Listen to the Ace Frehley interview

Ace Frehley never took a guitar lesson and can’t read a note of music. But in 10 years with Kiss (1972-’82), he earned his reputation as the hard-rock guitarists’ favorite.

From Pearl Jam to Garth Brooks, many of today’s acts grew up as Kiss fans. Most guitarists were Ace Frehley devotees.

“There’s a lot of people that come up to me and tell me if it wasn’t for me, they would have never picked up the guitar,” he says in a telephone interview from his home in New York. “If I knew that was going to be the case, I probably would have practiced a little more.” He laughs.

Kiss made Frehley famous – and he helped do the same for the group. In the 1970s, Kiss combined chest-thumping rock ‘n’ roll with horror-style stage antics to become one of the biggest-selling bands in the world.

Life has been less kind to Frehley since then, and he admits it’s largely his fault. He made three solo albums after leaving Kiss; none has sold particularly well. He’s toured regularly, but he’s still at the club level, including a show tonight at the Vogue. (Tickets are $10.)

An alcohol problem

“My reputation hasn’t been that great,” he says in a way that’s both conciliatory and proud. “Let’s just say I’m the Keith Richards of rock ‘n’ roll in America.”

Frehley chuckles when he compares himself to the Rolling Stones guitarist. Frehley’s problem was alcohol. He loved to drink and rarely went onstage sober.

While Kiss guitarist Paul Stanley and bassist Gene Simmons fulfilled their obligations – writing songs, holding up the performances and plotting the band’s future – Frehley lived the stereotypical rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle.

Although he didn’t drink himself out of Kiss, that was a contributing factor. In an August 1993 interview with Guitar World magazine, he acknowledged being an obnoxious drunk: “Every time I have some drunk slobbering all over me now, I feel like it’s God’s way of punishing me for all the times I got drunk around Paul and Gene.”

But Frehley had other problems with Kiss. He began to despise the group’s nightly makeup ritual – painting on the face of his silver-eyed spaceman character – and the feeling that theatrics took precedence over music.

Frehley liked spontaneity; Stanley and Simmons wanted rehearsal and planning. Frehley didn’t write many songs, but he didn’t like what  Stanley and Simmons were writing. When drummer Peter Criss left the band, Frehley says it was almost Stanley and Simmons against him. Invariably, he lost.

What started out as a friendship degenerated into the band members tolerating each other. In the end, they communicated through lawyers. Frehley says he wound up with a cash settlement and some royalties, but Stanley and Simmons own the band’s name and Frehley’s image in Kiss’ infamous makeup.

They still make Kiss T-shirts with Frehley’s picture.

“I just think it perpetuates the myth of the group,” he says “If they’re putting my face on T-shirts, obviously they’re doing it for a reason. And I think it begins with the letter `m’ and ends with the letter `y.’

Meaning, of course, money. They may own his face, but Frehley argues that without him, Kiss underwent a “musical vasectomy.” The band is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, but Kiss has never regained the stature it had with Frehley.

Still, Frehley speaks highly of his successor, Bruce Kulick.

“Technically, he’s probably better than me, but so are a lot of other guitar players,” Frehley says. “But when you play, there’s something more than technicality that people judge musicians by. It’s emotion. It’s not how fast you can play, It’s how you play. “Some guy can play a hundred notes in a four-bar solo, whereas one guy can play five notes and the solo with the five notes sounds better. Why? Because it has feeling. I think some of the best solos are solos you can hum. It’s hard to hum 32nd notes.”

Looking back now, Frehley says he thinks of his experiences as “a learning process.” “I don’t regret anything I’ve done in my life for the most part,” he says. “You live and you learn. I’ve learned that’s not the road I should take at this point in my life.

“When you’re in your 20s, maybe you should experiment with drugs and alcohol. I don’t know. I don’t like to preach, I don’t like to tell people not to drink or not to take drugs. All I know is, for me right now, they don’t work, so I don’t do them.”

He says he’s been sober for a year. Counseling, he says, was the key. “I just turned 43 April 27, and it’s nice to wake up without a hangover.”

The other reason he cleaned up was his 13-year-old daughter, Monique.

“How can I tell her not to drink beer if I’m getting drunk on beer every day?” he says. “That just doesn’t flush. I’m trying to set a sober example so my daughter, hopefully, will turn out a respectable young lady.”

Frehley’s currently looking for a record deal for his next solo album, but his reputation has hurt. He says no one has said they think he might be too much trouble, but “even though I’ve been sober for a year, a lot of people don’t believe it.”

He says the problem he has is being a solo artist – that is, a player backed by three hired guns. While just about everyone has heard of Frehley, no one knows his band – guitarist Richie Scarlet, bassist Saul Zonana and drummer Steve Werner.

He boasts that “we play Kiss songs better than Kiss plays Kiss songs,” and he’ll attempt to prove that tonight in a set that’s likely to include Detroit Rock City, Deuce, Cold Gin, Parasite and Strange Ways.

A rekindled relationship?

And what is his relationship with his old mates?

Frehley says he’s good friends with ex-Kiss drummer Criss and just finished three solos for Criss’ forthcoming solo album. His relationship with Kiss mainstays Stanley and Simmons is confused. 

Frehley alternates from sounding bitter to saying he’d rejoin Kiss “if it was offered to me in the proper way and it was a fair deal.”

Their most recent contact was a lawyer-initiated conference call. “We kind of buried the hatchet, if you want to call it that,” he says. “It was a nice phone call. I apologized for quitting the group, and Gene said to me, `Wow, you sound different.’ I said, `Well, that’s because I’m not drunk.’ It was a nice phone call. Who knows what’ll happen in the future?”