine it went hand in hand with him
also getting sober and putting drugs behind him. I think
when in certain instances, when you do that, you get
enlightened and you maybe see life differently, and you also
appreciate life, And.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
I think you bring up a good point. I think, yep,
with the recovery, a lot of that is forgiving others,
forgiving yourself, that kind of thing. And he had a
sense of humor about himself. One of the interviews, it
might have been loudwire, but he's pulling his shirt over.
He's I kind of want anybody who see my gut.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
Well. Yeah. One of the people answered for the book
is Don Jamison, who we all know from that Metal show,
but he's also a great stand up comic yep, And
I asked him about Ace. I was like, you know,
could he have been a stand up comic? And he
gave me he gave a pretty good answer. Don did.
And he also talks about the famous Tomorrow Show interview

(28:37):
with Tom Snyder where a stress takes over the whole
show and he's laughing and he's drunk and you could
see that Paul and Jean is not having it. They're
not happy at all. But Don Jamison talks about that
if you watch that show, it's almost similar to a
stand up comic that you start off strong in the
middle or the end, sometimes it goes down a little bit,

(28:59):
but then you end very very strong yet like very
very great laughs or you end on a high note.
And that's exactly what they did with that.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
That's an interesting look at it. What was the story
about the smoking flute?

Speaker 2 (29:12):
Smoking flute? Yes, yeah, what it was was great with Ace.
And Don also talks about this is he would like
to take He would like to surprise when he'd come
on the shows. He would like to do like a
surprise thing. And he didn't tell him ahead of time
that he had a prop so because Ace was famous
for his whole smoking smoking a guitar effect live. He

(29:34):
didn't tell anyone that he had a smoking flute, so
he had it in his jacket. And I actually actually
went back and watched this just maybe like two or
like three days ago. And he tells the three guys
on the show, all right, look, you know, I don't
want you to look at me like, you know, cover
your eyes are like turn away, and then he he does.
He lights it and he's blowing it and then all
of a sudden, yes, smoke starts coming out of it,

(29:55):
and all the guys are laughing, and it's a lot funnier. Net.
I remember when I saw it for the first time,
I thought it was okay, But now that I see
it that, I really do think it's very very funny.
And I highly recommend people look up ace fairly coma
smoking flute find online.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
He had a cool story about the origins of the
smoking guitar.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeap, which he actually told me, and he told.

Speaker 1 (30:13):
You that, and it's it's really the specific guitar that
he used that allowed him to do that, right, put
a little smoke bomb on the inside of the guitar.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah, he talks about it would have been in nineteen
seventy four, during one of Kisses early tours, he realized
that if I put a smoke bomb in one of
my guitars, if I put it in the back cavity
behind the pickup and put the back plate back on
and lit it, there's the only way the smoke is
going to escape is through the actual pickup the front.

(30:44):
So he did that and he said it worked great.
It got a great response from the audience. The only
problem is, he said it gummed up the inner workings
of the wires and stuff like that. So he had
to give it to a tech and they redid the
whole thing with like the wires, and yeah, they got
a better setup going forward. And yeah, with later kiss
tours you see that they have like a whole professional setup.

(31:08):
A light would also shoot out of the pickup too,
so when the smoke was coming out, it was kind
of a cool effect, especially if you were in like
an arena way back. You got to see like the
smoke and the guitar and everything like that.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
Really cool. He was a less Paul guitar guy.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
Less Paul guitar, yes, exactly.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
He also had a problem with what Paul told him
while they were recording nineteen ninety eight Psycho Circus. Right,
not all four members are on that album. I think
they're only on one track, maybe two. It's into the Void,
I think.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
Is Yeah, the only one was this song that actually
Ace wrote, which is a song called into the Void. Yeah.
I don't understand what Paul and Jean's thinking was with that.
That whole album. I never liked. It doesn't sound like
a real Kiss album. I didn't like that, you know.
I mean, I was hoping when that album came out
it was going to be a throwback to the seventies.
In fact, to Paul and Jean's credit, the last two

(31:55):
Kiss albums, Monster and Sonic Boom to me from what
I remember heard them in a long time, to be honest,
but they had more of a rock seventies feel. That
Psycho Circus album just sounded kind of like a bon
Jovi produced album because it was I believe bon Jovi's producer.
If I'm not mistaken, Yeah, I believe.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
So. I can look it up because I look it
up here. Well, I look that up. I like Sonic Boom. Monsters, okay,
but Sonic Boom I really liked. And you're right to
have that seventies sound to it.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yeah, that's what I liked about it, that it was
more of a Kiss sound. But the only thing that
was missing was of course Ace and Peter. That would
have I would have liked to have heard that on the.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
What was the comment Paul made to him in the
studio nobody cares about you and Peter or oh?

Speaker 2 (32:36):
Ace, you know, asked like you said, You're like, you know,
why am I not playing or something like that, you know,
like the fans want to hear the full Kiss. I
want to hear me, Peter, you and Gene like why
is it not the full band? And Paul's comment was
something like all the fans don't care, and Ace was like,
of course the fans care. What do you mean the
fans don't care.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
They bought tickets to the concerts.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
But but Kiss has been doing this since the beginning
of time, back to the early I think the Destroyer
album had a few songs that Ace doesn't even play
guitar on. So and then of course it continued. We
just talked about Anton fig playing drums on Dynasty and
also Unmasked. Ace didn't play on a few of the
songs on side four of a live two That was

(33:17):
Bob Culeck.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
Yeah, and Alice Cooper's guitarist is on some tracks.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
Yes, Hunter was one of the guys, Steve Steve Hunter.
It was a second guitar.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
Another one, we can look it up. But Bruce Fairbairn
is the one that produced Psycho Circus. Okay, but yeah,
the other.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
It is I see it as Dick Wagner.

Speaker 1 (33:36):
There you go, Dick Wagner. You got to me before
I got it on Google.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
Yeah, Now there was a common Paul and Jean made
that inspired Ace's seventy eight solo album.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yes, it is. It's true. They had a meeting before
they were all going to go off into their own
and work on their own solo albums in seventy eight,
and Gene and Paul turned to Ace. They had a meeting,
some kind of business meeting, and they're about to leave,
and they turned to Ace and said, look, Ace, if
you didn't any help, just you know, don't hesitate to
you know, call us. And Ace was like, all right, well,

(34:04):
I mean that's kind of a dig. So he definitely
inspired him, and to his credit, that I think is
by far the best of the four solo albums that
Ace Tuly seventy eight solo album.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
Hey guys, we'll get back to the show, but first
I want to tell you about an exclusive deal for
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(34:40):
glory dot com. Make sure to use the promo code.
Booked on Rock. Also find a link in this episode
show notes, or just go to Booked on Rock dot
com and click on my deals. The name Tommy Thayer
came up. You asked Ace to clarify whether or not
you know he owned the makeup design and all that
stuff which you alluded to. But what did he think
about Thayer? What was his opinion of him?

Speaker 2 (35:02):
Honestly, I made it a point not to bring up
Tommy Thayer that much when I would interview him, but
from interviews I saw with others, he seemed like he
didn't really get along very well with him. There's a
famous story that I think is in Paul's book. I
supposedly Ace once punched Tommy Thayer because before Tommy joined
Kiss as Aces spaceman type character, he was hired by

(35:26):
Gee Well to back up Tommy Thayer first cross pads
with Gene because Gene produced the band Black and Blue,
which Tommy Thayer was a member of back in the eighties.
He produced one or two albums of theirs, and then
they became friendly and Jane hired him as a as
a as a assistant back and I guess the late

(35:47):
eighties early nineties he actually had a co write on
the Kiss album Hot in the Shade, which was eighty nine,
so he was already kind of working. He was already
part of the Kiss world as far back as eighty nine,
and then he continued working for Gene. Then he must
have then started working for Kiss because he was involved
in the whole entire I'm pretty sure he was behind

(36:09):
the whole Kiss convention thing when kisses. There were Kiss
conventions in the late eighties early nineties, but then Kissed
at their own Kiss convention in ninety four ninety five,
and they did the Kiss My Ass Tribute album and
all that stuff, and I believe Tommy Fair was was
definitely involved in that stuff. And then he was really
involved in the whole entire reunion and he was hired

(36:30):
to reteach Ace his solos, like him and Ace would
sit down and they would go over his solos and
they would probably compare him to CDs. And because also
Tommy Fair was even a Kiss tribute band where he
would play the role of Ace freely, so he knew
all the solos and stuff. So he tried helping out
Ace with that stuff. And then at some point, I
don't know what happened, but there was a backstage thing where.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
Was running late or something. Yes, and in costume.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
Okay, yes, something something happened, That's.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
What it was. A shows up. It's like, what the
fuck is this guy?

Speaker 2 (37:06):
Something happen. A story goes that Ace punches Tommy. But
they must have been on decent terms because they know,
like a while back, Ace was on a Kiss cruise
and he set in with Kiss and it was with
Tommy Thayer and they're all on the same stage together playing.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
So again, yeah, Ace laid back, just let it go whatever.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
I mean. I'm sure at some point they must have
let bygones, be bygones. It wasn't like he held a
grudge or anything.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
Well, yeah, and he seemed to be cool with all
of the ex Kiss guitarists, including Vinnie Vincent.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
Including Vinni Vincent, Yes exactly. He even said that his
quote is that he and Vinnie got on famously. Yeah, yeah, because.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
They now if anybody he'd be pissed out of be
Vini Vincent because he took his spot and Kiss. But
then again, by the time that happened, Ace was already done.
He didn't probably didn't care who was going to be
taking his place.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
Yeah, about three or four years ago, there was a
thing called Creatures Fest, which was it had a jam
thing where it was Vinnie Vincent on top of a
tank to be a replica of the Kiss Creatures of
the Night Tour. So he's standing on top of a
tank and then to his left and right is Bruce Cullock.
And also a switch to me is a little insulting

(38:11):
that Vinnie Vincent is on a higher thing than Ace.
I mean, well, we all know Ace is by far
the most iconic, most important, most you know, legendary Kiss guitarist.
And you're gonna put him below on a pedestal, but
just typical of Vinie Vincent right there.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
But anyway, you said it for me, right.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
I asked Ace about it, and he talked about it.
He said he and Vinnie got along great. But then
I also interviewed Bruce Cullick, not for this book, for
a pye called Ultimate Guitar, which I did use this
interview in this book I included as a little bonus,
and I asked him, how was it playing with Ace
and Vinnie on stage? And Bruce did not hold back.
I give Bruce a lot of credit.

Speaker 1 (38:50):
Well, Bruce does not like Vinnie Vincent.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
I forget his quote, but it was like it was
like in other world.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
It was.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
It was the wackiest on stage experience he's ever had.
And I said at the time, this is when Ace
was still alive. I was like, would you ever play
with Ace and Vinnie again? I believe Ace he would,
but no Vinnie. He was like, no, I will not
play with Vinnie again.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
No. Oh. Yeah. He did not like Vinnie.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
He did not. He did not like the whole experience.
And he said that's it was.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
Ace open to going back to kiss after he left
a no two.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
Yes, I asked him. I actually asked him once he
at the time had just put out a studio album,
a solo album, and I said, so, now, if Kiss come,
This is right when Kiss announced they were doing the
Farewell tour, and I said, so, if Kiss comes to you,
even though you have a new album out, do you like,
what do you do? And he says, A Kiss the
reunion would take precedence over any solo thing that I'm doing.

(39:42):
He made it very clear. The thing that actually Eddie
Trunk made a good point once Gene and Paul made
it seem in the press like, oh, of course, so
all the past members are invited. They could just show
up whenever they want. But you know, Eddie Trunk is like, yeah,
like you really like okay, So Ace Firley is going
to show up at the back door of some arena.
He's gonna do this for free. There's not gonna be

(40:03):
any compensation. There's not gonna be any con They would
have been contracts, there would have been you know, payment. Obviously,
it's not as simple as someone just showing up and
coming and then and then the whole thing with all right,
so now you're all in makeup, like is Ace coming
up and makeup not makeup? Is he playing the whole show?
Is he just coming up at the end, Like what's
the story?

Speaker 1 (40:23):
You know?

Speaker 2 (40:24):
Gene and Paul, I think, use it to their advantage,
just kind of baiting fans like, oh, are they going
to show up? Are they not? Especially with that last
those last shows at Madison Square Garden, there was a
whole thing in the air, like, oh, or Ace and
Peter are going to show up, maybe just for like
one song. I mean, even though his talk is even like,
you know, Bruce going to show up, yeah, because that
probably would have made more sense Bruce just showing up

(40:46):
because he never he could have just showed up in
no makeup and just played some songs.

Speaker 1 (40:50):
But that would have been the perfect way to end it.
And now, as we know, the questions is whether Peter
could get out there and do it well. Peter just
is about to release a full album, so he could
still play one show. I would think.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
Yah. You know one thing that I definitely had that
I took exception to Gene and Paul is they always
made it seem like Peter and Ace couldn't play past
a certain point, and that's why they got rid of
them even in the nineties. I remember before the reunion,
like Gene and Paul are very vocal about, oh, you know, Ace,
he was once a great guitarist, but he just.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
Bullshit chanced, he's not the same bullshit.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
Yeah, it's total bullshit. Because you go back on YouTube.
For the past week, I've been watching performances of Ace
from ninety four and ninety five, and he's playing better
than ever. And he's also playing rare kiss songs. And
that was also another thing which is total bullshit. Gene
and Paul were often asked during the reunion tours with
Ace and Peter, why are you not bringing back or

(41:46):
why you're not playing songs that were never played and
like you know, giving fan surprises and stuff like that,
And their whole thing was all Ace and Peter couldn't
you know, play that stuff. You know, they couldn't do it.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
I know Peter struggled towards the end as he was
the oldest of all the guys in the band. That's
that granted, okay, but.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
Which is which is totally understandable because he was also
the oldest member of the band and drumming is a
very physical thing, so that's.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
You want to go there in terms of a full
tour with Peter, Okay, but Ace was It's not even
until maybe the last year or so when some YouTube
videos will come up and it'd be Ace, you know,
messing something up on stage. But you know, that's the
that's the era we're in where everybody loves to catch
every every time a performer has a bad night. Performers
do have bad nights. So I don't know if it

(42:32):
was just that or maybe Ace was slipping a little whatever,
But we're talking about we're talking about right up through
the end of the road tour. Kud A's play Hell yeah, absolutely,
hell yes, and for one show, of course, I mean
one song. I mean, come on. Well, one of the
songs I wish they would would have played more of
and they never did, was Rocket Ride. It's one of

(42:53):
my favorite A songs.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Yeah, Kiss never played it live, but Ace played it
live as a solo artist.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
Can you share the story? I love and no. Every
time I listened to this, I'm picturing Ace sweating profusely
as he recorded I'll let you tell this story. This
is when he lived in Irvington, New York.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
Yes, what happened was they were coming up with material.
On the fourth side of Kiss Alive two, it's all
studio songs. It was five it was four new songs
in one cover and Ace was given the opportunity to
do a song, so he wrote a song called rocket
Ride that he co wrote with a gentleman name with
a gentleman named Sean Delaney who tends to get overlooked.
He was a huge part of Kiss in the seventies.

(43:30):
He was employed by Bill o'coin, which was Kiss's original manager.
I believe he was Bill a coin's boyfriend too, because
they were both gay, and he was supposedly he's the
one that told the guys like, look, when you're on stage,
do this thing where you rock back and forth like
you do like a thing with your guitars, you lift

(43:51):
up the guitars together. And they listened to him and
they did it and they said, yeah, it actually works great.
And I think it was him that said, look, you
have to have an image you all have to have.
You have to have a white face as the you know,
primer on your face. Then you have a specific design
around your eyes. I'm pretty sure that was him that
came up with that. It was him that said, you
all have to dye your hair black. It has to

(44:12):
be a unified image because A said naturally brown hair.
I believe so he and then and then on top
of it, he also co wrote a lot of their
songs and even co produced some of their albums and
things like that. So he was crucial. And then what
happens is he breaks up with Bill A. Cooin in
seventy nine nineteen eighty, and then you just never hear
from him again, which was very weird. You would have

(44:33):
thought that maybe Kiss would have employed him or someone
or Ace as a solo artist, someone would have written
with him or hired him to help in some capacity,
but you just never heard from him like ever ever again.
Was kind of weird.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
But anyway, he died young, did me?

Speaker 2 (44:47):
He did?

Speaker 1 (44:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (44:48):
He did ye. He died young. And he wrote a
book that not too many people know about it. It's
called hell Box. I know I have it. I don't
think I ever ever ever really read it, but I
should give that a should sit down and read that.
It's probably an interesting book. But yeah, So he also
co wrote songs with Kiss and he and a set
Dan wrote the song called rocket Ride, and for some

(45:08):
reason It was written up in Ace's attic and the
ac was broken, so Ace was saying, they were sweating profusely,
but they came up with this great song, so they
just stuck it out and yeah, it is a great song.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
What a phenomenal tune and a solo.

Speaker 2 (45:22):
Yeah, if you listen to that song, I believe he
two taps and that's in late seventy seven.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
Oh man, I love that song. You asked Ace what
his most underrated song is. He couldn't really think of one.
He said, I'll leave that up to you, but he
did name his his top five guitar solos, and kiss
Deuce shocked me. Strange ways got a thunder and the
live rock and Roll All Night, which is a huge difference.
And I know the studio version is the most famous version,

(45:47):
I guess, or maybe not, maybe the live version because
the live version I think maybe it was a bigger
The live.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
Version was the hit. The studio version came out first.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
Okay, the difference maker is Aces solo in the.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
Live Aces solo and just it really no comparison. In fact,
I was thinking the other day, the first time I
ever heard Rock and Roll All Night, I got the
double platinum album on cassette for I remember it was
Christmas nineteen seventy nine's and I thought it was a
you know, good song. But then I kept hearing or
reading that it wasn't the studio album that was the hit,

(46:18):
it was the live version. And I did not get
the live album till a few albums in because it
was a more expensive album at the time because it
was a two record set.

Speaker 1 (46:28):
That's the silver the silver cover.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
Double platinum was the silver covery.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
Right's right. And they have like a remix, like a
disco version.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
Of the remixed and they and they re recorded strutter
this that's the one seventy eight. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
but yes. What happened was then I finally heard the
live version of Rock and Roll Night, and I remember being, oh,
now it makes sense. The live version is superior to
the studio version and it and also, like you said,
the studio version has no guitar solo. The live version

(46:58):
does have a guitar solo.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
I would play parasite and rip it out solos, and
those songs are up there too, way up there. And
there is one that you mentioned to him that I
love dark Light from music from the Elder. Yes, do
you have a favorite a solo?

Speaker 2 (47:15):
Yes, I do. Strange ways has to be at the top.
That's definitely at the top. One that people tend to
overlook is maybe because the song isn't the best known
kiss song on the Love Gun album. It's a Gene
Simmons song called almost Human mm hmm, and it's a solo.
That album was produced by by Eddie Kramer, who worked
with Jimmy Hendrix led Zeppelin, and he also produced Ace's

(47:39):
nineteen seventy eight solo album that we just talked about,
And yeah, that solo Ace's solo in that song almost Human,
it has like a backwards thing that's a little bit
like Jimmy Hendrix. So that's kind of a I would say,
a definite underrated a solo. But yeah, Dark Light Music
from the Elder is kind of a goof album to me.
I mean, I can appreciate it as a goof, but
I will never to till the day I die say

(48:01):
it's a legitimate great kiss album. I know there's a
whole cult around that album where people say it's a
great album. I put it in the same category as
your Van Halen threes, your Hot spaces your metallical Louis
Lulu's like stuff that just if I never heard it again,
it should just be deleted.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
There are some great moments on there, but overall I
can't argue that. Did you see Jeff Tate from Queens
Reike soa that's his favorite album? Wow?

Speaker 2 (48:26):
I never heard that.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
Wow. I guess it makes sense because Queen's Reke is
the theatrical band, so this had a theatrical type, you know,
overall it's a concept album. Maybe that's why. But I
thought that was pretty interesting to hear it.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
Well, you know, one thing I did as a goof
is well not as a goof, but i''ll explain what
was the goof for this book. One of the people
I interviewed was Coheden Cambria guitarist Travis Steever, and they're
well known Coed and Cambria. They're like a metal proggy
type band. And I asked him, I'm like, oh, well,
since Coheden Cambria has a lot of has a lot
of concept albums, was Music from the Elder Ever a

(49:02):
influence on any of Coed and Cambriy's concept albums. He's like, no,
not a.

Speaker 1 (49:10):
No, explanation needed. No, Okay, I thought I'd ask, let's
go to Eddie Trunk because Eddie was a longtime friend
of Aces, and I did listen to much of his
tribute radio and it was you could hear his voice shaking.
I mean, he was really shooking up about.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
It when I was speaking to him, which is just
like less than a week ago from when this interview
is being taped. He even at one point excused himself
and say, I'm sorry, I'm getting choked up. Oh man,
it's still kind of raw talking about this.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
But yeah, he got a signed to his first solo
record deal with Mega Force, which which you know, nobody
would sign a set at that point because he was
a liability and and and Eddie Trunk was like, no, man,
we got to give this guy a chance. He's and
Mega Force didn't have any really major names on the label,
and he said, this is a guy that's gonna get
get us on the radio. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
Yeah, what happened was I reached out to Eddie and
I was on the fence. I was like, I mean,
is it too like what we just said. I know,
it was great the on air tribute he to Dace,
but you could tell he was getting choked up, and
you know, like you'd tell his voice. Because him and
Ace have been friends since eighty six is when they
first met.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
And did every conversation with I love you brother, Ace
would say to him, I love you brother.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
Yeah. So it was really like losing a great, great
friend for Eddie. So so yeah, I was on it.
Like when I was doing these interviews for the book,
I'm like, you know, I really have to ask Eddie,
even though I don't expect him to say yes, you know,
but I when I reached out to him. I've been
viewed Eddie many times over the years. He's a great guy.
I told him what I was doing. He's always been

(50:42):
a big supporter of my books. He's had me on
his shows. I reached out to him for this book,
and I told him what I was doing, and automatically
it wasn't like, well, let me think about it. I
was like, yeah, definitely, I'll do it. Just the only
thing is I'm going on this rock cruise that I'm
like I'm seeing, so just the scheduling we have to
work out. So to his credit, again, he could have
easily just been like no, it's like to you know,

(51:03):
touchy of a subject. It's you know, I'm still kind
of uneasy discussing everything. But he was like, nah, it
just we should set it up. And what I did
with Eddie is he's talked a lot about over the
years his favorite Kiss albums and songs, in fact for
books that I even spoke to him for. But for
this book, I wanted to ask him specifically about the

(51:23):
Freelies comment era because he was a major, major part
of that. Not too many people remember or know that
Eddie was employed by Mega Force Records back then, and
it was he who got a signed to Mega Force
because yeah, like he was saying, Mega Force was known
primarily as a metal label at that point, primarily for
signing Metallica to their first deal, then also signing Anthrax,

(51:48):
Testament and also several other pretty big thrash metal type bands.
Was really there forte ay and then they realized they
Eddie went to Johnny Z who was the head of
that label, and said, look, you know, we really got
a talk to Ace. He hasn't put out any solo
albums since he left Kiss. We have to try to
get him on the label. But like what Eddie says,

(52:08):
there was such a bad vibe around Ace because in
nineteen eighty two he had this huge thing where he
was drinking and driving and he was on a high
speed chase in his DeLorean with like the cops chasing
him and stuff like that, and he's like, luck you
didn't get killed.

Speaker 1 (52:25):
Pretty much the story I heard too. He is driving
on the wrong side of the highway too, That's what
I've heard.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
I've heard other yeah, I mean, I've heard conflicting things.
It's something I never asked Ace about because I didn't
know if he wanted to talk about that, but I
know he's definitely talked about it in the press, and
he also talks about it in the song called rock
Soldiers off the first Freelies Common album He's self titled.
It's called Ace Frey Freely's comment nineteen eighty seven. There's
a song rock Soldiers. He actually talks about it in

(52:51):
that song.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
Find the bookdown Rock website at bookdonrock dot com. Daring
can find all the back episodes of the show, the
latest episode in video and audio, links to all of
the platforms where you can listen to the podcast, plus
all the social media platforms were on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram,
TikTok and x. Also check out the Booked on rockblog,
find your local independent bookstore, find out all the latest

(53:17):
hot rock book releases, and before you go, check out
the booked on Rock online store. Pick up some booked
on Rock merch. It's all at booked on Rock dot com.
Finish with how you will remember Ace, But let's set
that up with what Eddie said. So got his quote
from your book. He says, honestly, a should really be remembered,

(53:37):
And I don't think this is overstated, as one of
the most consequential and influential people that ever picked up
a guitar, as it inspired maybe more people than anyone
to play guitar. And whether that was because of his
playing or the visual or both, I think you'd be
hard pressed to find many people that were as influential
and inspirational to guitar players as Ace one. And he

(54:01):
had started by saying he's one of the funniest guys
and the nicest guys, but that was something that he
felt was really important to mention. How should Ace be
remembered in your opinion?

Speaker 2 (54:13):
Well, you know, after like I just mentioned that quote
that the gentleman Paris Paris Mayhew talks about that the
comparison between the Shock Me A Live Too solo compared
to Van Halen eruption. There's been really just two times
that I can think of where a guitarist came along

(54:34):
and it was like totally up to rock music. Rock
guitar was on a certain path. A guitarist comes along,
then suddenly it's like rock guitar sounds totally different. It
totally alters the course of rock. Guitar totally alters rock music,
just like in you could say general And the two
times has really happened were with Jimmy Hendrix in the

(54:56):
sixties and then of course Eddie van Halen in nineteen
seventy eight. With what Paris may You had to say,
it got me thinking you could now make the argument
that it was Ace Freirly that bridged the Jimmy Hendricks
era to the Eddie Van Halen era, meaning that if
you listen to that unaccompanied solo on Kiss Alive Too,

(55:19):
he's doing a lot of things that are similar sounding
to eruption. You hear like the like I said, the
whole dive bomb thing, it's not really a dive bomb.
He's doing what's called dinosaur bend, which is a similar sound,
but he's doing too and a tapping. He's doing like
trills and very fast runs and stuff like that. So really,
Ace also really, next to those two other guitarists, Jimmy

(55:42):
Hendrix and Eddie Van Haleen, maybe influenced as many people
as those two as well. If you think about the
wide variety and how many people have listed Ace as
a influence over the years and inspired these guitarists to
also pick up a guitar in the first place. It's
really really those three guitar is saying, Jimmy, Eddie Ace,

(56:02):
those three are probably the most have inspired the most
amount of rock guitars over the years. I would say he.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
Was larger than life, as was all four members of
Kiss in that original era with the costumes and the
makeup and the mystery what do they look like, and
then seeing them on stage and the shows that they
put on. He was larger than life, There's no question.
And then when you get to interview him as you did,
and you see the interviews with him on TV, you

(56:30):
just realize he's just a down to earth New Yorker
and he had a great sense of humor, and he
was pretty damn humble. I mean, he had he had
a healthy ego. He knew he was good, but at
the same time he was you know, he didn't he
didn't walk around like you know everybody who's beneath him.
In fact, you know, there are stories of I think
he had. He Trunk told the story about early early

(56:50):
on in those early Megaphoores days, and Eddie was at
a gig with Ace and they just they went to
uh they went to the local bars and just hung
out there, and fans came up to he was having
drinks with him and all that.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
The makeup in the costumes were definitely a double edged
sword because it absolutely people did not take them as
seriously as songwriters and also as musicians. I think Kiss
are highly underrated songwriters. If I'm talking specifically about their
seventies era, that's by far the only era that I

(57:22):
really listened to and really enjoy the most. And yeah,
Aces guitar playing, he was I think probably the most
talented musically of the Kiss group. But yeah, I think
the whole makeup and also costumes, people tended to not
be able to look beyond that, and they just thought
they were all they're just like, you know, some kind
of like you know, kiddie band or something like that,

(57:43):
whereas there's no denying by nineteen seventy nine, nineteen eighty,
you know, small children were the predominant makeup of their audience.
Early on, Kiss was really just like a hard rock
band that was, you know, playing to teenagers and people
in their twenties and things like that. So yeah, I mean,
but again with that the makeup, at the costumes, they
wouldn't have probably become as big as they became. And

(58:04):
there's a great quote in the book that Kiss was
a lot of people's Beatles, meaning that that was, you know,
to what the Beatles did to people in the sixties,
inspiring people to pick up instruments and form bands. That's
what Kiss did, not only in the seventies, but well
beyond the seventies. I mean there I spoke to Kim

(58:25):
Thile from the band's Soundgarden. He was influenced by Ace.
Alex Skolnik, who was in Testament, was influenced by A. Santavieu,
Jesse Hughes. Hughes from the band Eagles of Death Metal,
he was influenced by Ace. Travis Stever from Coeden, Cambria,
a wide variety of all different styles of music and
all these guys' list as as a important musical influence.

Speaker 1 (58:47):
Hey, guys, thanks so much for checking out the Book
Down Rock podcast. If you've just found the podcast, welcome.
If you've been listening, thank you so much for your support,
and make sure you tell a friend, a family member,
share on social media and let people know about Booked
on Rock, And if you do like the podcast, make
sure you subscribe give a five star review. Wherever you
listen to the Booked on Rock podcast, run Amazon, Apple, iHeart, Spotify, Spreaker,

(59:12):
tune in, and on YouTube music. You can check out
the full episodes on video, along with video highlights from
episodes on the Booked on Rock YouTube channel. Find it
at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
to the show talk to Me conversations with Ace Frehley
as the book much more from Ace than those who
knew him in the book, along with by the way,

(59:34):
a ton of great photos, a ton of great photos
from kiss in the seventies. Who's Richard is a Gabraith?

Speaker 2 (59:43):
Yes, his name is Richard Gallbryeth.

Speaker 1 (59:46):
I'm sorry Richard Gallbriath.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
He put out a Kiss photo book about ten or
fifteen years ago that I helped him with. Okay, he
took great photos of Van Halen two back in seventy eight.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
Well, Richard, if you're listening to this man, phenomenal photos here,
there's tons of them that he took. Yeah, but also
you have eighties photos, nineties right up to recent years
of as.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Yeah, what I was, what I've done Over the years,
I've made great relationships with some outstanding photographers that should
really be better known. I mean, I know, like there's
guys like Ross Halfin are very well known, but there
are lesser known photographers that took pictures just as good.
And this gentleman by the name of Richard Golbriath took some.
He was lucky enough to shoot so many of these

(01:00:28):
great bands at their seventies peak, like Van Halen on
their first ever tour Kiss through the seventies, the Sex
Pistols on their only US tour with Sid, all these
great great artists. And I also become friendly with the
gentleman name is Chris Lee, Christopher Lee Helton. He took
a lot of great photos back in the eighties. Another

(01:00:50):
photographer named Steven Jay Messina who took great photos in
the eighties, nineties all the way up to today and
then also I even took some photos over the years
that I was able to use of Ace more recent
like when I saw him play at a place called
the Paramount in Huntington, New York. It's like a theaterre
sized venue. It's a very nice venue that Ace played

(01:01:11):
several times, and I took I was able to get
very close because I'm such an Ace fan.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Props all these guys, Steven Massina with those photos from
the nineties, Christopher Lee Helton that you mentioned. All great
photos here from group of guys here.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
Yes, and Richard Richard Galbriath is the guy who took
phenomenal photos of Kiss back in the seventies.

Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
Oh ma, he's got Ace in the cape from seventy nine,
Ace in his solo with the smoke all around him.
Yeah that yeah, So those are in there as well.
There's a great shot here too from Tulsa Assembly Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma,
November twenty sixth, nineteen seventy seven, where Ace and Jean
are both looking back at the fire coming up. Yes

(01:01:50):
on the stage.

Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
Yeah, I believe what the story behind those photos is
that those photos of those photos are from Richard again,
and he did not have a photo pass, so he
just stuck a camera in and I think he could
only get from like the side of the stage, which
actually made for two very unique interesting photos because you
never really get to see the side of the Love

(01:02:13):
Gun stage. And yeah, and it's a cool he was
able to time a shot perfectly where it's Ace and
Gene turning around looking for a queue I think from
Peter Chris and they're both looking at him, and it's
pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
And you see the fire coming up. Another one here,
Municipal Auditorium, Kansas City, Missouri, July twenty sixth, nineteen seventy six.
Richard takes a shot of Ace. He's holding. This is
during Your Soul holding the guitar up. The smoke's coming
out of the guitar. It's a great shot of Ace.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
You know what you got to do? You have to
show the actual photo during.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
This I will do if it's okay with you, Yeah, yeah,
school with you and Richard.

Speaker 2 (01:02:45):
As long as we credit Richard Gallbryth, phenomenal photographer.

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
I'm gonna put those up on the video, So for
those listening on audio, check this out on YouTube. Greg,
thanks for putting this book together. ACE fans are gonna
love this now. They can get it anywhere, right Amazon
usual spots.

Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
Yeah, huh yeah, I would say I would say Amazon
is the is the best place. It's available as paperback, hardcover, kindle,
and very very shortly audio. I just sent the audio
files to the company. Usually takes about one or two weeks,
so hopefully within a week or two after this interview runs,
a audio version will be available.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
Awesome, all right, Greg, thank.

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
You, thank you Eric, and longlove as Freely. That's it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
It's in the books.

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