Speaking with Guitar Player, original KISS guitarist Ace Frehley discusses his most recent solo album, 10,000 Volts, and offers his thoughts on being regarded by a major influence by many of his peers and guitarists the world over. He also breaks down five KISS classics. Following is an excerpt.
Frehley: "I’d probably have practiced a little more If I knew I was going to affect that many people’s lives. It does make me proud and very happy though that I influenced a lot of great guitar players. And with so many of them, I can't even begin to name, I have become friends with too. I recently went to see John 5 play and he gave me a picture of when he had met me when he was only 15 years old, and it made me feel old! But look at him now? He is such an amazing guitarist and now playing with Mötley Crüe!"
"Cold Gin" (1974)
Frehley: "I wrote this song when I was in my early 20s in the subways of New York City on the way down to a KISS rehearsal one day. The main riff came into my head, and when I got there, I played it to the rest of the band. Paul, Gene and Peter said that it could make a good song, so I played with it some more and then wrote some lyrics. And next thing you know, we got a song that became a Kiss classic!
I used a Gibson Les Paul Standard 'honeyburst' that I bought at Manny’s Music. It was only a couple of years old. I plugged that into a 100-watt JMP Super Lead Marshall. My whole career has been pretty much Les Pauls and Marshalls in the studio. Sometimes I'd overdub with Fenders and Danelectros and acoustics, but the Les Paul has always been the guitar I would cut the basic track with. I probably did this in one take. I don't exactly remember. It’s been over 40 years ago."
Read the complete feature here.
Forty-six years after its release in 1978, former KISS guitarist Ace Frehley recently joined Ken Sharp of Goldmine for a conversation detailing the back story of his self-titled solo album. An excerpt follows:
Goldmine: Having a hit single off of your solo album with “New York Groove”, did that plant a seed for you to leave the group, or did it give you more confidence in yourself as an artist, songwriter and record maker?
Ace Frehley: "Well, after the success of my solo album, the writing was on the wall for me. I realized I was more creative away from those guys because they’re control freaks, and they like things the way they like them. I don’t like recording the way they record because sometimes they would do 20-25 takes and I’d say, 'We’re beating a dead horse here on this song.' That happened with Bob Ezrin working on the Destroyer album. When I’m recording, if I’m working with a drummer, it’s just me and the drummer. If I can’t get it in three, four, five takes at the most, I’ll just say, 'Let’s try something else' because after five, six, seven takes, you start losing spontaneity and you start getting bored, actually. Doing 25 takes of a song is completely absurd."
Ace Frehley: "I don’t remember what song it was, but it was one of the songs on Destroyer, I said to Paul (Stanley) and Gene (Simmons), 'Listen, why don’t we just put this to sleep right now and try something else? We can come into the studio tomorrow and try it again.' And lo and behold, we came into the studio the next day and did it in two or three takes because we knew the song, we knew what the pitfalls were and the mistakes we made, and we knocked it off and it had spontaneity. Paul and Gene have a certain work ethic that I don’t have. For example, when Gene was living in Manhattan in his penthouse, he told me he’d go into his closet, he had a little amp and a recorder set up there, and he’d write a song every day. And I’d say, 'Why do you force yourself to write a song every day?' He goes, 'That’s just my work ethic.' I go, 'I can’t work that way, Gene. I can only write a song when I feel inspired.' So for example, I’ll go three weeks without writing a song and then the following the weekend, something would inspire me and I’ll end up writing two or three songs in a weekend. Out of 365 songs that Gene wrote in one year while he was living there, there was probably only a half a dozen songs that we used."
To read the complete interview with Ace, visit this location.
Frehley's latest solo album, 10,000 Volts, was released in February 2024.
