Ace Frehley says he once feared that he had gone blind when he suffered an allergic reaction to his famous KISS face paint.
The guitarist recalls a time in a Paris hotel room where he and a model friend downed four bottles of champagne after a show.
Frehley tells Loudwire: “I was in Paris, and I bumped into a model, a fashion model that I knew from New York. She was doing a photo shoot there. We ended up getting drunk on about four bottles of champagne, and I ended up passing out in the bed with my makeup on after the show. When I woke up, I had an allergic reaction from not taking the silver off, because it’s ground up metal. My eyes were swollen shut. I was blind.”
The band’s manager called for medical help, but Frehley genuinely feared he had lost his sight. He adds: “They rushed a doctor over, and they shot me up with, like, Prednisone, an anti-inflammatory that took it down. But for a minute there, I thought I was blind. I didn’t know what had happened. It was insane.”
In the rest of the interview below, the guitarist discusses his childhood and other musical projects.
Ace Frehley has a new album titled, Space Invader which will be released on June 24th through eOne Music.
Motley Crue is planning a well-publicized farewell tour starting this summer, but it won’t be coming empty handed.
Tommy Lee tells Billboard that he’s “just finished the drums” for All Bad Things Must End, a new song the Crue hopes to have out by the time the farewell tour begins July 2nd in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and which will be attached to a new greatest hits album that will accompany the tour. “We’re just mixing (the song) and getting it together,” Lee reports. “It’s pretty heavy, but it’s really melodic. It’s definitely about this time right now with the band and what the feeling is and kind of all that wrapped into a song. I hate to say it’s like a goodbye, but it definitely references our time here.”
And it may not be the last thing we hear from the band, according to Lee. While the group is sworn to making this it’s actual last tour, he says that “making music is still an open conversation, so who knows. Maybe there’s some more music for us down there.”
Meanwhile, the quartet is getting its show together for the tour. “There’s a whole new production being built that’s pretty fucking insane,” Lee says. As for the setlist, he adds that they are talking about two-hour sets “so we can play all the hits and then hopefully dig into some deep stuff, since this is the last chance to play them.”
The group is also digging into The Dirt, the long awaited film adaptation of its vivid 2001 band biography. Lee says he and bassist Nikki Sixx recently sat down with director Jeff Tremaine for a read-through of the script that he calls “probably the most fucking insanely surrealistic experience I’ve ever sat through — probably two hours and change of literally watching people act and play through this two-hour plus movie of 30 years of your life. I was just like, ‘What the fuck?! That’s insane! This movie is insane!’ Even just the way the movie starts, you’re like, ‘How the hell are we gonna rate this thing? Triple R?'”
Lee says casting is slated for late July, most likely with unknown actors playing the band members who will subsequently join the Crue on tour for a bit of boot camp. “I can just imagine some 25-year-old actor getting the part and being sent on the road to hang out and study us,” Lee says with a laugh. “Wow, what a trip! They’re gonna definitely come back a different animal.”
Lee, meanwhile, has tried on a different musical skin lately, playing drums for the next Smashing Pumpkins album. He’s recorded demos with Billy Corgan in Los Angeles and expects to be back in the studio during the next few weeks to record the finished songs. “I think he has probably the best record he’s ever written,” Lee says. “These are like epic, goose-bump songs. It sounds like the first couple of Smashing Pumpkins records. I was fucking blown away.”
Judas Priest have revealed the art work for their forthcoming album, Redeemer of Souls, which will be released in the States on July 8th through Epic Records.
Judas Priest posted the title track online for streaming and released a sneak preview of another song called, March of the Damned.
Redeemer of Souls track listing:
Dragonaur
Redeemer Of Souls (listen here)
Halls Of Valhalla
Sword Of Damocles
March Of The Damned
Down In Flames
Hell & Back
Cold Blooded
Metalizer
Crossfire
Secrets Of The Dead
Battle Cry
Beginning Of The End
Bonus tracks:
Snakebite
Tears Of Blood
Creatures
Bring It On
Never Forget
Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has told Metal Hammer that Black Sabbath’s headline appearance at the Barclaycard British Summer Time festival at London’s Hyde Park might be the band’s final show.
The July 4th show, the closing date on the band’s summer 2014 tour, will see Sabbath headline above Soundgarden, Faith No More, Motorhead and Soulfly on the festival’s main stage. And according to Iommi, it could be the end of the road for the legendary band.
“It could be the last ever Sabbath show,” the guitarist admits. “I don’t want it to be, but there’s nothing really planned touring-wise after that show, so for all we know that could be it really. To be honest I don’t want to be touring to this extent too much longer, because it makes me feel so bad.”
Iommi has been undergoing medical treatment since being diagnosed with lymphoma in January 2012. The guitarist completed his treatment in March and is now awaiting an update on his condition.
“I’m at a stage now where I have no support, which means I have to see whether the cancer is coming back or if it’s still there or what,” he says. “I just don’t know. It’s a bit of a worry. After we finish this tour I’ll go in and have scan, so we’ll see what that shows up.”
“But the show at Hyde Park will a great way to end the European tour,” he says. “It has a really great bill, with a really good mix of people. We haven’t made any specific plans as the gig is a way off yet, but I think it’ll be special.”
Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford has revealed he needs hernia surgery, after he underwent an operation on his back last year.
The 62-year-old has reported he’ll receive medical attention to his stomach before Priest tour in support of upcoming album Redeemer Of Souls.
Halford tells ABC Radio News that has an umbilical hernia that he intends to have repaired not because it gives him pain but because, “It looks like the alien just burst forth!”
Halford says, “My doctors always said, ‘We can take care of it,’ and I said, ‘I’ll get around to it.’ [The doctor said,] ‘If it’s not giving you any discomfort then you should leave it as it is,’ but it’s not very appealing to look at, is it?”
Halford says he’s resigned himself to the surgery, and manages to keep a good attitude about his advancing age. “That’s life,” he says. “The wonderful thing about heavy metal music is that it’s immortal. The music is immortal, but the creators are not bestowed with that attribute.”
Redeemer of Souls with be released in the States on July 15th.
