If rock ‘n’ roll had a safety manual, Ace Frehley clearly never read it.
From rocket-firing guitars that nearly roasted Gene Simmons to electrocution incidents that came dangerously close to disaster, the former Kiss guitarist’s onstage antics often felt more like scenes from an action movie than moments from a rock concert.
Speaking to MusicRadar, Frehley begins by sharing a more grounded (literally) hazard of the job: performing in platform boots.
“I used to fall a lot in those boots,” says the guitarist. “A lot of times. Paul [Stanley] would cover for me by walking over to me like it was part of the show. He made it look like it was choreography or something.”
“If nobody realised I’d fallen, I play on my knees and get back up. It was just part of the show!”
In the ’70s – and again when Kiss’s original lineup reunited in the ’90s – Frehley would intentionally drop to his knees during the outro solo of Black Diamond. While planned, it was no less painful: “I screwed my knees up doing that,” he says. “I would drop to my knees, and the weight of the Les Paul really killed them.”
“During the Reunion Tour, I ended up chipping a bone in my knee, and the doctor said, ‘Listen, you gotta stop doing that, or you’ll end up in a wheelchair.’”
