With Kiss, Solo, and Frehley’s Comet

The Nineties were an all-time peak for guitar bands, and that’s because Nineties bands were full of guitar players who grew up worshipping Ace and the spell he cast in Kiss songs like “Parasite.” It’s the most proto-grunge of Kiss tunes, heavy as a dinosaur but surprisingly fast on its feet. It’s a highlight of Hotter Than Hell, the album where Ace really stepped out as a songwriter and lead guitarist (Gene sang it), alongside “Strange Ways” and “Comin’ Home.” But the punk thrash of “Parasite” is Ace at his toughest, showing why he got more influential as a guitarist over the years. —R.S.

The first classic that Ace Frehley ever wrote, “Cold Gin” was a highlight of Kiss’ raw 1974 debut album, a tale of drunken debauchery that turned out to be prescient in terms of all the turmoil to come. But Ace didn’t feel quite confident enough to sing it himself, so ironically, the lead vocals were by Gene Simmons, who didn’t touch a drop. Kiss kept playing “Cold Gin” off and on for decades, but the definitive version is on Alive!, with Paul Stanley’s legendary intro banter, pleading, “There’s gotta be some people out there that like to drink tequila!” According to an anonymous source backstage, Paul reports on the popularity of vodka and orange juice. (“Aaaall riiiight!”) But when he quizzes the Kiss Army on their favorite quencher, the people’s choice is clearly “Cold Gin.” —R.S.

In a sense, Ace Frehley put his life on the line for rock & roll every time Kiss took the stage due to the pyrotechnics that shot out of his guitar, which were somewhat primitive in the band’s early days. Such a disaster nearly came to pass one night in Lakeland, Florida, when he was electrocuted. “I got knocked back, 220 volts,” he later recalled, “and I was knocked out for about five minutes. I had burns on my fingers. I almost bit the bullet.” But the scary incident ended up inspiring the song that had his first lead vocal for the band, as well as one of the best guitar solos on any Kiss song. In Ace’s optimistic reimagining, the painful experience is transformed into a song about sex — the work of a man who made transcending reality his everyday gig. —J.D.

Kiss tried to duplicate the “live”-vibe success of their seminal 1975 Alive! album with Alive II, while also offering fans a handful of studio recordings. The best of them is Ace Frehley’s “Rocket Ride,” a blast of sexual-innuendo rock & roll that played right into the roguish guitarist’s strengths. There’s a monster riff, a shout-along chorus, and an ad-lib for the ages: “Come on, grab ahold of my rocket!” Ace shouts. Subtle, it was not. —J.H.

When Kiss came up with the idea of releasing four solo records on the same day, not many people involved with the gambit would’ve imagined that Frehley’s would be the most successful — including the other members of Kiss, who condescendingly offered him help with the project. But it ended up being the breakout hit, thanks to Ace’s smash version of “New York Groove,” originally by U.K. glam band Hello. Frehley was skeptical of recording the song when producer Eddie Kramer initially proposed the idea, but he threw himself into it, taking inspiration from his deep knowledge of the then-vibrant Times Square prostitution scene — and he came up with one of the most beloved tunes of the 1970s. —J.D.

Sept. 18, 1978, was perhaps the most Seventies day of the Seventies: The day all four members of Kiss released simultaneous solo albums. But Ace stood head, shoulders, and space boots above his bandmates on this day with his solo album, kicking it off with “Rip It Out.” For the others, “Rip It Out” would have been a standout contender for a hit. On Ace’s album, it got overshadowed by “New York Groove,” but “Rip It Out” is the connoisseur’s pick for solo Ace — he wails about betrayed love, but lets his Gibson do most of the talking. —R.S.

Dynasty, Kiss’ 1979 disco-leaning effort, and its radio hit “I Was Made for Loving You” left some members of the Kiss Army thinking their superheroes had gone soft. But Ace Frehley made sure a gritty rock edge remained in the band’s sound with “Hard Times,” one of three Dynasty tracks on which he sang lead. He wrote “Hard Times,” too, and it ripples with his Bronx attitude: “We had to fight to be accepted!” he sneers at one point. “The hard times have made me strong.” —J.H.

Ace Frehley left Kiss in 1982 and soon formed Frehley’s Comet. The band released its self-titled debut in 1987. The singles were “Into the Night” and “Rock Soldiers,” the latter recorded with a “guitar army” and inspired by being chased by the police while drunk-driving his DeLorean. But the catchiest thing on the album is “Calling to You,” a fun pop-metal ode to the rock & roll lifestyle. “Some can’t understand/And they’ll only go so far,” he sings. For Ace, too far was always just the starting point. —J.D.  

When Ace Frehley released 1989’s Trouble Walkin’, his second solo album under his own name — his first non-Kiss LPs were as Frehley’s Comet — he included a radio-ready version of Jeff Lynne’s “Do Ya.” Originally cut by the Move and later made a bona fide hit by Lynne’s ELO, the crunchy rock song was the perfect vehicle for Frehley the solo artist, and its video put the guitarist’s face (sans paint) on MTV. Frehley also took the opportunity to make “Do Ya” his own, literally. For the final chorus, he cheekily shouts-out himself:  “Do ya, do ya want the Ace?” —J.H.

For his first solo album in 20 years, Anomaly, Ace Frehley leaned hard into his origin story — but not the New York one. Rather, he embraced his fantastical Spaceman persona over songs like the cosmic instrumental “Space Bear” and the on-the-nose rocker “Outer Space.” “It’s like I told you, I came from outer space,” he sings on the latter. “I want to take you away.” The album may have appealed most to hardcore Ace fans, but it succeeded in proving that Frehley still had the chops of a pioneering guitarist. Listen to his extended solo break just after the 2:00 mark and marvel. —J.H.