Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley

Ace Frehley had the band’s “most spectacular onstage presence”

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Ace Frehley was 21 in 1972 when his life was changed by a Village Voice ad. “Lead guitarist wanted,” it read, “with flash and ability.” The Bronx native was still living with his parents, and his mom drove him to the audition. But his muscular blues-rock riffing impressed bandleaders Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, and the theatrical glam-metal act Kiss was born. Decked out in platform boots, spandex, and face paint, the foursome (including drummer Peter Criss) were worshiped by teenage boys around the world, selling over 100 million albums. A top concert draw, they lit up arena audiences with fire and smoke, spitting blood and pumping out pop-metal anthems like “Rock and Roll All Nite.” Frehley’s wailing Les Paul solos were a staple of the sound, and he contributed fan favorites “Shock Me,” written after a near electrocution, and “Cold Gin.” That he was anonymous out of his makeup was key, he said in 1977. “Onstage I’m Ace Frehley,” he said, “and offstage I’m a kid from the Bronx.”

Born into a musical family, Paul Daniel Frehley got his first electric guitar at 13 and “never looked back,” said Variety, practicing Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix licks for hours. He started playing in bands in his teens, picking up his nickname for his “ability to score dates.” Once in Kiss, he and his bandmates, inspired by the New York Dolls and Alice Cooper, decided to start “painting their faces and donning outrageous costumes.” After three modest-selling records, they were launched into stardom with 1975’s Alive! and their likenesses “began appearing on jean jackets across the United States.” Dubbed “the Spaceman” for the stars painted on his face, Frehley had the band’s “most spectacular onstage presence,” said The Telegraph (U.K.), “his pyrotechnically rigged guitar shooting out fireworks and lasers to match his blistering solos.”

By the decade’s end, said The Washington Post, Frehley was irritated by the “lack of spontaneity” in the live sets as well as by the relentless marketing—Kiss was everywhere, from action figures to lunch boxes. His prodigious drug use bothered his bandmates, and he left in 1982. In the following decades he played solo and with Frehley’s Comet, and rejoined Kiss in 1996 for a series of lucrative reunion tours. He marveled at having found worldwide fame while “wearing makeup and dressed as a superhero,” he said in 2023. “I still look back on it today and I go, ‘Wow, that was weird.’”