Paul Daniel “Ace” Frehley, co-founder and lead guitarist of the legendary rock band Kiss, died from injuries sustained in a fall last month, according to a statement from his family. He was 74 years old.
Frehley’s family released the following statement:
“We are completely devastated and heartbroken. In his final moments, we were fortunate to be able to surround him with loving, caring and peaceful words, thoughts, prayers and intentions as he left this earth. We all cherish his fondest memories, his laughter, and celebrate his strengths and the kindness he extended to others. The magnitude of his passing is epic in scope and beyond understanding. Reflecting on his entire life’s incredible accomplishments, Ace’s memory will live on forever!
Although Kiss received little respect from music critics and the rock intelligentsia, their impact and influence on a generation of musicians and rock fans was immense and lasting. The group, who performed in theatrical makeup and costumes, was in many ways a gateway to their concerts and their larger-than-life mystique: In an era before MTV, their performances were almost overwhelmingly visual and experiential, complete with explosions, elevators and more. Still, the mystique of Kiss was essential: The band members’ faces weren’t revealed until more than a decade, by which time Frehley and drummer Peter Criss had left the group. Frehley was known as the “Space Ace” and cultivated an otherworldly image.
Frehley joined co-founders Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons in 1972 and remained with the group through their most significant eras: he left in 1982 for a solo career, but returned when the original group reunited in 1996 for a highly lucrative reunion tour and stayed until 2002. He worked as 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 cover of the hit song “New York Groove” was the best.
Paul Daniel Frehley was born into a musical family in the Bronx neighborhood of New York 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 main influences, he began playing in bands as a teenager and reportedly acquired his nickname from friends due to his ability to score dates with girls.
He dropped out of high school after one of his bands, Cathedral, started making money, but he later returned and graduated. He continued to perform and in 1971 one of his groups, Molimo, signed with RCA Records and recorded several unreleased songs for the label. But late the next year, a friend spotted an ad in the Village Voice that turned out to be for the lead guitar spot in the embryonic Kiss. Famously, Frehley showed up to the audition in Manhattan wearing a red sneaker and an orange one. Stanley, Simmons and Criss were appalled by his appearance but sufficiently impressed by his spirited lead guitar work, and he was invited to join us a few weeks later. The group, 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 making outrageous costumes for their concerts.
Kiss weathered the cynicism and disinterest of the snobbish New York music scene in its early months – Frehley worked as a taxi driver to pay the bills – but, crucially, united with manager Bill Aucoin in September 1973, who began charting the group’s path to stardom with the bandmates.
The band released their self-titled debut album in February of the following year, which featured some future favorites like “Firehouse”, “Black Diamond” and the Frehley composition “Cold Gin”, that album and the follow-ups “Hotter Than Hell” and “Dressed to Kill” were only minor hits.
However, the 1975 live performance “Kiss Alive!” ”, driven by a supercharged version of the song “Rock and Roll All Night,” combined with growing buzz and memorable television appearances, propelled the group to superstardom. Their main audience was teenagers, delighted by their parents’ mortified reactions to this group of heavily made-up “freaks” and their loud music. The band’s painted faces soon began appearing on denim jackets across the United States, and their iconic logo – complete with a pair of lightning bolt-shaped “S”s borrowed from David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust era – on thousands of high school notebooks.
More to come…
