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Daily Archives: December 29, 2024
Former Kiss guitarist is keeping the bandâs music alive on the road
He hasnât been part of the band since 2002, but in the wake of Kissâ retirement from touring at the end of last year guitarist Paul âAceâ Frehley â aka The Spaceman â finds himself a kind of last man standing for fans who want to hear the groupâs music on stage.
âYeah, right now Iâm the only game in town because Kiss is supposedly retired â which I donât believe is gonna happen,â the New York-born Frehley, 73, says be a phone. âI wouldnât be surprised if they reformed. But be that as it mayâŚIâve actually added two more Kiss songs to my set. I added âShout It Out Loudâ and âRock and Roll All Nite,â andâŚEverybody was on their feet and having a good time.
As far as Iâm concerned it doesnât matter who wrote the song; I played the guitar solos on those records, and thatâs good enough for me.â
Frehley was playing in a variety of other New York bands â including one, Molimo, which released an album in 1971 â before answering an ad in the Village Voice that introduced him to Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons and Peter Criss the following year. He quit his job as a taxi cab driver and signed on, and as Kiss the quartet adopted face paint, elaborate costumes and theatrics â eventually becoming the self- (but accurately) described âhottest band in the landâ after the release of 1975âs âAlive!â album (recorded at Detroitâs Cobo Arena). Frehley co-wrote a number of the groupâs biggest hits and sang lead on 1977âs âShock Me,â and his self-titled debut solo album was the best-selling of the four the band members released simultaneously in 1978.
Frehley left Kiss for the first time in 1982 and returned for the 1996 reunion of the original lineup, leaving again six years later. Thereâs been plenty of acrimony expressed by all concerned â and acknowledgements of substance abuse issues â but The Spaceman has a more benevolent view of things these days.
âWe had some great times together â more good than bad,â acknowledges Frehley, whose concerts are dominated by Kiss songs. âWeâre all still friends. I know a lot of people think we hate each other, but thatâs not true. Weâre just like a family; sometimes brothers and sisters have arguments and so on, but when the s*** hits the fan, weâre there for each other.