Jody Havenot

Blabbermouth

Former KISS guitarist Vinnie Vincent has recruited Jim Crean to handle lead vocals during his two comeback concerts on February 8 and 9 at the Rocketown Entertainment Complex in Nashville, Tennessee. Also appearing with Vincent will be drummer Carmine Appice(VANILLA FUDGE, ROD STEWART, JEFF BECK, BLUE MURDER) and bassist Tony Franklin(DAVID GILMOUR, JIMMY PAGE, THE FIRM).

A recording/touring musician for well over 35 years, Crean has released four solo albums on major labels, including his latest effort, “Insatiable”, which was issued through Carmine‘s label Rocker Records.

The vocalist for the popular tribute band HAIR NATION, Crean has been rocking bars and nightclubs in the Buffalo area since the eighties. He has opened many a show for such national acts as Bret Michaels, SLAUGHTER and DOKKEN. Crean also makes a guest appearance on “Sinister”, the first joint studio album by Carmine and his drumming brother Vinny Appice, which was released in October 2017.

Robert Fleischman, a former member of JOURNEY and Vincent‘s post-KISS band VINNIE VINCENT INVASION, was originally supposed to sing for Vinnie at the Nashville concerts but abruptly pulled out of the project in November, saying that he was unhappy about elements of the production.

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Ultimate Classic Rock

Former Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley can be heard on the new single released by Altitudes & Attitude, the band formed by Megadeth bassist David Ellefson and Anthrax counterpart Frank Bello.

Frehley recorded a solo for “Late,” which appears on the group’s debut album Get It Out, which will be released on Jan. 18. It follows a self-titled EP that arrived in 2014.

You can watch the “Late” video below.

“I’ve learned that writing songs is very cathartic,” Bello said in a statement. “A lot of these lyrics are about the inner struggles of my life, and about the rage that has built up from my life experiences – my brother’s murder; my father abandoning my family when we were young, leaving us with no funds to pay the bills, the ups and downs of life in general. I’ve always had an anger inside that music really helps me deal with.”

“The song has an easy feel to it, so we shot the video with that same spirit,” Ellefson added, revealing that the clip had been shot in a friend’s restaurant. “The music is haunting with a memorable hook and Frank’s personal storyline.”

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ABC News

Two members of the legendary rock band, KISS are offering TSA employees a free meal.

Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley made the announcement through their Rock and Brews Restaurants’ Facebook page.

TSA employees, impacted during the government shutdown, can get a free pulled pork sandwich or strawberry fields salad at all stand-alone Rock and Brews locations.

Matt Porter

Feyyaz Ustaer | Metalhead Zone

During in a recent interview with SmallCapPower, KISS bassist Gene Simmons talked about why he became involved with Canadian cannabis company Invictus MD Strategies Corp.

He said that he was wrong about cannabis. Here’s the statement:

“Historically, I have to say I was completely wrong about the entire space. I thought cannabis was for stoners and losers and all that, and slowly but surely, over the years, the amount of research that I saw just blew me away. Seeing little girls who suffer from epilepsy rubbing a salve, not on the inside but outside of their body and seemingly miraculously getting cured made me take stock.

Big Pharma [the global pharmaceutical industry] is not fond of this space, because cannabis, in its various forms, is actually gonna help people. That’s what researchers are telling me. And I’m telling everybody else there are a lot of new companies, especially in Canada, and good for them.

Some of them are solid, some of them are garbage, and it’s up to you to find out what it’s all about. I happen to believe in Invictus, and all I urge anybody to do is to go to Invictus-MD.com and do your own research.

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Michael Brandvold

Jody Havenot

Feyyaz Ustaer | Metalhead Zone

Back in November, original KISS guitarist Ace Frehley has returned to the band during an acoustic set for 2018’s KISS Kruise.

During in a recent Q&A sessions, Ace Frehley has revealed the story behind KISS reunion show. He said:

“I had fun. At the last minute, Doc [McGhee, KISS manager] came into my cabin and said, ‘Do you wanna do that acoustic set with the guys?’, which was the first show on the cruise.

So it was really haphazard. We threw it together. They said, ‘What songs do you wanna play?’ Then they handed me this guitar that really had heavy-gauge strings on. I said, ‘Could you put lighter-gauge strings on, so I can maybe play a little lead?’

So they switched the strings, but it was still really hard to play lead on that acoustic. And then, after that, I didn’t see the guys for the rest of the cruise.”

Two months ago, he spoke in an interview with Loudwire and explained his thoughts about returning to KISS for their  “End Of The Road”  farewell tour. He said that his return to the band depends on promoters. Here’s the statement:

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Donna Ferguson | This is Money

Gene Simmons of rock band Kiss grew up so poor he could not even afford to buy toilet paper and worked as a garbage collector and dish-washer.

He now lives in a mansion valued at £30million, owns a comic book collection worth £3million, but has never forgotten that money is hard to come by.

Next year, Kiss will bow out with its ‘End Of The Road’ tour and will be performing in the UK in July. Tickets are available from website kissonline.com/tour.

What did your parents teach you about money?

My father left me and my mother when I was six. My mother was Hungarian and at age 14 was transported to a concentration camp in Germany.

She provided for us by the sweat of her brow and taught me to have a good work ethic.

We moved to America when I was eight and she worked in a factory making coats. It was not unionised so they paid her whatever they wanted – half a cent for every button sewn on a winter coat.

Was money tight in your family?

Yes. If my mother did not work hard enough we did not eat. When living in Israel we had little, lived in one room and the toilet was a hole outside.

I never knew about toilet paper and could only dream at the thought of blowing your nose on a piece of paper and throwing it away after using it only once.

I have never forgotten that money is hard to come by. I now have a big house but I could have one in many countries. I could own a fleet of jets, but I do not want any of that. I live comfortably.

What was the first paid work you ever did?

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Greg Prato | Vintagerock.com

There was a point where it seemed that Ace Frehley had closed the door on his solo career. After all, there was not a single new Ace solo offering between the years of 1990 – 2008 (I know, I know — he was part of the Kiss reunion from 1996 – 2002, but still…).

However, over the past ten years or so, Kiss’ original lead guitarist/creator of the famous “spaceman” character and make-up design has come back with a vengeance – issuing several albums (2009’s Anomaly, 2014’s Space Invader, and 2016’s Origins, Vol. 1) and consistently touring.

And in 2018, Ace added another entry to his solo discography, with the arrival of the appropriately titled Spaceman. The man with the literal smoking guitar spoke to Vintage Rock on the day of the album’s release (October 19, 2018).

The thing that strikes me about the arrival of Spaceman is that it is your fourth album since 2009. Is it safe to say that you’re making up for lost time?

Yeah. What completely blew my mind was I got sober, and then I started working on a record [Anomaly], eventually got a record deal with eOne, and people are telling me, “You haven’t put out an album in 20 years.” I had no idea it went by that fast. [Laughs] So, I’m making up for lost time — yes, I am.

Has getting sober fueled your creativity?

Oh, it’s changed my life. I’m focused, I show up on time, and I’m much more creative. And I like remembering what I did the night before, when I wake up – whether it be at home or on tour.

You’re playing guitar better than ever — especially on tunes like “Mission to Mars” and “Quantum Flux.”

That’s interesting that you said those two. It seems like everybody I talk to has a different favorite.

Let’s discuss “Quantum Flux,” which closes the album and is an instrumental.

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Michael Brandvold

Michael Brandvold

Jody Havenot

Mark Strigl | Talking Metal

Jody Havenot

Matt Porter

Rolling Stone

Walking the Floor goes to space this week, with special guest Ace Frehley — known to Kiss fans as the Spaceman — joining podcast host Chris Shiflett. Together, the two ignore the show’s Americana-leaning format and, instead, geek out over guitar pickups, soloing techniques and Kiss lore.

“Ace Frehley is, without question, the single most important reason why I play guitar,” Shiflett admits during the episode’s pre-interview segment. Perhaps that’s why today’s episode is so spirited. Below, we’ve rounded up some highlights from the pair’s conversation, followed by the episode’s full premiere.

“Cold Gin” was technically co-written by Ace Frehley and Gene Simmons, although the former bandmate received sole writing credit. 
“I wrote that on the subway going down to rehearsal,” Frehley says of the song, which appeared on Kiss’ 1974 debut. “I came up with that riff in my head and I put it together, and actually, Gene wrote the breakdown section, but he never took credit. He said, ‘Ace, it’s your song.’” More than 40 decades later, Frehley remains grateful to Simmons for the vote of confidence. “I really wasn’t a songwriter,” he says. “I learned a lot from Paul and Gene.”

Growing up in the Bronx during the late Sixties and early Seventies, Frehley attended concerts by some of the era’s most iconic rock acts.
“I saw Cream’s first New York appearance,” he remembers. “I saw the Who’s first New York appearance. I saw Led Zeppelin’s first New York appearance, opening up for Iron Buttefly at the Fillmore East, and then half the audience walked out on the headliner.”

Although Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley often monopolized the band’s decision-making process, Frehley was often able to sway their opinions. 
“Some lighting director talked Paul and Gene into using this system where above us would be this big mirror, and the spot[lights] would be in the pit, and we’d bounce the spots off the mirror,” he remembers. “And I said, ‘What, are you kidding? You wanna pay for this? You want spotlight guys in the pit? I wanna be able to see the fans…’ They were gonna go with it, and I talked to Peter, and I said, ‘Look, we’ve gotta talk these guys outta doing this. This is a bad idea.’ And they listened to me.” That said, Frehley wasn’t always able to bend the ears of the band’s highly opinionated leaders. “When it came to The Elder,” he points out, “they didn’t listen to me.”

A longtime user of DiMarzio guitar pickups, Frehley used to deal directly with the gear manufacturer’s owner.
“Larry DiMarzio used to hand-wind pickups in his bedroom with this spooling device, and I used to meet him at the Staten Island Ferry and get the pickups,” he remembers. “I [still] have two or three of the pickups that he personally hand-wound.”

He prefers to improvise his guitar solos in the recording studio.
“Ninety percent of it is winging it,” he says of this approach to composing guitar leads. “In the early days, I used to rehearse guitar solos with Kiss on the first couple albums. They’d give me a cassette without a solo on it, and I’d play with it. I’d work out a solo, and I’d get into the studio, and they didn’t like it! So I said to myself, ‘Well, you just spent the whole afternoon working on something that somebody didn’t like.’ So as my career progressed and my playing got better and my confidence got better, I just decided to wing the solos.”

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Mitch Lafon