In a new interview with the Inside Of You With Michael Rosenbaum podcast, KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons was asked if he had any “good conversations” with late KISS guitarist Ace Frehley before Ace passed away last October at the age of 74.
Simmons responded (as transcribed by blabbermouth.net), “It’s been up and down for 50 years with Ace. And the fans often would hate me for telling the truth. When the kids are at home and there’s mom and dad and all of a sudden dad gets thrown out of the house, the kids don’t understand — they love mom and dad — why mom kicked dad out of the house. And she tries to explain to them: ‘He was a drunk, he was a loser, he was late, didn’t show up on time, didn’t do what he was supposed to do, was barely around the kids, but he’s your father.’ And the fans are like kids. They don’t know.”
He continued, “If you would’ve met Ace at the beginning [of KISS] — God bless him — you would’ve fallen in love with the idea, who he is and all that. And then [as Niccolò] Machiavelli [said], [when you] have power, [you must sometimes] abuse it. It affects all of us in different ways. Me too. But Ace turned to beverages and chemicals. Early on, he wouldn’t show up… I mean, he wouldn’t show up to do his guitar parts on even Destroyer early on. And the fans don’t like to hear this because he’s so talented and everybody, all the new guitar players, were influenced by him and all that. Yeah, but when you’re together in a band, you’re together more time than your family members or your wife or kids. So he’d be late and all this stuff. And Peter [Criss, original KISS drummer], we love him, and God bless, he’s still around, but really from the early days, as soon as the money and the fame came in, it was like the dark cloud came over. And they were both in and out of the band three separate times. And the fans just couldn’t understand it.
Offering an example of how Frehley was unreliable, Simmons said, “We were doing the Eurovision contest, and we were the headliners. People in America don’t know what that is, but 600 million people at that time, now a billion people, tune in to the Eurovision where all the countries in the world basically send their representatives and it’s music based. It’s one of the few times such a large audience in the early days would tune in. Ace didn’t show up. We had to do it as a trio. It just went on and on and on… And had we not been as popular, we would’ve asked Ace to leave. But strangely, the first time Ace left, he turned to us, and it’s sad, and said — this is a quote; he said it to me two times, twice — ‘I’m leaving the band. I’m gonna have a solo career.’ And we tried to talk to him — I know I did — in front of the manager and everybody else: ‘Stay in the band. Have your solo career. Have your cake and eat it too. We don’t want anything from you. If you’re not happy, do other stuff, but don’t break up the band. That’s lunacy.’ And he just never made smart decisions. So, he said on the way out, ‘You just watch. I’m gonna sell 10 million copies of my solo record.’ That’s a quote. And we said, ‘No, don’t do that. Just stay in the band.’ And he said, more than once, ‘If I don’t leave the band and if I do another tour, I’m gonna kill myself.’ So whatever was going on, it breaks your heart.”
He went on to say that despite his issues with substance abuse, Frehley was one of the most influential guitarists of his era.
“You look at his body of work, and guitar players from Eddie Van Halen to — who’s the kid from Metallica? God, I just forgot it — they point to Ace, or Tom Morello and everything, ‘I cut my teeth on guitar by listening to Ace.’ Of course. And he was so proud and so happy to hear from the White House — not from the president — that KISS had won the Kennedy Center awards thing [last year]. And he so much looked forward to [being honored last December]. As a kind of a street kid joins a band and goes to the highest level of American — I don’t know — awards. And he just didn’t make it.”
When asked what he would tell Frehley now if he had a chance to address him, Simmons said, “I should have, and could have, but I should have, a long time [ago], when you see the disease starting to get ahold of him, I should have, decades ago, took, took him aside — it’s called an intervention — and forced him to understand he’s not just hurting himself by his lifestyle choices, but his family, his child and the fans. It was a stupid and shameful decision on all our parts — I know mine too — is, ‘No, you don’t wanna get the fans upset. Let’s make believe he’s in the band and everything’s okay at home.’ And it it’s tough. It’s really tough.
Right now the fans who are gonna listen to this are gonna [say], ‘Prick Gene, he never says anything [positive].’ … But the kids at home don’t understand [what it was like when Ace was loaded on drugs and alcohol]. They never met and spent time with Ace. When he’s straight — lovable, everything’s great. Early on, and when the stuff started to take hold, it was Jekyll and Hyde. You just can’t make smart decisions when you’re drunk or high.”
After podcast host Michael Rosenbaum noted that it’s obvious how much Simmons loved and cared about Frehley, he said, “Look, over the years, whether it was up or down, he’d call and ask for my favor, ‘Can you come up and write some songs with me?’ At the height of me telling him, ‘You’re a moron. You’re making horrible life decisions’ and stuff. But he calls, ‘I’m doing a new record. You wanna write some [songs with me]?’ ‘Sure.’ I got in my car, drove out to the desert where he was, and we wrote two new songs.”
Asked if writing songs with Frehley again was an enjoyable process, the bassist said, “Sure. Because Ace was focused. He cared and was committed to him, which is understandable. We all love our stuff. But when it came to being around other guys… And when it came to guitar, nobody touched him. But when it came to songwriting, unfortunately, there were other guys — Paul [Stanley, KISS guitarist/vocalist] and myself — that wrote most of the stuff [in KISS].”
Last December, Simmons apologized for suggesting Ace‘s death was the result of the guitarist’s “bad decisions”.
51 Responses
Dana – I liked what you started the post off with and the comments from the rest of the gang.
Gene and Paul would have been the last ones to talk to Ace about his excesses – partly because Ace blamed them for being too controlling etc.
Ace needed to hit “Rock Bottom” and thankfully he did, even with a few stumbles, and put out some fine music the last decade or so of his life.
Its amazing we had Ace as long as we did, he could have died many times over.
I loved Ace’s guitar playing – instantly recognizable and while maybe not the most technically proficient (I’ll let the guitarists duke that one out) his solos felt like songs within a song….think I remember Ace saying, his solos were hummable – which I get.
From this moment one, I hope all those in the Kiss universe remember Ace fondly and stop with the negativity.
It’s funny the same could be “said” about Hagar, in regard to Van Halen. He is always questioned about what went wrong, and he too, chooses to rehash what has been said many times over the decades.
With Eddie Van Halen, no longer here to respond, it seems as though the responsibility falls on the shoulders of Alex and Wolfgang.
Hagar has also taken shots at Roth over the years, as well.
As a woman, I have always found this type of behavior, very middle school mean girls. Now that most of these men are in their 60s and 70s, it is even worse. There is a mature way to table these discussions, but it seems some of them, just cannot help themselves.
Agree on Hagar, Dana.
That’s one dude that needs to STFU.
Mean Girls turned into Mean Geezers…lol
Dana, no matter how distasteful simmons idiotic statements are regarding Ace its still news and deserves to be on Eddie’s site- I believe you are full of integrity ,and your standards are very very high -and it just amazes me how stupid simmons comes across – especially since they are planning a tribute to Ace in vegas i love when you show and highlight Gene’s lack of character-I hope you and your family are doing well
Hi Robert,
Thank you so much for your kind comments and your inquiry. We are all hanging in, and I hope that you, and your loved ones, are doing fantastically well.
guys….why don’t you stay on point? which is how they treat Peter and Ace, this other stuff is nit picky
Dana hanging in as well
Good to “hear.”
Insightful stuff, truly, but I’m over the Ace and Peter bashing from him and from the media asking him. MOVE ON.