{"id":79375,"date":"2025-10-16T22:45:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T22:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/79375\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T22:45:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T22:45:07","slug":"ace-frehley-kiss-lead-guitarist-dies-at-74","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/79375\/","title":{"rendered":"Ace Frehley, Kiss Lead Guitarist, Dies at 74"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPaul Daniel \u201cAce\u201d Frehley, co-founder and lead guitarist of the legendary rock band Kiss<\/a>, has died following injuries suffered during a fall last month, according to a statement from his family. He was 74.<\/p>\n

\n\tFrehley\u2019s family issued the following statement:<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe are completely\u00a0devastated 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\u2019s memory will continue to live on forever!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Kiss<\/a> 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 \u00a0were 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\u2019 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 \u201cSpace Ace\u201d and cultivated an otherworldly image.<\/p>\n

\n\tFrehley 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\u2019s Comet and under his own name; in 1978, when all four members of Kiss released solo albums simultaneously, many fans felt that Frehley\u2019s featuring his hit cover of the song \u201cNew York Groove,\u201d was the best.<\/p>\n

\n\tPaul Daniel Frehley was born to a musical family in\u00a0the 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,\u00a0Buddy Guy,\u00a0Jeff Beck, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and\u00a0the Who\u00a0as 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe 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\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tKiss weathered cynicism and disinterest from the snobby New York music scene in their early months \u2014\u00a0Frehley worked as a taxi driver to pay the bills \u2014\u00a0but, crucially, united with manager Bill Aucoin in September 1973, who began plotting the band\u2019s path to stardom with the bandmembers.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe band released its self-titled debut album in February of the following year, which featured some future favorites like \u201cFirehouse,\u201d \u201cBlack Diamond\u201d and Frehley\u2019s composition \u201cCold Gin,\u201d that album and the follow-ups \u201cHotter Than Hell\u201d and \u201cDressed to Kill,\u201d were only minor successes.<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, the 1975 live set, \u201cKiss Alive!,\u201d driven by a supercharged version of the song \u201cRock and Roll All Night,\u201d 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\u2019 mortified reactions to this heavily made-up group of \u201cfreaks\u201d with their loud music. The band\u2019s painted faces soon began appearing on jean jackets across the United States, and their iconic logo \u2014\u00a0with a pair of lightning-bolt \u201cS\u201ds purloined from David Bowie\u2019s Ziggy Stardust era \u2014 on untold thousands of high school notebooks.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe band released its self-titled debut album in February of the following year, which featured some future favorites like \u201cFirehouse,\u201d \u201cBlack Diamond\u201d and Frehley\u2019s composition \u201cCold Gin,\u201d that album and the follow-ups \u201cHotter Than Hell\u201d and \u201cDressed to Kill,\u201d were only minor successes.<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, the 1975 live set, \u201cKiss Alive!,\u201d 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\u2019 mortified reactions to this heavily made-up group of \u201cfreaks\u201d with their loud music. The band\u2019s painted faces soon began appearing on jean jackets across the United States, and their iconic logo \u2014\u00a0with a pair of lightning-bolt \u201cS\u201ds purloined from David Bowie\u2019s Ziggy Stardust era \u2014 on untold thousands of high school notebooks.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe band united with Alice Cooper\/Lou Reed producer Bob Ezrin for the vitally important follow-up studio album, \u201cDestroyer,\u201d which became their biggest release to date. Ezrin\u2019s elaborate production (and strategic use of session musicians) powered such classics as \u201cDetroit Rock City\u201d and \u201cShout It Out Loud,\u201d and the band followed Cooper\u2019s example by including a sensitive (and image-defying) ballad, \u201cBeth,\u201d which was co-written and sung by Criss. The song quickly became the band\u2019s biggest-ever hit single.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDestroyer\u201d and the band\u2019s increasingly elaborate concert productions (not to mention its ample and well-marketed merchandise, which grew to include everything from comic books and Halloween costumes to transistor radios and trading cards) quickly made them one of the biggest rock bands in the world.<\/p>\n

\n\tTwo more studio albums followed in rapid succession, \u201cRock and Roll Over\u201d and \u201cLove Gun,\u201d the latter featuring Frehley\u2019s first lead vocal on \u201cShock Me\u201d (which was inspired by a near-electrocution during a concert in Florida). Another live album, \u201cAlive II,\u201d was released in the fall of 1977 and included a side of studio recordings, including Frehley\u2019s second lead vocal, \u201cRocket Ride.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, hubris began to set in, not least in the form of the four solo albums the band released simultaneously in September of 1978. Surprisingly, given Stanley\u2019s role as lead singer and the all-star cast Simmons assembled for his, Frehley\u2019s was widely considered by fans to be the best of the batch. He played a number of instruments on the album, was accompanied by some top New York session musicians \u2014 including drummer Anton Fig and bassist Will Lee, both of whom would later join the house band for David Letterman\u2019s late-night television show \u2014 and production from Hendrix\/ Led Zeppelin\/ Kiss veteran Eddie Kramer. The album also featured a surprise hit single in his cover of Rod Argent\u2019s composition \u201cNew York Groove.\u201d However, all of the album\u2019s other songs were written or cowritten by Frehley.<\/p>\n

\n\tKiss returned in 1979 with the \u201cDynasty\u201d album and the disco-influenced hit single \u201cI Was Made for Loving You,\u201d but the backlash had long since begun \u2014 and any embrace of disco by a rock band was regarded as sacrilege by most of the band\u2019s fans. Criss and Frehley also had challenges with the band\u2019s musical direction and, not least, substance abuse, which led to both of their departures, in 1980 and 1982, respectively, although Stanley and Simmons continued the band with other musicians.<\/p>\n

\n\tFrehley\u2019s abuse of drugs and alcohol grew worse, and in May of 1983, he was arrested following a high-speed chase on the Bronx River Parkway in his 1981 DeLorean. He was charged with DUI, reckless driving and leaving the scene of an accident after hitting four cars during the incident (luckily with no injuries). He spent two weeks in a hospital detox unit and was required to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.<\/p>\n

\n\tMore to come\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Daniel \u201cAce\u201d Frehley, co-founder and lead guitarist of the legendary rock band Kiss, has died following injuries…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[55574,146,85,46,12339],"class_list":{"0":"post-79375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-ace-frehley","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-kiss"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}