Ace Frehley Remembered By KISS Authors & Journalists [Episode 328]

Ace Frehley remembered by KISS authors, journalists, and those who worked with Ace. A thank you to all of those who participated including: 

James Campion
Martin Popoff
Susan Masino
Chris Epting
Steve Roth
Julian Gill
Darren Paltrowitz

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey guys, welcome back to book don Rock an unexpected
episode one that really this is like Ozzy Osbourne really
wish we didn't have to do. But this is a
look back at the career the life of Ace Frehley
who passed away. He fell and his studio hit his
head and I remember at one point somebody telling me

(00:22):
that he had a stroke and I wondered if that
was true. But that went on for a few weeks,
and then the story came out that he had passed
and that it was a result of the fall He
hit his head, and I believe there was a brain
bleed and he passed away. And there are a lot
of people like Eddy Trunk and people that were in
the know that had to hold off on this until
it became official. But it did not look good for

(00:45):
a while. Yeah, wow, this is crazy.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
You know.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Kiss is the second band on my list of favorite bands,
right behind Van Halen, Right behind Van Halen. I became
a fan nineteen seventy nine. I was seven years old
and a neighbor down the street from where I grew up,
Tom Scricca. He gave me, give me a bunch of
Kiss records, and I have him here. He gave me

(01:11):
a bunch of Kiss records, and at the top was
Kiss Alive Too. And yeah, here's love Gun. You know,
when you're seven years old and you're looking at that,
that just blows your mind. Here's one I grabbed. How
about this unmasked? Yeah that was towards the end of

(01:32):
the original era, but here it is. Here's Kiss Alive too.
And this is the one. I mean, this is the
same copy. And I remember looking at that first and
it was a little bit, you know, seven years old,
a little bit like, wow, this dude up in the
top left there is a little scary and he would
go on to become my favorite member of the ban
Jinge Simmons. But right behind him, second favorite, the Ace

(01:55):
the Spaceman right there, Ace Frehley. And I remember the first,
the first feeling I got when I opened it up
and saw this here we go. That's beautiful right there,
and I was immediately in. So that was when I
became a Kiss fan, instantly looking at that. And then

(02:17):
I as the eighties came along, I kind of I
kind of lost interest, or I didn't. I wasn't as
avid of a Kiss fan, but I was still a
fan I mean I had a friend who who was
buying their cassettes at the time, you know, during the
non makeup years when I wasn't there, and so I
was still still a fan. In fact, my first ever

(02:38):
concert was nineteen eighty nine in New Haven, Connecticut, the
old coliseum that was on the Hydro harttur I remember
that well. Paul Stanley had the bandage run his waist.
He had gotten into that car accident I think shortly
before that. And but yeah, there was always that wish that,

(03:00):
oh that's funny, this wasn't me. By the way, somebody
put a nose ring on Ace. That must have been time,
my friends, a nose ring on Ace. Now that would
have gotten to as to last, which is which is
gonna be my point. I don't think Ace wants anybody
to be somber. I think he wants a good He
wants us to get a good laugh. Sorry, just knocked
the microphone there. So but yeah, so there were two

(03:24):
things that I really was hoping for, you know, as
as a kid, were Van Halen Rignette reuniting with Dave
and Kiss, the original four reuniting with with the Makeup
and Kiss. Of course, did it you know they did it.
They did it first, and they did they got it right.
It was the original four with makeup. You know, it's

(03:45):
great to see Dave back in the band, but as
we know, that was without Mike l Anthony. But it
was still great. But but Kiss got it right and
that union tre I didn't see the initial one, but
I did see the one in the late nineties and
again in the early two thousands. I say it's it's
the best show I've ever seen. Best show. Second behind

(04:06):
that would have been the seven Show with Dave and
Van Halen. With Ace, there was something about him too
that was just so.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
He had.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
He had two things about him. He had that rock
and roll cool and but he was also hilarious, kind
of similar to David Lee Roth where he kind of
had that mix of both. And Ace was the kind
of guy, you know, the rock and roll cool. It's
like nothing seemed to bother him or worry him or
phase him, and to the point where that would get

(04:35):
him into trouble which would lead to some hilarious stories
like driving down the freeway, like going over one hundred
miles an hour the wrong way on the freeway. But
he had that he always had that same pace with
his walk, like everything's cool man, just chill. Never I mean,
he was playing in front of a stadium full of people,
especially on the Reunion tour that first night in Detroit,

(04:57):
and still same Ace, just kind of you know, just
walking out there with that cool stride. It was all
about rock and roll to him. He got that he
was hugely famous, and he got how big it was
for the fans, but at the end of the day,
it was still just it's just let's just go out
and play, let's have some fun. That's what I loved

(05:18):
about him, And the funny side of him was you know,
when I first saw that picture of him, looking at
that picture and the pictures of Ace in makeup as
a kid, not knowing what he looked like or sounded like.
When I did hear him talk in interviews in the
late eighties, mid to late eighties on MTVA, it was

(05:42):
so not what I expected, and maybe you guys felt
the same way. But I imagine him as this introspective,
deep thinking, quiet guy who didn't like to talk, and
then you find out it's not the case. Ace was.
You know, he would love to talk, He would love
to laugh, joke, talk about music, talk about space star Wars,

(06:06):
things like that, and of course there's that famous interview
that he did, the Tom Snyder interview with the guys
in the band. I mean, he was just absolutely hilarious,
and he had that New York accident and then the
voice was a little bit high up is you know,
he just and he's calling people curly. It was nothing

(06:28):
what I expected. And when I worked in radio, I
had a coworker. I've worked on the New York Line
Fairfield County, New York Line. So there was a DJ
friend of mine at the station who hung out with
as he was friends with a Sean. We called him
Finster on the air, Sean, and every now and then
he'd hang with Ace in the city and then he'd
come back and tell me the story that Monday. And
it was always great stories. I mean, just Ace was

(06:48):
just out of his mind and he did he I
remember he telling me a story about helping Ace move.
And I don't know if this was when he was
moving to Florida or he was just moving from somewhere
in Connecticut to a from place Connecticut, I don't remember,
but point being that he said to Sean, he said, hey,
you know, grab could you grab that cardboard box over
there and just you know, throw it in my car

(07:09):
And so Sean picks it up and there's the love
gun outfit and he's just like, you know, like, Ace,
this is your love gun outfit. You just throw it
in a box. And Ace is just like, yeah, man,
I got plenty of those. It's like to him, just
it wasn't that big of a deal. To him, he
got how big it was for the fans, which was
always cool too because if you look at the clips
of him online and he's meeting fans. To me, I

(07:32):
think he gets how big it is a moment for
the fans. So he loved to put a smile on
their face, you know. But for him, it was just like,
you know, he just he just again he had that way,
like nothing phased him, nothing stressed him out, or he
just didn't. He just didn't operate that way. So he

(07:55):
would tell you, Yeah, Sean told me stories about I
think Sean was at that famous. There was a story
that got out. It was Ace's birthday and Ace was
at the mic and he was talking about complaining about
kiss and how they don't appreciate me and I'm the
guy who had all the biggest hits, and I could
write the songs and I played the best. And as

(08:16):
he's saying that, Gene Simmons walked in the room with
a birthday cake to surprise him, and Jean was just
standing there like, Okay, that was Sean was at that
birthday event. But anyway, Yeah, one of the greatest guitarists.
How many guitarists did he influence over the years. How
many guitarists today are playing the guitar because they saw Ace.

(08:40):
You know, it's it's it's endless and the entertainment that
he brought. In the early two thousands, when I started
to go back and listen to all of the albums
again that he was on with Kiss, and then all
of these videos started coming out. Go to record conventions
and you get the DVD or VHS version of a
concert here, a concert there, Anaheim, whatever, Maryland. There were

(09:02):
shows and I I was just so into it. I
couldn't stop watching them. I couldn't stop listening to Ace
and Kiss. I just got into a huge Kiss phase.
Nearly two thousand. It was like I was going back
to my roots and I just realized just how amazing
of a guitarist. Ace was and songs like Rocket Ride
and Parasite, and I mean, it's like, this guy's fucking amazing.

(09:24):
I love Ace, and here we are now he's gone,
and losing Eddie van Halen, for me was was devastating,
even though we knew he wasn't doing well. You know,
this one, I'd kind of a little bit more braced
for these types of things, you know, after Tom Petty
passed and Eddie and if we're just seeing it happen
a lot so, but yet it is still very sad.

(09:48):
So those are my thoughts, and what I want to
do is share with you some of the thoughts from
the people that interviewed Ace, wrote books on kiss worked
with Ace. All right, here's one from Brad Tulinski. Great writer,
great author. He's been on the show a few times,
written a book on Eddie van Halen called Eruption, wrote
another great book on the MC five, and he interviewed

(10:10):
Ace in the past, as many of these journalists that
we're going to hear from today have. And Brad actually
he wrote a story on Ace back in ninety three.
So he shared this story on his Facebook page, and
then I shared it on mine. Here is what Brad
had to say. He says, Ace Frehley was always cool.
Nothing ever seemed to ruffle his feathers. But the few

(10:31):
times I hung out with him, I noticed he quietly
sized up the room before getting comfortable. He never lost
that bronx instinct. The first time I met him was
in nineteen ninety three for a Guitar World cover story.
He'd been drummed out of Kiss and was legally barred
from wearing a Spaceman makeup. Ironically, he was never more popular.
Every medal and grunge kid at the time was raving
about his influence, so we thought it'd be fun to

(10:52):
have Dave Sable of skid Row and Diamebag Daryl Pantera
with the makeup in tribute. Gene and Paul couldn't sue
them for that. Ace was genuinely grateful for the attention
at a frustrating moment in his life. During the photo session,
Dime asked Ace to sign his chest, then later had
a tattooed it was kind of sweet in the dime
It was kind of sweet in a dimebag way. A

(11:14):
few weeks later, Ace sent me a personal note and
a print of some of his computer art to say thanks.
It might not sound like much, but in my twenty
five years of guitar world, almost no one ever did that.
But that was Ace. He was cool. He understood that
when someone buys you a drink, the least you can
do is give them a nod rip, buddy. And here
is the cover. There's the cover from ninety three, Kissed Off,

(11:39):
Ace freely tells all plus Diameback, Daryl and Snake Sable
pay tribute to King Ace. There it is from ninety three.
So that was a great post. Now I want to
get to some of the clips that were shared, in
no particular order really, just let's start with James Campion.
And James wrote a great book. James been on the
podcast before, a great friend of the show. Well, James

(12:00):
wrote a great book called Shouted Out Loud, the Story
of Kisses Destroyer and the Making of an American Icon.
So I reached out to James to give his thoughts
on the passing of Ace Frehley.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
Here it is Hi, this is James Campion, and I'm
speaking to you from a hotel room in Nashville, Tennessee.
It's pretty fitting. Thanks to my friend Eric from the
booke Don Rock podcast for asked me to say a
few words about the passing of Ace Freeley, who obviously
was a great musician and.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
Certainly a character.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
A couple of things I want to say. His passing,
of course, for someone of my generation. I'm sixty three now.
My first Kiss record was Kiss Alive, and I got
it when I was thirteen, so that's fifty years ago.
And when we were kids, I mean, if you were
a Kiss fan, you were in. You were all in.
And Ace was always the coolest and you could always

(12:55):
sing his guitar solos. To this day, I could do it,
and I told that when I interviewed him in twenty sixteen.
We spent a little over an hour in a hotel
room and it was great. He was clean and sober,
and he was working. He had a new album out,
and we talked about everything, and I remember telling him

(13:15):
I always sing his solos and he wanted to know
which ones. He was excited, you know, to hear something
like that from a music journalist or just a fan.
So yeah, his passing for this generation, I tell the
story all the time. I have a new book out
on Prince called Revolution, and I talk about how I
wrote his eulogy for the Aquarium Weekly back in twenty sixteen,
And most of that eulogy is me really eutilizing, utilizing, eulogizing.

(13:39):
I can get that out my twenties, and that's kind
of the way it is for a lot of people
when a musician of this caliber, from your childhood to
your twenties passes, like part of you is gone. So
and the last thing I want to say, what Eric
asked me to comment on, is Ace's legacy. Anybody who

(14:00):
knows how guitar players from the seventies have influenced so
many musicians, I mean, Ace is right up there, especially
for the grunge era a lot of those musicians. I
wrote about it in my book Shouted out Loud by
the Way, a book that Ace loved about the Making
of Destroyer, about how that whole generation of the early

(14:22):
nineties really were influenced greatly by Ace. And a lot
of the solos you hear, like on Pearl Jam records
and other things are just right from his bag of tricks.
So Ace freely was a great character, wonderful musician, and
he certainly will be missed. So once again, thanks for book.
Don Rock for asking me and allowing me to talk

(14:42):
a little bit about Ace Freely, my old Bronx buddy.
Anytime I always saw me, always said, forget about it.
We love you Ace Peace.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Okay. Next up we have Martin pop Off. Martin's been
on the show so many times I can't even keep count.
And one of the books he wrote is kiss at
fifty for Motor Books. So I reached out to Martin
and he did send over this video clip which he
ran initially on his YouTube channel, So let's check it out.
Here he is talking about the passing of Ace Frehley.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
Martin pop Off here from the Contrarians.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
It's a sad day.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
We've got to pay tribute to one of our fallen heroes.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
Here.

Speaker 3 (15:18):
Ace Freely died at the age of seventy four born
April twenty seventh, nineteen fifty one. My birthdays April twenty eight,
so the day before. And I always always liked that
as well.

Speaker 4 (15:27):
The thing I.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
Remember about Ace is that he seemed to always be
available for us for the press, and you would talk
to him, and he was unfiltered, just to he he
was always cheerful in interviews. He's got that classic Ace laugh.
He always puts you at ease. You know. He didn't
mythologize kiss so much. You know, he would he would

(15:49):
answer your questions patiently on stuff, but he didn't want
to make out like like you know, everything they did
was a godly situation sort of thing. He just showed up,
did his thing and what was his thing. So you know,
Ace was uh was raised on all the guitar grades
you think of the British Post British Blues boom guys

(16:10):
or British Blues boom guys, your your Eric Clapton's and
Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck and Jimmy Hendrix and free
and all that stuff. Loved a Zeppelin, you know, he
he tried and uh and loved the look of and
and a lot of different acts is over the years.
But uh, you know, we remember him with the Gibson
Les Paul Starburst. He was a big proponent of the

(16:32):
Les Paul and he had this really cool lyrical style
where he was kind of it was very rhythmic what
he did solo wise, but it was also kind of
melodic and songful phrasing, a lot of a lot of
neat spaces in it. People remembered his his solos. And
I can tell you another thing about you know, interviewing

(16:54):
a lot of a lot of say, you know, big
metal stars, hard rock stars of the eighties, so many
of them loved Ason Where and were raised on Ace.
You think of the Anthrax guys, you think of dimebag Daryl.
But you know, I I if I, if I worked
on a list of this, I could probably come up
with twenty people who mentioned Ace as a main, main influence.

(17:17):
And I've always said this about Kiss in general, that
that really there's the second most influential band or inspirational
band in all of rock after the Beatles. And I'm
just I'm just going on what people tell me about,
you know, just being stung by the heavy metal b
h so to speak, maybe a destroyer for a lot

(17:38):
of people of a certain age kind of thing, or
or the a live album, right, you know, just despite
despite all his troubles over the years, and uh you know,
sometimes it might have been the drugs or the booze
talking where. Uh you know, maybe he didn't come off
so good to to the fans or on stage or whatever.

(17:59):
He like I say, he was unfiltered and he kept
at it, and he was very apologetic for those years
as well. I remember in some interviews I did with him,
you can tell there was a change and change in him,
and you know, he and he reflected and he worked
on his own personality over the years. So that was

(18:19):
that was good to see. So sadly gone too soon
at the age of seventy four. October sixteenth, twenty twenty five.
Go listen to some Ace.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
Next, we have Susan Messino, who's interviewed so many musicians
and she's written some great books as well. On ACDC,
she has one titled Rock and Roll Fantasy, My Life
in Times with ACDC, Van Hilen and Kiss, so she
goes back aways with the guys from Kiss. So asked
her to share her thoughts on Ace Frehley.

Speaker 5 (18:50):
Hi, my name is Susan Messino. I am a rock
journalist and an author, and I had the pleasure of meeting, interviewing,
and partying with Ace Frehley after he played a show
here in Madison, Wisconsin in December of nineteen seventy seven.
It was a no interviews policy, yet he let me
ask him some questions, so I had quotes from my article.

(19:13):
He was so funny and didn't care about the rules naturally,
and he was an amazing person, very very funny, very kind,
and we laughed a lot that night, believe me. And
I'm going to miss him. He was an incredible guitar player, singer, songwriter,

(19:34):
definitely one of a kind, and I will miss him,
as the rest of his family, fans and friends will.
God bless you. Ace.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
All right up next to Chris Epting. Chris recently was
on the show to talk about all the great books
he's written. He's written so many of them, but one
of his early books is titled All I Need to
Know I Learned from Kiss Life Lessons from the Hottest
Band in the Land. I reached out to Chris to
get his thoughts on the passing of aase. Here's what
he had.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
Hi.

Speaker 6 (20:00):
My name is Chris Septing. I'm an author and a
music journalist. And of all the people I interviewed over
the years, Ace Frehley was always a favorite. I grew
up kind of a first generation Kiss fan, Kiss Army member,
starting in nineteen seventy five, right when Kiss Alive came out.
It was about eleven or twelve years old, and I
just I got to know all the guys in Kiss

(20:21):
over the years as a journalist, but Ace was always
the most unfiltered, the most outrageous, the funniest, and I
thought the one who really didn't care what he said
in terms of worrying about how others might feel. He
was just open and honest and in the moment, depending
on what was going on, which is you know, unfortunately
not most of what you get, especially today with publicists

(20:43):
and handlers and people always very concerned. But a Ace
just always cut through everything with that trademark laugh and wit,
and I miss him along with the rest of the world.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Now here's one from Steve Roth, front of the podcast,
senior marketing manager at Motor Books. And Steve's been in
the business for a while, the book publishing business, the
music book publishing business, but he's also worked in the
music business as well, and he has a good story
about working with Ace, going back to when Ace had
his album Anomaly, and he shared Steve shared the story
on Facebook, so I reached out to him and see

(21:15):
if he could share this story on video as well.
So here's what Steve had to say.

Speaker 7 (21:19):
Hey, Eric, Steve Roth from the DLR cast and another
cool rock podcast here, and like seemingly everyone we know
really bummed out about the passing of Ace Freely and
been thinking a lot about him, and certainly playing a
lot of Ace's music and solo stuff, especially playing a
lot of kiss stuff and all his solo albums, and
I just I got to thinking a lot about Ace,

(21:40):
and in particular remembering that Ace was the first member
of kiss that I really gravitated to, and I guess
you could say he was my favorite member back then,
and even before I heard, even before I was cognizant
or even really knew much about Kisses music, their look
just certainly appealed to me. But Ace's whole look, the space,

(22:00):
the space costumes and the makeup, I just fell in
love with that and always dug that look far more
than I did Jeans or Paul's or Peters. I think
maybe just my love of comic books. It just I
don't know. That's just hit me in a much different
way than any of the other guys did. And Ace
to me always seemed like he was such an approachable

(22:21):
and seemed like such a really nice guy right and
certainly his public persona, but I had the pleasure of
spending some time with him. He just always seemed like
a down earth, regular guy from the Bronx, right. It
certainly sounded like one, and I had the pleasure of
spending a little bit of time with Ace back. I
worked for the company that put out the Anomaly record.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
I worked for the record label that did.

Speaker 7 (22:41):
That record back in two thousand and nine, which was
his first albums in ten years, since twenty years, sorry,
since nineteen eighty nine's trouble Walking, And it was an
absolute thrill being a huge Kiss fan and being an
eighth reeally fan to be sitting across a conference stable
from him while he was playing us songs that would
end up on that record, and he was just self

(23:02):
effacing and super nice and super enthusiastic. And I had
the distinct pleasure of spending a little bit more time
with him on the promotional tour for that album, which
we did some radio stuff and visited some record stores,
and the signings were a blast. He was really funny,
just really happy to be doing that and also well,
really late, but that's okay. The fans waited and Ace

(23:25):
just signed anything and everything and was just so happy
and really appreciative, and you could tell he was so happy,
and if you remember those interviews from back then, he
was just really enthused to get some terrific new music
out there in front of the fans again and to
go out and play some new music. And he was,
like I said, he was very appreciative of our efforts.
Called me over at the end of this one in

(23:46):
store at this one signing and said, Hey, if you
ever need anything, here's my cell phone number, give me
a call sometime, to which I was just kind of
dumbfounded that he's really would give me a cell phone number.
But you know, he thanked me for putting these things
together for him, and just was that sort of regular
guy where, hey, if you need me to do anything else,

(24:07):
here's my cell phone number.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
So you know.

Speaker 7 (24:10):
The other thing too, is I got to thinking a
lot about a awful lot about Ace's impact and influence,
and I think he was as influential as Eddie Van
Halen was, and Eddie was certainly hugely influential, and a
whole generation guitar players that came up through the late
seventies in the eighties, certainly he had a massive influence
on any number of Sunset strip hair metal bands, the

(24:31):
hard rock bands of that era. But I think if
you look at really the gen Z folks, the folks
that came of age in the late eighties and really
their careers blew up in the nineties, namely basically the
entire grunge generation and all those grunch bands, all of them,
they probably mentioned, all of them were hugely influenced by Ace.

(24:51):
They you know, from Pearl Jam to Smashing Pumpkins, to
Alison Chains to I mean Stone Temple Pilots, all of
those guys. If they haven't mentioned, I'd be shocked if
you can find an invention with any of those guys
back then where they didn't say that. They were huge
Kiss fans and Ace was a huge influence for them,

(25:11):
a huge influence on them. And that's why I think
he was as influential as onto so many people. I mean,
all those people had Kiss Alive. They all said, just
about every one of them said their first album they
remember getting was Kiss Alive, right, And of course Kiss
had come along a little bit before. Kiss was a
few years ahead of timing wise ahead of Van Halen.

(25:35):
But still, I just think, you know, Ace's guitar playing
was super accessible. I think for so many of those people,
and I just I love Van Halen, of course. And
one of the things I always loved about Ace though,
is that was that massively fat tone that he had
to those Gibson lest pauls, and I also loved all
of his solos kind of give me a warm feeling inside.

(25:55):
I always call that kind of descending sort of flourish
that he does in the solos, everything from Geez, I mean,
if you listen to Deuce his solo Induced to his
solo in ten Thousand Volts, the title cut of his
last Awesome record, if you hit hear that flow floursh
I always called it descending little run the falling downstairs
riff because it's just kind of like it feels like

(26:15):
he's going to like kind of lose control a little bit,
and he doesn't, And it's just all his solos are
so memorable. He always played for the song, They always
fit the song. It was never about trying to trying
to blow anybody away with his guitar playing. He just
had that tone in a fantastic sense of rhythm, and
his riffing was just was just incredible and one of

(26:37):
the things I'm super thankful for, as with Ace in
particular is that he provided he put out so much
great music the last fifteen years of his life or
so right, and certainly he did more in those years
than all the members of Kiss, everybody else in Kiss
past and present combined.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Did I mean what?

Speaker 7 (26:56):
Did He put out four or five solo albums plus
two of the Oranges Origins records, Volume one and Volume two,
and apparently was working on starting to work out a
Volume three, I guess before we passed. And all those
solo records are great, man, I absolutely love them. And
that's the other thing that reminds me. One last point
about ACE two is at Ace more than anybody else.

(27:18):
And Kiss and Kiss collectively always stayed true to the music.
He never went disco, never tried country, never said he
wanted to be Billy Corgan and go grunge. He never
followed the fads. All of his records just there's a
through line, and that is blues based Hendricks inspired late
sixties early seventies kick ass rock and roll. And you

(27:40):
hear that from from the Freeley's Comet records. Yeah, there
was some synthesizer in some of them, some keyboards, but
they were of the time.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
But there.

Speaker 7 (27:46):
You couldn't call them hair metal. You couldn't say he
was chasing some sort of friend all the way through
to Anomaly, Space Invader, Spaceman ten thousand volts, and certainly
when those origins records where he was really paying just
great trip. You're doing fantastic cover versions. I mean, I
got thirty Days in the whole with Robin Zandern vocals, Killer,
what was it? Fire and Water with Paul Stanley singing,

(28:09):
just all great stuff and just there's so many reasons
while why Ace will be missed and why I'm really
sad about his passing, but more than anything else is
just the music and that we're never going to be
able to see him play live again, and you know,
won't know what he'll We'll never know again what he
could come up with musically and creatively. So rest in peace,

(28:33):
Rest in power, Ace freely man. Am I glad I
got to discover so all of your music, man, Thank you.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Another one from Julian Gil Julian doesn't get any better.
As far as Kiss authors. Julian's written I think close
to forty Kiss books. He's amazing, He's got so many
books on the tours, on albums, you name it, he's
got a book on it. He's got a book on
music from the Elder, Crazy Nights, amazing author. I had
him on to talk about his book on Aerosmith at
one point, I'd love to have him to talk about

(29:00):
all his great kiss books. I reached out to Julian.
He responded with a great tribute to Ace. I asked, basically,
what are his thoughts on aces passing, any memories of
interviewing Ace for his books, and what Ace's legacy is.
Here's what he had to say.

Speaker 8 (29:15):
What are my thoughts on Ace Fairley's passing. It's still
a very raw and difficult situation to feel that I
can adequately put it into words. On the show yesterday,
I noted that Ace lost his battle with gravity, and

(29:37):
that almost seemed flippant, yet ironically, in the back of
my head I heard his cackle going into a laugh loop.
It's just so tremendously sad at seventy four years old.
Now we think of that as not being old. The
work that people do into their eighties and longer, especially artists, writers,

(30:03):
unfortunately politicians means that old starts much later than it
did when we were kids. No everyone was old when
you're a kid. So my immediate thoughts are like, wow,
one of the founding members of Kiss is now gone
at a time when the Candy Center was going to

(30:26):
honor that group and that lineup specifically in a meaningful manner.
And regardless of what anyone thinks about that honor, I
know that it meant a lot to Ace. I'm sitting
here just thinking about how I try and frame my thoughts,
and again they're whirling around, like like I'm lost in

(30:50):
the void still. But it's so sad to think that
in the autumn of twenty twenty five, Kiss is essentially
back to what it was us in the autumn of
nineteen seventy two prior to Ace joining the group. They're
a trio again. I would hope in the years that
come that there can be more celebration of Kiss and

(31:13):
its members, not the sniping, not the negativity, and not
lingering on the past. What we're left with is a
vivid catalog of music, his exceptional playing and his infectious laugh.

(31:35):
And I think, as always happens with anyone's notable passing,
lost interviews come to surface things that have been hidden
in the midst of time, suddenly they jog someone's memory
and they decide that now is an appropriate time to share.
So I think Pandora's box has indeed been opened in

(31:59):
a way that we're going to learn quite a bit
more about Ace. Failely, my interactions with Ace weren't done,
and they're left incomplete, which is very sad. But the
ones that were complete, notably the interview I did with
him for the liner notes for the Argents one in

(32:21):
Argents two releases in twenty twenty. It was a reissue
for Origins one on Picture Disc leave a very fond
memory of the whole process involved of doing those liner
notes and interviewing him and reminding him that this wasn't
a fan interview or a podcast, that this was an

(32:41):
interview for his product, which was strictly related to his product.
And I sure got quite a few laughs. I just
hearing Ace talk in the Ace voice, just hearing Ace
laugh at some of his own stories, but also hearing
him be very serious about the music that he was

(33:03):
talking about. To hear the passion of what I assumed
was a very similar teen Ace in the nineteen sixties
when he was learning his craft and learning his trade
and he remained a music fan. He remained a fan
of a lot of the same music as we all
do that when we were growing up, So that passion

(33:23):
still burned fiercely for him even into you know, these
latter years of creativity. And what a great thing for
Ace in a way that he put out a very
well received studio album, ten thousand Vaults, that he had

(33:44):
kept working in the post Kiss period after two thousand
and two, that he had continued to tour probably too much,
well into his seventies. And I'm just very grateful that
I was able to see him during this final run
of shows that he ultimately ended up doing. And that's

(34:07):
a reminder to all of us to never put off
doing something today, because tomorrow isn't guaranteed. What should be
remembered for the most, I mean, his place in rock
history is secure. He's part of an iconic group. He
wrote riffs that told stories that required feel over technical expertise.

(34:29):
He was a blue collar player. He was someone who
spoke very well within a limited musical vocabulary, and he
was someone who continued to speak through that vocabulary throughout
his whole career. So there's a lot of consistency between

(34:53):
his first release material and his final release material. When
you go back to a live obviously that's going to
be you know, the cornerstone of his memory, for his
memorial is just that sonic masterpiece of Kiss live in
concert at the start of their heyday. If you listen

(35:15):
to a live too, Yeah, you listen to Frelie's comments,
you listen to anomaly, go back and listen again. Ace
has left the planet, but his music has not. And
as I always say, when anyone of note in the
music industry departs, don't be too sad. Be happy that

(35:39):
you are here at the same time as they, and
remember that their music is just push play away. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
One more tribute from Darren Paltrowitz. He's the host of
The Paltrow Cast. He's got some thoughts on the passing
of Ace Frehley as well.

Speaker 4 (35:55):
Hey Eric, it is your friend Darren Paltwittz and the
Paltrow Cast of Darren Paltrowitz, the DLR Cast and DLR
book How Daily Roth Changed the World. Thank you for
letting me get those plugs in. So, the loss of
Ace Frehley huge impact on multiple levels. The first thing
is that Kiss is and has been such a mainstream thing.

(36:16):
I can't think of a lot of artists who would
get a crossover movie with Scooby Doo for example, Hello Kitty, Merchandise, etc.
So we're talking about a band and a brand that
had a global impact and has had a global impact
for fifty eighth years.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
But a lot of people.

Speaker 4 (36:33):
Considered the decline of Kiss the departure of Ace in
the early eighties. After Ace left the band, the band
wasn't able to really tour the US and most international
markets anymore, wasn't having the hits that it used to have.
People didn't want the merchandise until Ace came back into
the band in the mid nineties. So the revitalization of

(36:56):
Kiss was largely about Ace now putting that commercialism into
great guitar player influenced generations.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
Of guitar players.

Speaker 4 (37:04):
When you see Rivers Cuomo from Weeza wearing that lightning
bulk guitar strap which they mentioned in the song Back
to the Shack, which Ace is mentioned in the song
in the Garage, clearly an impact of Weezer, and Weezer
itself was an influential band, but a lot of the
grunge bands of the bands we call grunge, Nirvana, Pearl,

(37:25):
Jam Allison, Chains, Soundgarden. They've all talked about Ace being
an influence and Kiss being an early influence. If you
think about a generation before that, Slash Zack Wilde, John five,
who even though he's originally a hairband guy, he's now
at his commercial peak now. Either way, Big Ace fan
played on some Ace records and so forth, So his

(37:47):
guitar playing mattered the visuals of what he did. There
was no guitar player who looked like him before that,
and definitely a lot of people wanted to play guitar
based on just how he looked. In the a lot
gatefold vinyl release his solo album, I believe the nineteen
seventy eight one was the most successful Kiss solo album

(38:08):
by far, and ten thousand vaults which came out within
the past few years. That was sort of a revitalization
of his solo career. Curious to see what happens with
the sessions of the album that he was making at
the time of his death. But a couple of other
things about Ace that strike me first. I think that
he was the funniest member of Kiss. His interviews were great,

(38:29):
The Tom Snyder nineteen seventy nine episode never gets old
for me. Watch that on YouTube if you've never seen that.
As great as Ace was as a guitar player, I
don't think the majority of people realize what a talented
graphic artist and graphic designer he was. And he was
up on computers way before a lot of his peers did.
There's a commercial endorsement that he did in the nineteen eighties.

(38:52):
I forget the brand of computer, but that kind of
kicked off decades of him loving computers and being up
on that kind of thing. And another thing to speak
of with regard to Ace is I had the pleasure
of interviewing him three times. The third time was zoom based.
It was on video, and I didn't put out the

(39:14):
whole interview. There are certain things he said that were
off the record before we went on the record, and
I'm going to keep those close. But the reason I
mentioned that is because he's very honest. I think that
Ace was tired of answering questions along the lines of
when did you start playing guitar, why did you start

(39:34):
playing guitar, who were your influences, why did you leave
kiss those kinds of things. Bored him to tears, but
I think that he was up on new bands, new technology.
He was up on things, and people didn't always ask
him about those things. So I really enjoy talking to

(39:55):
him all three of those times. I found it to
be very pleasant, more pleasant than the majority of people
at his level. When I speak with him, he didn't
seem like he was phoning it in. So if I
recap everything, he influenced generations of people, I love the music.
All these years later. He was really nice to me,

(40:15):
and I look forward to what comes out from the
sessions of that last album that he was making at
the time of his passing. Condolences to his friends and family,
and thank you for fiftyish years of great art.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
Ace. So those are some of the thoughts from some authors, journalists,
people in the business who worked with Ace, knew him,
wrote about him, and the guy was one of a kind.
You know, when they say they broke the mold, these
are the types of people that they're referring to when
they came up with that phrase. They broke the mold
when they made Ace Frehley. Ace is going to be

(40:49):
around forever, through his music, through the videos, to all
the funny moments that he had when the guy was
one of a kind, no doubt. So if you want
to honor Ace, just remember the laughs, Remember the great
music that he created. Kick ass guitarist, play kiss the fans,
celebrate the music, celebrate the man, the hilarious stories, you know,

(41:10):
all the great guitar work that he's done over the
years with kiss solo. Thoughts going out to his family.
He has a daughter. I believe her name is Monique,
So thoughts going out to her. And also make sure
you pick up a copy of Ace's book. I almost
forgot to mention this book. He put out No Regrets,
and it's got some great stories in there. And he
did talk about he wanted to put out another book

(41:31):
because he had more stories to tell. Maybe somebody else
will be able to do it on his behalf. We'll see,
but that's one worth getting. So Ace, God bless you man.
I hope you're rocking in heaven. You were the shit.
Like I said, you had that rock and roll, cool,
funny as hell. There will be no one like you,

(41:52):
no one before you, and nobody will be like you
from this point on. Ace Frehley, rest in peace. See
you guys,