Guitar World August 1993/Vol.14 No. 8
KISS Special (Kiss And Tell)
By: Jeff Kitts
Ace Frehley Tells All
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He's hotter than hell and he's not going to take it anymore. After ten years of gritting his teeth, Ace Frehley, Guitar Hero to us all, bares his KISS soul.
Ace Frehley is pissed off, and with good reason. It's May 18th, the day his former Kiss bandmates are to be honored by the city of Los Angeles and Hollywood's Rock Walk association for 20 years of rock and roll greatness. So where's Ace? At Guitar World's New York City headquaters, explaining why he isn't at the ceramony. Did he just refuse to join current Kiss members Gene Simmons and Paul Stanely in immortalizing his hand prints in the Rock Walk's wet cement? Hardly. Ace simply wasn't invited.
"It doesn't surprise me that they don't want me there," says Frehley. "But they're only hurting themselves. I have fans constantly telling me that they've lost all respect for Paul and Gene because of the way they've been treating me lately. It only makes me realize how much I made the right decision when I left the band 10 years ago."
It's difficult to believe that Stanley and Simmons chose to Kiss honored without acknoweledging the towering contributions of their first lead guitarist or original drummer, Peter Criss. But there have been other slights. Frehley has been verbally slapped in the face, without provocation, by Stanley and Simmons on numerous occasions just this past year, usually via the media.
"I was in Canada a few weeks ago, and Gene called me a moron in one of the local magazines," says Frehley. "What the hell is his problem? But if they want to put me down all the time, that's fine. They're just making assholes of themselves."
Maybe so, but why would Gene and Paul want to attack their former comrade now, 10 years after his voluntary departure from Kiss? Ace's believes it's because his exit left scars that apparently still have not healed.
"Let's face it -- when I left the group, Kiss got a musical vasectomy. I was the original and I was the best, and they'll never be able to replace me. But they don't want to face that. I think they're tired of hearing about Ace Frehley all the time, and they just want to get on with their careers without giving me the recognition I'm due. I guess they want to put the past behind them and prove that they can make it on their own without me," adds Ace. "They've been able to do it to a certain extent -- but they'll never be able to reproduce the chemistry and success we once had."
Of course, few bands -- even today's most popular artists -- ever attained the kind of success Kiss enjoyed in the late Seventies, when they rose frombeing an unknown New York City bar band to the status of worlwide phenomenon in less than five years. By 1978, Kiss was the biggest rock band in the world -- and Ace, a punk kid from the tough Bronx, had more money than he could handle.
"I always had at least $5,000 in cash on me," says Ace. "I would walk into toy stores and spend $2,000 on the most ridiculous shit, like radio controlled hellicopters, $3,000 dollar telescopes -- all the shit I could never afford as a kid. And having all that money really screws you up."
But the financial rewards of their success paled next to the tremendous impact the band was to have on an entire generation of American youngsters. And Ace Frehley, despite his lack of critical recognition, has proven himself to be one of the most influencial players in rock history. His dizzying vibrato, memorable studio lead work, cosmic image and legendary on-stage guitar solos -- during which his heavily-modifed Les Paul would emit and ungodly amount of smoke -- were directly responsible for many of today's hottest shredders, like Pantera's Dimebag Darrell and Skid Row's Dave "The Snake" Sabo, taking up the guitar.
"It's flattering to know that I've had such an impact," says Frehley. "But I had no idea at the time."
After ruling the universe for five years, the Kiss empire began crumbling at the dawn of the Eighties. The band's popularity, record sales and musicial firepower reached an all-time low with the 1981 release of the bizarre concept album, Music From The Elder, the first without drummer Peter Criss, whose ever-mounting personal problems had caused an irrepairable rift between he and his bandmates. With his closest companion gone, Frehley, already a serious drinker, turned to the bottle with alarming regularity. He soon made the decision to leave the band for good. By the next Kiss album, the band had stopped wearing their trademark makeup and starting writing limp pop-rock tunes. It was offical: the Kiss that had been an all-consuming obsessession for so many youngsters throughout the Seventies was gone.
It's been 10 years since Ace left Kiss, and while his former bandmates celebrate the band's 20th anniversary without him, the Spaceman appears to be on the verge of making a great comeback. He's sober, touring constantly,and playing the guitar with the same innocent passion he displayed when he first joined the band. Ace is definetely on the right track.
"I know that Paul and Gene want me to fail," says Ace. "They want me to become a drunk again and disapear into the fucking mist. But that's not gonna happen --in fact, I'm only gonna get bigger. I'm like a bad rash that won't go away."
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Guitar World: What was your personal relationships with Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons like when you first joined Kiss?
Ace Frehley: We were good friends in the beginning. But towards the end we were just tolerating each other. It got to the point where we really didn't even talk to each other after a gig, we would each go in seperate limos and go our own way. We started communicating with each other through our lawyers. I think a lot of it had to do with our success -- the fame, the money and the pressures of the whole business. That kind of stuff changes people. I know I cracked under pressure many times towards the end.
GW: Did you look up to Gene and Paul in the early days?
Frehley: Yeah, I did. I mean, they had written all these songs by the time I joined the band, and at this point in my life I had only written a few songs. I took a back seat to them in a lot of ways and also let them handle most of our business matters. Gene's mind is always spinning -- he's a workacoholic. They were always more aggressive than me in that area.
GW: Who was your closest confidant in the band?
Frehley: I gravitated towards Peter[Criss] because at the time, we were both party animals who came from similiar backgrounds -- we were both street kids who were in gangs. There was a sort of comaraderie between us from the start -- something neither of us could ever have with Gene or Paul, because they came from very different backgrounds.
GW: Did Peter quit or was he fired?
Frehley: That's difficult to say, exactly. Peter wasn't happy in the band and Paul and Gene weren't very happy with him. Things just weren't working out, and we all knew it, so everyone just agreed that it would be better if he left.
GW: How did Peter's departure affect you?
Frehley: I felt a huge loss. You know, I really believed that, no matter how fucked up any of us were -- and we were all fucked up in some ways -- there was a chemistry between us that will never be recaptured, unless the four of us reunite. So when Peter left, I really felt a chemical imbalance in the band. And even though I loved Eric, God rest his soul, losing Peter upset the balance of the band a little too much. Plus I didn't have my drinking buddy anymore, so I had to go drink with my bodyguards and roadies. [laughs]
GW: Did Peter's absence further alienate you from Gene and Paul?
Frehley: After he left, I realized that I had lost my decision-making power within the band. Prior to his leaving, the four of us voted on things democratically -- be it our choice of producer or naming an album or whatever. But with Peter gone, and Eric not voting because he was just a hired gun, Paul and Gene were able to out-vote me 2 to 1 on everything. So they started to take complete control of the band, and eventually they started making decisions without even consulting me -- which was one of the main reasons why I left.
GW: If your relationship with Paul and Gene had been stronger, would you have stayed in the band?
Frehley: Yeah. If they would have tried to understand me more, and if I would have tried to understand them a little bit more, things might have been different. I probably still would have done another solo album, but I would have stayed in Kiss. But they wanted to get rid of me and I wanted to be rid of them, so it was a mutual thing.
GW: When Kiss exploded commercially in the late Seventies, were you able to have a life away from the band?
Frehley: Whenever the time was available., which was often. You see, I didn't want to tour as much as Gene and Paul did. I had just bought a huge estate in Conneticut, with a recording studio, bar, pinball machine and a pool table in the basement, and it was like having a club in my own house. I just wanted to invite my friends over and throw parties all the time. I wanted to finally enjoy some of the fruits of all the work I had done, but Gene and Paul were pure workacoholics who just wanted to keep touring and make more albums. They were much happier on the road -- Gene could have all the girls he wanted. [laughs]
GW: By the late Seventies, Kiss had become a financially successful corporation. Was it difficult to stay focused as a musician?
Frehley: Definetely. The business end of it got way out of control; it was real sick towards the end. I remember going to business meetings where there were all these knuckleheads in suits, and I'd walk in wearing jeans, holding a bottle of beer. On the table in front of me would be a 30-page document filled with information about all of our money. Some guy would start talking about this real estate investment we had and someone else would talk about drilling for oil or some crazy shit. [laughs], and I say to myself, "What the fuck am I doing here? This is not why I got into rock and roll." I found it very frusterating, and I really didn't like the people who were handling our money.
GW: Were Gene and Paul more involved in the band's business affairs than you and Peter?
Frehley: Oh, yeah. Believe it or not, Gene would show up at those meetings in a suit with and attache case -- he became one of "them" after awhile. [laughs] I think his dating Cher had a lot to do with it -- she told him he should start wearing suits. It's a real strange thing when the guys in your band start turning into accountants. [laughs]
GW: What role did your managers, Aucoin Management, play in the band's rise to superstardom?
Frehley: A big one. Bill Aucoin was a lot of the brains behind Kiss. When it came to orchestrating our career, setting up promotions, making sure we were in the right place at the right time, Bill and [Cassablanca Records president] Neil Bogart were real geniuses. Paul and Gene are real smart guys -- sometimes too smart for their own britches --and they wrote some tremedous songs, but I think it was really the management that was responsible for making things happen.
GW: How did you feel about the band's image adoring everything from transistor radios and record players to jigsaw puzzles and colorforms?
Frehley: I didn't agree with all of the merchandising -- the lunch box, the cards, the dolls, etc. I didn't want to be in a teeny bopper group, and all that merchandise was putting us in that catagory. I think it turned off a lot of our hard-core fans -- the fans that used to come see us in tiny clubs when we were just a loud, kick-ass rock band.
GW: Was there ever a point when yuo you felt like you had lost complete control over the band's decisions?
Frehley: Oh, yeah. I felt like I was on a surf board, and I knew that if I didn't keep my balance, I would fall off. If I wasn't on the road, I was in the studio; if I wasn't in the studio, I was on a TV or radio show, or some parade float going down some street. [laughs] But I had a lot of fun back then; those were good times. You know, I still believe that if we had just concentrated more on being a hard rock n' roll band, and stopped getting swept away by all the hysteria, we probably would have stayed together a lot longer than we did.
GW: How were the band's earnings divided among the members?
Frehley: We all made the same amount, right from the start. Bill Aucoin felt that, to keep the band together, we should split the publishing four ways. I always sensed that Paul and Gene weren't too happy with it. But you know, if they would have made more money than me, maybe they would have been nicer to me towards the end. And maybe it would have lit a fire under my ass to get up and write more. It was always a thorn in their sides that we had to share the publishing equally, and maybe it was one of the reasons we broke up.
GW:At what point did the band start earning serious money?
Frehley: I think it was around 1977, between Love Gun and Alive II. At that point, we were absolutely rolling in dough. Our bank accounts were up to seven figures each. We hit our peak financially around 1978 and as our popularity decreased, so did the money we made. I think the last huge money-making tour I did with Kiss was in '78 -- I don't think they'll ever make that much money on a tour again.
GW:What was your financial situation like when you left the band?
Frehley: When I left, I got a cash settlement, and then I continued to be paid royalties from the album sales. And the Kiss Catalog sells constantly -- it's enough money for me to live comfortably without ever working again. But when I left, I wasn't making nearly as much money as I had been making in'78, and I definetely had totone down my lifestyle. I couldn't buy Porsches and Merccedeses on a whim like I could before -- but at least I could live comfortably. And I'll tell you, I'm much happier now than I was when I was a multi-millionaire.
GW: Did having all that money have a negative effect on you?
Frehley: Definetely. I just ddidn't enjoy things as much as I do now. I mean, when you see something in a store that you really want, and you save your money and get it a month later, you enjoy it more because you earned it. But when you can walk into a store and buy anything you want, it takes the enjoymentout of having money. Plus it really does a number on your head -- it makes you feel like you can do anything.
GW: Who were your drinking buddies in Kiss?
Frehley: Peter, myself and the bodyguards used to get really loaded on the road. But the bodyguards would never really get as drunk as me because they had to be more on guard in case we got into trouble. [laughs]
GW: How did your drinking affect Paul and Gene, both of whom repudetly have never touched alcohol or drugs?
Frehley: There were plently of times when Paul and Gene got very nervous because I got really drunk the afternoon we had an evening gig. But they didn't know that I had the ability to get loaded, sleep for two or three hours, and wake up ready to play. I used to scare the hell out of them by doing that -- but I was always able to put on a great show. You know, I think about all the times I was drunk around them, and how pissed off they would get, and I really understand it now. Personally, I can't handle being around people who are drunk -- they're too obnoxious for me. Every time I have some drunk slobbering all over me now, I feel like it's God's way of punishing me for all the times I got drunk around Paul and Gene. [laughs]
GW: Did Paul and Gene ever try to stop you from drinking?
Frehley: I think Paul once recommended that I go for counseling, but other than that, what could they do? They definetely weren't happy with my drinking, and they made that clear -- but there was nothing they could do about it.
GW: Did you ever get professional help?
Frehley: Yeah, and it helped a lot. I recommend it to anybody out there who has a drinking problem. Even though most people think they can handle it, it's usually something beyond their control, and getting professional help is the way to go.
GW: Did you also use drugs?
Frehley: I tried a few things here and there but it was primarily alcohol.
GW: When did you finally realize that you needed help?
Frehley: It took me a long time to realize that I had a serious problem. I guess I finally realized it when I crashed my DeLorean in '83. I also got busted for drunk driving six months later, and lost my driver's license for a couple of years. That was kind of like a wake up call for me to get help. Plus, my daughter was growing up, and it was time for me to to start acting like a responsible parent.
GW: How long have you been sober?
Frehley: Over a year.
GW: Getting back to the music, what would you say is the best Kiss album?
Frehley: I'd say our first album. I think it captured a raw innocence that we had at the time, something the band never got back.
GW: What kind of gear did you use on the album?
Frehley: Marshalls and Les Pauls. I had never been to a 24-track recording studio before, and I couldn't afford any expensive gear, so I was just happy to have a Marshall and a Les Paul with me. I really didn't use much else.
GW: And your least favorite Kiss album?
Frehley: Definetely The Elder. That album was really the icing on the cake, as far as me leaving the band is concerned. For starters, they brought in Bob Ezrin to produce, who I don't relate to that well. Plus, I felt that the music on that album just wasn't where we should have been going at that point. I felt we should have done a raw, heavy album instead of slick, bullshit concept album. When I heard the final mix of that album, I didn't even want it released -- but I was outvoted. They cut out half of my guitar solos without even telling me -- and I had done some amazing stuff. I remember taking the cassette and throwing it against the wall. And it was our least-successful record. So I know my gut reaction was right.
GW: Which album were you least involved in?
Frehley: Creatures Of The Night [1982]. I really don't remember playing anything on that album. That was around the time I had me car accident , and I had already made the decision to leave the band, so that album wasn't too important to me. Also, the solo in "Sweet Pain," from Destroyer -- that's not me. They replaced my solo with someone else's without ever telling me. I felt that was disrepectful on their part.
GW: And which album features your best lead work?
Frehley: I'd have to say my first solo album.
GW:Were you able to nail a solo in a few takes or did it take some time?
Frehley: As I've often learned throughout my career, my best solos are those I get on the first, second or third takes. Usually, it's a first take, and I'll punch in where I might have fucked up. I'm real spontanious when it comes to working in the studio, which is another reason why I had trouble working with Paul and Gene. They would beat a song like a dead horse and do something over and over until they were satisfied.
GW: It seems like you took a more experiemental approach in the studio when you recorded your solo album in'78.
Frehley: Yeah, [producer] Eddie Kramer and I tried some really wild shit. The guitar sound I got in "Fractured Mirror" was just incredible. I used a double-neck guitar plugged into three or four Marshalls in different parts of the room, and we had all the amps on 10, and the volume on the guitar turned down to zero -- that was one effect. There was this other part in the song where I used a double-neck guitar that had a mandolin neck and a regular six-string neck, and I played the figure on the mandolin neck, and the pick ups were on the six-string neck. So the only thing that came through the pickups was the resonance -- that's how I got that bell-sound. I also doubled that part with a 12-string Guild acoustic.
GW: What was it like working with Paul, guitar-wise?
Frehley: We never really had a close working relationship. He would write songs and have most the rhythms worked out, and I would just come up with the solos and/or a complentary rhythm part. It's funny, but Paul and I never wrote a song together.
GW: How often did the band rehearse?
Frehley: For the first year we were together, we rehearsed five nights a week without fail, playing the same songs over and over again. And when I think about it today, I can't understand why the hell we rehearsed so much -- it was insane. [laughs] But we never got together and just jammed. I would always suggest it, but Gene didn't like to jam -- he preferred writing songs by himself. He's a control freak, and he knows he couldn't control a jam because he was just the bass player.
GW: What led to the band working with Eddie Kramer?
Frehley: Eddie actually cut our first demo, the one that got us the deal with Neil Bogart. We were in Electric Lady Studios in New York, and Eddie came in and started playing with the knobs -- and the next thing we knew, he was producing the demo. Eddie knew how to get the best performance out of me, and to me, that his most valuable triat. He was the first person who ever took the time to explain things that I didn't understand, and I always appreciated that.
GW: Youmentioned earlier that your relationship with Bob Ezrin wasn't as strong.
Frehley: Bob didn't have much patience with me. If I didn't have a solo worked out or was haviing trouble coming up with a melody line or a hook, he would just bring in someone else, like Knucklehead McGuiness or whatever the fuck his name was. That's when I lost all respect for Bob Ezrin. For the amount of money I paid him, I don't think he put in enough time with me -- he catered to Gene and Paul because they were the songwriters. And I think a producer's job is to work with everyone in the band. I don't dislike him as a person, and I think he's a great producer, but I just don't ever want to work with him again.
GW: What happened the day you quit the band?
Frehley: You have to realize that there wasn't a specific day where I just got up and said "I quit." It was a slow progression. In fact, I think I might have done that whole thing through my attorney. Paul and Gene knew that, with the success of my solo album, I wanted to go my own way and have my own band. So, when I finally did leave, it was no surprise to them.
GW: Did anyone try to stop you?
Frehley: Gene made it pretty clear that he didn't want me to leave. Paul didn't really seem to care. I always got the feeling that Paul would have been happier if I had left; maybe it would have given him more room as a lead guitarist. I remember a promotional tour for Creatures Of The Night in 1982, when they already knew I was going to leave the band, but I had done the tour anyway. After the tour, we had to come home, and Gene didn't want to fly with us on the Concorde, so Paul and I were alone on the plane. And I said to myself that if Paul asked me to stay, I would have seriously considered not leaving the group. But he didn't say anything. I took that to mean he didn't care if I left, so I left.
GW: Were you scared to leave such a successful band?
Frehley: Definetely. But it was more scary to know that if I had stayed in the group, I probably would have self-destructed and killed myself You know, there were plenty of times when, driving home to Conneticut, I contemplated just diving my Porsche into a fucking tree and ending it all. So I had to choose the lesser of the two evils, and bank on my own talent to get me through.
GW: Was it a tough adjustment?
Frehley: Yeah. I was very scared when I left because I didn't know if people were going to accept me all alone, without the makeup. I had to overcome a lot of hurdles when I left, but I did it.
GW: What was it like to break free of all the mystique surrounding the band?
Frehley: You know, after awhile, putting on that makeup every day was like wearing a noose around our necks. There were times when my skin would break out from the silver makeup. I had an allergic reaction to it once in Paris -- I woke up with my eyes swollen shut -- so we had to get a doctor to come in and shoot me up with all kinds of crap to get me through the day. But even though I was glad to be free of all that once I left the band, there were times when I still missed it.
GW: In recent interviews, Paul and Gene have made negative -- even harsh -- refferences to you, your guitar playing and the time you spent in the band. Do you have any idea why?
Frehley: I really don't know. To me, it doesn't make smart business sense to put down the original band members, because I think most kids still cherish the original line-up more than the current Kiss line-up. When Gene knocks me down, he's just talking out of his ass. And Paul doesn't know what he's talking about when he says that I haven't grown as a musician. Hey, Paul, listen to Trouble Walkin'[1989], then go back and listen to the stuff I did with you, knucklehead! It's funny but if you go back and read the interviews with Paul and Gene after the release of Frehley's Comet [1987], they talked really nicely about me -- there was no negativity whatsoever. So all this shit has really come out of left field, and I can't explain it. Is Gene trying to pick a fight with me? Shit, I'll meet him in Madison Square Garden if that's what he wants -- name the date! [laughs] *
Transcribed By: L.S. AKA "The Comet"
