Paul Daniel “Ace” Frehley, co-founder and lead guitarist of the legendary rock band Kiss, has died following injuries suffered during a fall last month, according to a statement from his family. He was 74.
Frehley’s family issued the following statement:
“We are completely devastated and heartbroken. In his last moments, we were fortunate enough to have been able to surround him with loving, caring, peaceful words, thoughts, prayers and intentions as he left this earth. We cherish all of his finest memories, his laughter, and celebrate his strengths and kindness that he bestowed upon others. The magnitude of his passing is of epic proportions, and beyond comprehension. Reflecting on all of his incredible life achievements, Ace’s memory will continue to live on forever!”
While Kiss received little respect from music critics and the rock intelligentsia, their impact and influence on a generation of rock musicians and fans has been immense and enduring. The band, who performed in theatrical makeup and costumes were in many ways a gateway for their concerts and larger-than-life mystique: In an era that preceded MTV, their performances were almost overwhelmingly visual and experiential, with explosions, elevators and more. Yet the mystique of Kiss was key: the bandmembers’ faces were not revealed for more than a decade, by which point Frehley and drummer Peter Criss had left the band. Frehley was known as “Space Ace” and cultivated an otherworldly image.
Frehley joined cofounders Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons in 1972 and remained with the band for their most significant eras: He left in 1982 for a solo career, but rejoined when the original band reunited in 1996 for a highly lucrative reunion tour and remained until 2002. He worked a solo artist during the intervening years, with his band Frehley’s Comet and under his own name; in 1978, when all four members of Kiss released solo albums simultaneously, many fans felt that Frehley’s featuring his hit cover of the song “New York Groove,” was the best.
Paul Daniel Frehley was born to a musical family in the Bronx borough of New York City and received an electric guitar as a Christmas present in 1964. He never took lessons and never looked back: citing Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Jeff Beck, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and the Who as his primary influences, he began playing in bands as a teenager and purportedly acquired his nickname from friends based on his ability to score dates with girls.
He dropped out of high school after one of his bands, Cathedral, began earning money, but later returned and got his diploma. He continued playing and by 1971, one of his bands, Molimo, signed with RCA Records and recorded several unreleased songs for the label. But late the following year, a friend spotted an advertisement in the Village Voice that turned out to be for the lead guitar slot in the embryonic Kiss. Famously, Frehley went to the audition in Manhattan wearing one red sneaker and one orange one. Stanley, Simmons and Criss were dismayed by his appearance but sufficiently impressed with his fiery lead guitar work, and he was invited to join a few weeks later. The band, which was preceded by Stanley and Simmons’ previous group Wicked Lester, dubbed themselves Kiss in January 1973 and soon, inspired by the New York Dolls and Alice Cooper, began painting their faces and crafting outrageous costumes for their concerts.
Kiss weathered cynicism and disinterest from the snobby New York music scene in their early months — Frehley worked as a taxi driver to pay the bills — but, crucially, united with manager Bill Aucoin in September 1973, who began plotting the band’s path to stardom with the bandmembers.
The band released its self-titled debut album in February of the following year, which featured some future favorites like “Firehouse,” “Black Diamond” and Frehley’s composition “Cold Gin,” that album and the follow-ups “Hotter Than Hell” and “Dressed to Kill,” were only minor successes.
However, the 1975 live set, “Kiss Alive!,” driven by a supercharged version of the song “Rock and Roll All Night,” combined with increasing buzz and memorable television appearances to vault the band to superstardom. Their core audience was teenaged boys, who were delighted by their parents’ mortified reactions to this heavily made-up group of “freaks” with their loud music. The band’s painted faces soon began appearing on jean jackets across the United States, and their iconic logo — with a pair of lightning-bolt “S”s purloined from David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust era — on untold thousands of high school notebooks.
More to come…
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