Check out WDHA Presents: Ace Frehley at the Starland Ballroom on Friday, May 2nd!
Paul Daniel “Ace” Frehley was born on April 27th, 1951 in The Bronx, New York into a rather musical family. At the age of 13, he was given an electric guitar for Christmas and would teach himself how to play without any lessons. He would go on to play in bands including The Outrage, The Four Roses, King Kong, Honey, The Magic People, and Cathedral which is the band that started to get paying gigs and led to Ace dropping out of school, which he would go on to eventually return to school and graduate.
In late 1972 Ace was shown an ad for a lead guitarist audition by one of his friends that landed him in front of Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, and Peter Criss, who liked what they heard and made him their guitarist, known as “The Spaceman”. From there, KISS would go on to release their debut album Kiss in 1974, where he was credited for writing “Love Theme from KISS” and the fan favorite “Cold Gin”. Throughout the 1970’s, Ace Frehley’s guitar playing led to him becoming one of the most popular guitarists, with many telling him that his work on KISS’s breakthrough live album Alive! inspired them to start playing guitar themselves.
In 1978, all four members of KISS released self-titled solo albums, with Ace Frehley becoming the bestselling of them all, with the single and Hello cover “New York Groove” being the biggest song from all four albums as well. He would go on to leave band in 1982 to start his solo career but would reunite with the band in 1996 for a handful of tours as well as working on the record Psycho Circus and again in 2018 for the Kiss Kruise. During his time with KISS, Ace was involved on multiple studio albums and several live and compilation albums.
In 1987, Ace Frehley’s solo act, which was sometimes also referred to as Frehley’s Comet, released their first album and was a relatively successful mixture of hard rock and pop metal, peaking at 43 on the Billboard 200 chart. The band kept the moniker of Frehley’s Comet through the live EP Live+1 and the band’s second studio album Second Sighting and would tour under the name with acts such as Alice Cooper and Iron Maiden.
In 1989, the Frehley’s Comet name was dropped, and the solo act began to release music under Ace Frehley’s name akin to his ‘78 solo release, with the first release being Trouble Walkin’ as well as a return to a more traditional hard rock style. This album featured a guest appearance of Peter Criss as well as Sebastian Bach and other members of Skid Row, and showed that, despite the somewhat bad blood between Ace and members of KISS, Criss and Frehley were still friendly, and even led to a tour together in 1995.
After his reuniting with KISS, he returned to solo work in 2009 releasing Anomaly to positive reviews, including reaching the number 2 spot on the Billboard US Independent Albums chart. Since then, he has released another 4 solo albums, none of which have gone back to the Frehley’s Comet moniker. Due out in February, Ace plans on releasing a new album titled 10,000 Volts, with the title track available to listen to on WDHA and streaming services now.
Tickets on sale Friday 11/15 at 10am at axs.com.
Pre-sale on Thursday 11/14 from 10am – 10pm with the code “ACENJ”
Check out Ace Frehley and Steve Brown’s performance in our studio HERE.
