Ace Frehley, lead guitarist and founding member of rock group KISS, has died aged 74.<\/p>\n
The Rolling Stone reported on Thursday night, US time, that he died in New Jersey surrounded by his family.<\/p>\n
The guitarist suffered injuries after a fall at his studio in September and was on life support for some time.<\/p>\n
Family members said in a statement that they were “completely devastated and heartbroken”.<\/p>\n
“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,” they said.<\/p>\n
“We cherish all of his finest memories, his laughter, and celebrate his strengths and kindness that he bestowed upon others.<\/p>\n
“Reflecting on all of his incredible life achievements, Ace’s memory will continue to live on forever!”<\/p>\n
The news comes just weeks after the guitarist cancelled the remainder of previously announced 2025 tour dates due to unspecified “medical issues”.<\/p>\n
One of the best-selling bands of all time<\/p>\n
Frehley played in numerous bands in New York before answering an advertisement in 1972 for a lead guitarist role.<\/p>\n
That ad was placed by rhythm guitarist Paul Stanley, bassist Gene Simmons and drummer Peter Criss.<\/p>\n
Frehley got the job and by January 1973, KISS was born.<\/p>\n
Between 1974 and 1975, KISS released three albums (KISS, Hotter Than Hell and Dressed to Kill), which built a cult following of fans who called themselves the “KISS Army”.<\/p>\n
The band was known for its intense stage shows, which included fireworks, smoke and eruptions of fake blood.<\/p>\n
The band members performed in face paint, platform boots and black wigs.<\/p>\n
In 1982, Frehley left the group to form his own band, Frehley’s Comet, but rejoined KISS in 1996.<\/p>\n
His last performance with the band was at the closing ceremony for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.<\/p>\n
Frehley, whose costume stage persona with the band was the Spaceman, was inducted with the band into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2014.<\/p>\n
ABC with AP<\/p>\n
Loading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ace Frehley, lead guitarist and founding member of rock group KISS, has died aged 74. The Rolling Stone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[133624,133625,64,63,447,10851,10852,134,101791,94485],"class_list":{"0":"post-218898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-ace-frehley","9":"tag-ace-frehley-dead","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-celebrities","13":"tag-dead","14":"tag-dies","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-guitarist","17":"tag-kiss"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}