Spats, temper tantrums and scathing retorts within the Kiss camp are no rarity, and Ace Frehley has been at the center of his fair share of them.
Now the guitarist, who hasn’t donned his Spaceman outfit since the turn of the millennium, wants to set the record straight regarding his two departures from the band.
The facts are straightforward.
Frehley successfully auditioned for the band in 1973, despite his antics nearly leading to Gene Simmons punching his lights out. He stuck around for nine studio albums, and helped turn the band into one of the most commercially successful acts around before making his unceremonious departure in 1982.
After reuniting for the band’s 1995 MTV Unplugged performance, the original lineup — Frehley, Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons and Peter Criss — regrouped the following year. Ace bowed out for a second time after performing at the closing ceremony for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake, Utah.
But why did Ace leave both times? According to Stanley and Simmons, he was fired. But as Ace tells Guitarist, that’s not what happened.
“A lot of the misconceptions were created by Paul and Gene,” he says. “They still say in interviews that they fired me, but I was never fired from Kiss. I hate when I hear that. And they say that both times I was fired. I quit both times.”
Gene Simmons:
“By 1981, I was spending more and more time in Hollywood. I was approached by Marcy Carsey, a producer of shows like The Cosby Show and Roseanne, to try out for a show to be called Grotus. I would be the star. I shot a short pilot and everyone seemed to like it enough to get me in front of the ABC staff. There were ten people around a table and we chatted for five minutes. Then they offered me my own TV series. I was stunned.”
I went outside with my business guy, who explained the deal to me. I would get $60,000 an episode. He told me if I left KISS, where I was making substantially more, I would in essence be paying for the privilege of being on television.
– “Kiss and Makeup” by Gene Simmons
