{"id":95977,"date":"2025-10-24T18:23:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T18:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/95977\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T18:23:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T18:23:10","slug":"ace-frehleys-solo-band-on-what-the-kiss-guitarist-was-really-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/95977\/","title":{"rendered":"Ace Frehley’s Solo Band on What the Kiss Guitarist Was Really Like"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhen Ace Frehley<\/a> played what would be his final concert<\/a> last month, he took the stage with a rhythm guitar player who had been by his side longer than any other in his solo bands: Nashville shredder Jeremy Asbrock. Together, they tore through Kiss<\/a> classics like \u201cDeuce\u201d and \u201cCold Gin,\u201d Frehley solo staples<\/a> like \u201cNew York Groove,\u201d and Frehley\u2019s Comet\u2019s enduring battle cry \u201cRock Soldiers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAsbrock, who played in bands like the Shazam and with John Corabi before joining up with Kiss\u2019s Spaceman guitarist in 2018, was the ultimate rock soldier. He calls playing with Frehley, who died<\/a> Oct. 16 at 74, a dream gig for a Kiss superfan like himself.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAce isn\u2019t just an influence of mine. This is the person that laid the path before me when I was four years old. I\u2019ve never wanted to do anything else, and he was the guy that brought it all to me,\u201d he tells Rolling Stone. \u201cSome nights onstage, it was extremely surreal, especially when he was having a really great show, and he\u2019d get in that stance and start doing his thing. It was like, \u2018Man, there it is. That\u2019s it right there, and it\u2019s standing right beside me.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAlong with Asbrock, Frehley\u2019s final solo band included fellow Nashville player Ryan Spencer Cook on bass and Scot Coogan on drums. Ironically, perhaps, the group was born out of Gene Simmons\u2019 band. Asbrock says they were playing with the Kiss bassist on a tour of Australia that Frehley was booked to open when Frehley asked Simmons if he could borrow his players.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGene said, \u2018If it\u2019s OK with them, it\u2019s OK with me,\u2019\u201d Asbrock recalls. \u201cLater on, Gene pulled me into his dressing room, and the Kiss cruise was coming up, and he told us that Ace was going to ask us to do the cruise. Then we went to Japan from there with Ace and he asked us to be the band. I joined in September of 2018, so I\u2019ve held the guitar player position longer than any musician he\u2019s had, consecutively.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tNashville\u2019s Philip Shouse also performed in Frehley\u2019s solo band, playing bass from 2018 to 2022 until he took a full-time gig in German metal band Accept. He, Asbrock, and Cook are longtime friends and are essential to Nashville\u2019s vibrant rock scene: For years they hosted a weekly hard-rock showcase called Thee Rock N Roll Residency<\/a> that featured surprise guests like Alice Cooper, Halestorm\u2019s Lzzy Hale<\/a>, Cheap Trick\u2019s Robin Zander, and more of the local rock community.<\/p>\n

\n\tShouse says that touring with Frehley was a chance to see the guitarist\u2019s keen sense of humor<\/a> up close. \u201cHe really funny. He was really goofy. And I mean this in the best way, sometimes it was like, \u2018Wow, he is from another planet, isn\u2019t he?\u2019\u201d Shouse says. \u201cHe just had this way about him that was unlike anybody I\u2019ve ever met.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLike his pal Asbrock, he credits Frehley with his decision to become a guitar player. \u201cAce taught me how to play lead guitar. I was taking guitar lessons and learning the scales, but nothing sounded like music to me. It never made sense until I heard Ace, and that was in 10th grade,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I heard his solos, it all clicked.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tAsbrock and Shouse, who also lost his father a few months ago, are still struggling to make sense of a world without the Space Ace. But Asbrock says fans should be aware of just how much of a regular guy Frehley was behind the face paint.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe\u2019s totally human. We\u2019ve had conversations where he\u2019s been very vulnerable to me, just like, real dude conversations,\u201d he says. \u201cGene was not going to call me up and talk about real-life things. And, you know, Ace has.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Ace Frehley played what would be his final concert last month, he took the stage with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[55574,146,85,46,12339,409],"class_list":{"0":"post-95977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ace-frehley","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-kiss","13":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95977","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=95977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}