Matthew Wilkening | Ultimate Classic Rock

In a new interview with Eddie Trunk, former Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley says he wishes Creatures of the Night, and not Music From the Elder, was his last album with the group.

Although his face appears on the cover of 1982’s Creatures, which found the band returning to straight-ahead hard rock after the previous year’s highly experimental, commercially disastrous and critically reviled Elder concept album, Frehley doesn’t actually perform on it.

But he tells Trunk he would have been happier if the band had stuck to its original “back to basics” plan when recording Music From the Elder, instead of veering off into what even bassist Gene Simmons has described as “a bad Genesis record.”

“I thought Creatures was a good record,” Frehley said. “It was really the record that I would have enjoyed recording instead of Elder. Because during the recording of Elder, I kept telling Paul [Stanley] and Gene and [producer] Bob Ezrin that this is the wrong record at the wrong time. We should be doing a heavier hard rock record. That’s what the fans want, that’s what the fans expect. Everybody just put a deaf ear to me, and we all know what happened and how the Elder was received.”

Frehley goes on to explain why he agreed to appear on the cover and participate in promotional events in support of Creatures despite having already secretly quit the group. “I’m sure I bulls—ted my way through it,” he joked. “I made Paul and Gene a commitment that I was going to fulfill my obligation to promote the record. That’s what professional musicians do.”

Earlier this year, Frehley took a shot at one of the best tracks from Creatures, recording his own version of the song “Rock and Roll Hell” for his Origins Vol. 1 covers album. “After listening to it, I thought I could do justice to the tracks,” he noted. “So why not? [It gives] fans a little insight into what Creatures of the Night, what ‘Rock and Roll Hell’ would have sounded like if I played on it.”

And yes, we know Frehley’s last Kiss album was technically Psycho Circus, which includes three tracks he played on.