Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Ace Frehley Remembered By KISS Authors & Journalists [Episode 328]

Transcript

Ace Frehley Remembered By KISS Authors & Journalists [Episode 328] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, welcome back to book don Rock an unexpected
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: episode one that really this is like Ozzy Osbourne really
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: wish we didn't have to do. But this is a
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: look back at the career the life of Ace Frehley
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: who passed away. He fell and his studio hit his
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: head and I remember at one point somebody telling me
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: that he had a stroke and I wondered if that
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: was true. But that went on for a few weeks,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: and then the story came out that he had passed
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: and that it was a result of the fall He
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: hit his head, and I believe there was a brain
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: bleed and he passed away. And there are a lot
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: of people like Eddy Trunk and people that were in
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: the know that had to hold off on this until
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: it became official. But it did not look good for
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: a while. Yeah, wow, this is crazy.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Kiss is the second band on my list of favorite bands,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: right behind Van Halen, Right behind Van Halen. I became
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: a fan nineteen seventy nine. I was seven years old
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and a neighbor down the street from where I grew up,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Tom Scricca. He gave me, give me a bunch of
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Kiss records, and I have him here. He gave me
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: a bunch of Kiss records, and at the top was
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Kiss Alive Too. And yeah, here's love Gun. You know,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: when you're seven years old and you're looking at that,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: that just blows your mind. Here's one I grabbed. How
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: about this unmasked? Yeah that was towards the end of
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: the original era, but here it is. Here's Kiss Alive too.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: And this is the one. I mean, this is the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: same copy. And I remember looking at that first and
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: it was a little bit, you know, seven years old,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: a little bit like, wow, this dude up in the
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: top left there is a little scary and he would
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: go on to become my favorite member of the ban
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Jinge Simmons. But right behind him, second favorite, the Ace
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the Spaceman right there, Ace Frehley. And I remember the first,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the first feeling I got when I opened it up
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: and saw this here we go. That's beautiful right there,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: and I was immediately in. So that was when I
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: became a Kiss fan, instantly looking at that. And then
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I as the eighties came along, I kind of I
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: kind of lost interest, or I didn't. I wasn't as
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: avid of a Kiss fan, but I was still a
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: fan I mean I had a friend who who was
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: buying their cassettes at the time, you know, during the
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: non makeup years when I wasn't there, and so I
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: was still still a fan. In fact, my first ever
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: concert was nineteen eighty nine in New Haven, Connecticut, the
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: old coliseum that was on the Hydro harttur I remember
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: that well. Paul Stanley had the bandage run his waist.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: He had gotten into that car accident I think shortly
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: before that. And but yeah, there was always that wish that,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: oh that's funny, this wasn't me. By the way, somebody
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: put a nose ring on Ace. That must have been time,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: my friends, a nose ring on Ace. Now that would
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: have gotten to as to last, which is which is
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: gonna be my point. I don't think Ace wants anybody
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: to be somber. I think he wants a good He
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: wants us to get a good laugh. Sorry, just knocked
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: the microphone there. So but yeah, so there were two
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: things that I really was hoping for, you know, as
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: as a kid, were Van Halen Rignette reuniting with Dave
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: and Kiss, the original four reuniting with with the Makeup
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: and Kiss. Of course, did it you know they did it.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: They did it first, and they did they got it right.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: It was the original four with makeup. You know, it's
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: great to see Dave back in the band, but as
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: we know, that was without Mike l Anthony. But it
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: was still great. But but Kiss got it right and
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: that union tre I didn't see the initial one, but
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: I did see the one in the late nineties and
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: again in the early two thousands. I say it's it's
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: the best show I've ever seen. Best show. Second behind
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: that would have been the seven Show with Dave and
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Van Halen. With Ace, there was something about him too
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: that was just so.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: He had.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: He had two things about him. He had that rock
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: and roll cool and but he was also hilarious, kind
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: of similar to David Lee Roth where he kind of
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: had that mix of both. And Ace was the kind
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: of guy, you know, the rock and roll cool. It's
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: like nothing seemed to bother him or worry him or
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: phase him, and to the point where that would get
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: him into trouble which would lead to some hilarious stories
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: like driving down the freeway, like going over one hundred
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: miles an hour the wrong way on the freeway. But
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: he had that he always had that same pace with
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: his walk, like everything's cool man, just chill. Never I mean,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: he was playing in front of a stadium full of people,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: especially on the Reunion tour that first night in Detroit,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: and still same Ace, just kind of you know, just
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: walking out there with that cool stride. It was all
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: about rock and roll to him. He got that he
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: was hugely famous, and he got how big it was
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: for the fans, but at the end of the day,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: it was still just it's just let's just go out
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: and play, let's have some fun. That's what I loved
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: about him, And the funny side of him was you know,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: when I first saw that picture of him, looking at
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: that picture and the pictures of Ace in makeup as
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: a kid, not knowing what he looked like or sounded like.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: When I did hear him talk in interviews in the
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: late eighties, mid to late eighties on MTVA, it was
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: so not what I expected, and maybe you guys felt
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: the same way. But I imagine him as this introspective,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: deep thinking, quiet guy who didn't like to talk, and
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: then you find out it's not the case. Ace was.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: You know, he would love to talk, He would love
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: to laugh, joke, talk about music, talk about space star Wars,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: things like that, and of course there's that famous interview
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: that he did, the Tom Snyder interview with the guys
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: in the band. I mean, he was just absolutely hilarious,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: and he had that New York accident and then the
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: voice was a little bit high up is you know,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: he just and he's calling people curly. It was nothing
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: what I expected. And when I worked in radio, I
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: had a coworker. I've worked on the New York Line
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Fairfield County, New York Line. So there was a DJ
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: friend of mine at the station who hung out with
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: as he was friends with a Sean. We called him
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Finster on the air, Sean, and every now and then
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: he'd hang with Ace in the city and then he'd
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: come back and tell me the story that Monday. And
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: it was always great stories. I mean, just Ace was
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: just out of his mind and he did he I
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: remember he telling me a story about helping Ace move.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: And I don't know if this was when he was
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: moving to Florida or he was just moving from somewhere
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: in Connecticut to a from place Connecticut, I don't remember,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: but point being that he said to Sean, he said, hey,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: you know, grab could you grab that cardboard box over
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: there and just you know, throw it in my car
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: And so Sean picks it up and there's the love
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: gun outfit and he's just like, you know, like, Ace,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: this is your love gun outfit. You just throw it
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: in a box. And Ace is just like, yeah, man,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I got plenty of those. It's like to him, just
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: it wasn't that big of a deal. To him, he
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: got how big it was for the fans, which was
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: always cool too because if you look at the clips
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: of him online and he's meeting fans. To me, I
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: think he gets how big it is a moment for
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: the fans. So he loved to put a smile on
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: their face, you know. But for him, it was just like,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: you know, he just he just again he had that way,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: like nothing phased him, nothing stressed him out, or he
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: just didn't. He just didn't operate that way. So he
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: would tell you, Yeah, Sean told me stories about I
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: think Sean was at that famous. There was a story
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: that got out. It was Ace's birthday and Ace was
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: at the mic and he was talking about complaining about
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: kiss and how they don't appreciate me and I'm the
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: guy who had all the biggest hits, and I could
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: write the songs and I played the best. And as
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: he's saying that, Gene Simmons walked in the room with
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: a birthday cake to surprise him, and Jean was just
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: standing there like, Okay, that was Sean was at that
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: birthday event. But anyway, Yeah, one of the greatest guitarists.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: How many guitarists did he influence over the years. How
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: many guitarists today are playing the guitar because they saw Ace.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: You know, it's it's it's endless and the entertainment that
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: he brought. In the early two thousands, when I started
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: to go back and listen to all of the albums
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: again that he was on with Kiss, and then all
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: of these videos started coming out. Go to record conventions
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: and you get the DVD or VHS version of a
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: concert here, a concert there, Anaheim, whatever, Maryland. There were
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: shows and I I was just so into it. I
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: couldn't stop watching them. I couldn't stop listening to Ace
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: and Kiss. I just got into a huge Kiss phase.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Nearly two thousand. It was like I was going back
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: to my roots and I just realized just how amazing
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: of a guitarist. Ace was and songs like Rocket Ride
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: and Parasite, and I mean, it's like, this guy's fucking amazing.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: I love Ace, and here we are now he's gone,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: and losing Eddie van Halen, for me was was devastating,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: even though we knew he wasn't doing well. You know,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: this one, I'd kind of a little bit more braced
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: for these types of things, you know, after Tom Petty
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: passed and Eddie and if we're just seeing it happen
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: a lot so, but yet it is still very sad.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: So those are my thoughts, and what I want to
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: do is share with you some of the thoughts from
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: the people that interviewed Ace, wrote books on kiss worked
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: with Ace. All right, here's one from Brad Tulinski. Great writer,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: great author. He's been on the show a few times,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: written a book on Eddie van Halen called Eruption, wrote
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: another great book on the MC five, and he interviewed
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Ace in the past, as many of these journalists that
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: we're going to hear from today have. And Brad actually
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: he wrote a story on Ace back in ninety three.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: So he shared this story on his Facebook page, and
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: then I shared it on mine. Here is what Brad
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: had to say. He says, Ace Frehley was always cool.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Nothing ever seemed to ruffle his feathers. But the few
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: times I hung out with him, I noticed he quietly
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: sized up the room before getting comfortable. He never lost
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: that bronx instinct. The first time I met him was
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety three for a Guitar World cover story.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: He'd been drummed out of Kiss and was legally barred
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: from wearing a Spaceman makeup. Ironically, he was never more popular.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Every medal and grunge kid at the time was raving
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: about his influence, so we thought it'd be fun to
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: have Dave Sable of skid Row and Diamebag Daryl Pantera
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: with the makeup in tribute. Gene and Paul couldn't sue
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: them for that. Ace was genuinely grateful for the attention
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: at a frustrating moment in his life. During the photo session,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Dime asked Ace to sign his chest, then later had
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: a tattooed it was kind of sweet in the dime
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: It was kind of sweet in a dimebag way. A
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: few weeks later, Ace sent me a personal note and
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: a print of some of his computer art to say thanks.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: It might not sound like much, but in my twenty
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: five years of guitar world, almost no one ever did that.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: But that was Ace. He was cool. He understood that
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: when someone buys you a drink, the least you can
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: do is give them a nod rip, buddy. And here
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: is the cover. There's the cover from ninety three, Kissed Off,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Ace freely tells all plus Diameback, Daryl and Snake Sable
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: pay tribute to King Ace. There it is from ninety three.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: So that was a great post. Now I want to
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: get to some of the clips that were shared, in
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: no particular order really, just let's start with James Campion.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: And James wrote a great book. James been on the
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: podcast before, a great friend of the show. Well, James
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: wrote a great book called Shouted Out Loud, the Story
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: of Kisses Destroyer and the Making of an American Icon.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: So I reached out to James to give his thoughts
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: on the passing of Ace Frehley.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Here it is Hi, this is James Campion, and I'm
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: speaking to you from a hotel room in Nashville, Tennessee.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: It's pretty fitting. Thanks to my friend Eric from the
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: booke Don Rock podcast for asked me to say a
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: few words about the passing of Ace Freeley, who obviously
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: was a great musician and.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: Certainly a character.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: A couple of things I want to say. His passing,
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: of course, for someone of my generation. I'm sixty three now.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: My first Kiss record was Kiss Alive, and I got
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: it when I was thirteen, so that's fifty years ago.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: And when we were kids, I mean, if you were
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: a Kiss fan, you were in. You were all in.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: And Ace was always the coolest and you could always
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: sing his guitar solos. To this day, I could do it,
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: and I told that when I interviewed him in twenty sixteen.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: We spent a little over an hour in a hotel
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: room and it was great. He was clean and sober,
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: and he was working. He had a new album out,
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: and we talked about everything, and I remember telling him
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: I always sing his solos and he wanted to know
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: which ones. He was excited, you know, to hear something
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: like that from a music journalist or just a fan.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: So yeah, his passing for this generation, I tell the
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: story all the time. I have a new book out
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: on Prince called Revolution, and I talk about how I
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: wrote his eulogy for the Aquarium Weekly back in twenty sixteen,
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: And most of that eulogy is me really eutilizing, utilizing, eulogizing.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: I can get that out my twenties, and that's kind
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: of the way it is for a lot of people
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: when a musician of this caliber, from your childhood to
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: your twenties passes, like part of you is gone. So
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: and the last thing I want to say, what Eric
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: asked me to comment on, is Ace's legacy. Anybody who
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: knows how guitar players from the seventies have influenced so
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: many musicians, I mean, Ace is right up there, especially
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: for the grunge era a lot of those musicians. I
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: wrote about it in my book Shouted out Loud by
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: the Way, a book that Ace loved about the Making
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: of Destroyer, about how that whole generation of the early
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: nineties really were influenced greatly by Ace. And a lot
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: of the solos you hear, like on Pearl Jam records
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: and other things are just right from his bag of tricks.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: So Ace freely was a great character, wonderful musician, and
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: he certainly will be missed. So once again, thanks for book.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Don Rock for asking me and allowing me to talk
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: a little bit about Ace Freely, my old Bronx buddy.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: Anytime I always saw me, always said, forget about it.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: We love you Ace Peace.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Okay. Next up we have Martin pop Off. Martin's been
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: on the show so many times I can't even keep count.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: And one of the books he wrote is kiss at
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: fifty for Motor Books. So I reached out to Martin
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: and he did send over this video clip which he
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: ran initially on his YouTube channel, So let's check it out.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Here he is talking about the passing of Ace Frehley.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: Martin pop Off here from the Contrarians.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: It's a sad day.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: We've got to pay tribute to one of our fallen heroes.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Here.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: Ace Freely died at the age of seventy four born
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: April twenty seventh, nineteen fifty one. My birthdays April twenty eight,
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: so the day before. And I always always liked that
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: as well.
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: The thing I.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: Remember about Ace is that he seemed to always be
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: available for us for the press, and you would talk
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: to him, and he was unfiltered, just to he he
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: was always cheerful in interviews. He's got that classic Ace laugh.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: He always puts you at ease. You know. He didn't
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: mythologize kiss so much. You know, he would he would
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: answer your questions patiently on stuff, but he didn't want
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: to make out like like you know, everything they did
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: was a godly situation sort of thing. He just showed up,
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: did his thing and what was his thing. So you know,
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: Ace was uh was raised on all the guitar grades
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: you think of the British Post British Blues boom guys
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: or British Blues boom guys, your your Eric Clapton's and
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck and Jimmy Hendrix and free
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: and all that stuff. Loved a Zeppelin, you know, he
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: he tried and uh and loved the look of and
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: and a lot of different acts is over the years.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: But uh, you know, we remember him with the Gibson
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: Les Paul Starburst. He was a big proponent of the
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Les Paul and he had this really cool lyrical style
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: where he was kind of it was very rhythmic what
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: he did solo wise, but it was also kind of
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: melodic and songful phrasing, a lot of a lot of
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: neat spaces in it. People remembered his his solos. And
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: I can tell you another thing about you know, interviewing
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: a lot of a lot of say, you know, big
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: metal stars, hard rock stars of the eighties, so many
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: of them loved Ason Where and were raised on Ace.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: You think of the Anthrax guys, you think of dimebag Daryl.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: But you know, I I if I, if I worked
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: on a list of this, I could probably come up
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: with twenty people who mentioned Ace as a main, main influence.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: And I've always said this about Kiss in general, that
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: that really there's the second most influential band or inspirational
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: band in all of rock after the Beatles. And I'm
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: just I'm just going on what people tell me about,
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: you know, just being stung by the heavy metal b
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: h so to speak, maybe a destroyer for a lot
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: of people of a certain age kind of thing, or
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: or the a live album, right, you know, just despite
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: despite all his troubles over the years, and uh you know,
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: sometimes it might have been the drugs or the booze
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: talking where. Uh you know, maybe he didn't come off
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: so good to to the fans or on stage or whatever.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: He like I say, he was unfiltered and he kept
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: at it, and he was very apologetic for those years
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: as well. I remember in some interviews I did with him,
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: you can tell there was a change and change in him,
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: and you know, he and he reflected and he worked
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: on his own personality over the years. So that was
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: that was good to see. So sadly gone too soon
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: at the age of seventy four. October sixteenth, twenty twenty five.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: Go listen to some Ace.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Next, we have Susan Messino, who's interviewed so many musicians
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: and she's written some great books as well. On ACDC,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: she has one titled Rock and Roll Fantasy, My Life
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: in Times with ACDC, Van Hilen and Kiss, so she
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: goes back aways with the guys from Kiss. So asked
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: her to share her thoughts on Ace Frehley.
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: Hi, my name is Susan Messino. I am a rock
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: journalist and an author, and I had the pleasure of meeting, interviewing,
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: and partying with Ace Frehley after he played a show
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: here in Madison, Wisconsin in December of nineteen seventy seven.
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: It was a no interviews policy, yet he let me
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: ask him some questions, so I had quotes from my article.
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: He was so funny and didn't care about the rules naturally,
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: and he was an amazing person, very very funny, very kind,
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: and we laughed a lot that night, believe me. And
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: I'm going to miss him. He was an incredible guitar player, singer, songwriter,
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: definitely one of a kind, and I will miss him,
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: as the rest of his family, fans and friends will.
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: God bless you. Ace.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: All right up next to Chris Epting. Chris recently was
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: on the show to talk about all the great books
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: he's written. He's written so many of them, but one
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: of his early books is titled All I Need to
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Know I Learned from Kiss Life Lessons from the Hottest
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Band in the Land. I reached out to Chris to
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: get his thoughts on the passing of aase. Here's what
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: he had.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: Hi.
• 20:00
  Speaker 6: My name is Chris Septing. I'm an author and a
• 20:02
  Speaker 6: music journalist. And of all the people I interviewed over
• 20:05
  Speaker 6: the years, Ace Frehley was always a favorite. I grew
• 20:08
  Speaker 6: up kind of a first generation Kiss fan, Kiss Army member,
• 20:12
  Speaker 6: starting in nineteen seventy five, right when Kiss Alive came out.
• 20:15
  Speaker 6: It was about eleven or twelve years old, and I
• 20:18
  Speaker 6: just I got to know all the guys in Kiss
• 20:21
  Speaker 6: over the years as a journalist, but Ace was always
• 20:24
  Speaker 6: the most unfiltered, the most outrageous, the funniest, and I
• 20:27
  Speaker 6: thought the one who really didn't care what he said
• 20:31
  Speaker 6: in terms of worrying about how others might feel. He
• 20:33
  Speaker 6: was just open and honest and in the moment, depending
• 20:36
  Speaker 6: on what was going on, which is you know, unfortunately
• 20:39
  Speaker 6: not most of what you get, especially today with publicists
• 20:43
  Speaker 6: and handlers and people always very concerned. But a Ace
• 20:46
  Speaker 6: just always cut through everything with that trademark laugh and wit,
• 20:51
  Speaker 6: and I miss him along with the rest of the world.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Now here's one from Steve Roth, front of the podcast,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: senior marketing manager at Motor Books. And Steve's been in
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: the business for a while, the book publishing business, the
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: music book publishing business, but he's also worked in the
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: music business as well, and he has a good story
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: about working with Ace, going back to when Ace had
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: his album Anomaly, and he shared Steve shared the story
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: on Facebook, so I reached out to him and see
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: if he could share this story on video as well.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: So here's what Steve had to say.
• 21:19
  Speaker 7: Hey, Eric, Steve Roth from the DLR cast and another
• 21:22
  Speaker 7: cool rock podcast here, and like seemingly everyone we know
• 21:25
  Speaker 7: really bummed out about the passing of Ace Freely and
• 21:28
  Speaker 7: been thinking a lot about him, and certainly playing a
• 21:31
  Speaker 7: lot of Ace's music and solo stuff, especially playing a
• 21:34
  Speaker 7: lot of kiss stuff and all his solo albums, and
• 21:38
  Speaker 7: I just I got to thinking a lot about Ace,
• 21:40
  Speaker 7: and in particular remembering that Ace was the first member
• 21:44
  Speaker 7: of kiss that I really gravitated to, and I guess
• 21:46
  Speaker 7: you could say he was my favorite member back then,
• 21:49
  Speaker 7: and even before I heard, even before I was cognizant
• 21:53
  Speaker 7: or even really knew much about Kisses music, their look
• 21:57
  Speaker 7: just certainly appealed to me. But Ace's whole look, the space,
• 22:00
  Speaker 7: the space costumes and the makeup, I just fell in
• 22:04
  Speaker 7: love with that and always dug that look far more
• 22:07
  Speaker 7: than I did Jeans or Paul's or Peters. I think
• 22:10
  Speaker 7: maybe just my love of comic books. It just I
• 22:13
  Speaker 7: don't know. That's just hit me in a much different
• 22:15
  Speaker 7: way than any of the other guys did. And Ace
• 22:18
  Speaker 7: to me always seemed like he was such an approachable
• 22:21
  Speaker 7: and seemed like such a really nice guy right and
• 22:24
  Speaker 7: certainly his public persona, but I had the pleasure of
• 22:26
  Speaker 7: spending some time with him. He just always seemed like
• 22:29
  Speaker 7: a down earth, regular guy from the Bronx, right. It
• 22:31
  Speaker 7: certainly sounded like one, and I had the pleasure of
• 22:35
  Speaker 7: spending a little bit of time with Ace back. I
• 22:37
  Speaker 7: worked for the company that put out the Anomaly record.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: I worked for the record label that did.
• 22:41
  Speaker 7: That record back in two thousand and nine, which was
• 22:44
  Speaker 7: his first albums in ten years, since twenty years, sorry,
• 22:48
  Speaker 7: since nineteen eighty nine's trouble Walking, And it was an
• 22:51
  Speaker 7: absolute thrill being a huge Kiss fan and being an
• 22:54
  Speaker 7: eighth reeally fan to be sitting across a conference stable
• 22:56
  Speaker 7: from him while he was playing us songs that would
• 22:59
  Speaker 7: end up on that record, and he was just self
• 23:02
  Speaker 7: effacing and super nice and super enthusiastic. And I had
• 23:06
  Speaker 7: the distinct pleasure of spending a little bit more time
• 23:08
  Speaker 7: with him on the promotional tour for that album, which
• 23:11
  Speaker 7: we did some radio stuff and visited some record stores,
• 23:14
  Speaker 7: and the signings were a blast. He was really funny,
• 23:18
  Speaker 7: just really happy to be doing that and also well,
• 23:20
  Speaker 7: really late, but that's okay. The fans waited and Ace
• 23:25
  Speaker 7: just signed anything and everything and was just so happy
• 23:29
  Speaker 7: and really appreciative, and you could tell he was so happy,
• 23:32
  Speaker 7: and if you remember those interviews from back then, he
• 23:34
  Speaker 7: was just really enthused to get some terrific new music
• 23:37
  Speaker 7: out there in front of the fans again and to
• 23:40
  Speaker 7: go out and play some new music. And he was,
• 23:43
  Speaker 7: like I said, he was very appreciative of our efforts.
• 23:45
  Speaker 7: Called me over at the end of this one in
• 23:46
  Speaker 7: store at this one signing and said, Hey, if you
• 23:48
  Speaker 7: ever need anything, here's my cell phone number, give me
• 23:52
  Speaker 7: a call sometime, to which I was just kind of
• 23:55
  Speaker 7: dumbfounded that he's really would give me a cell phone number.
• 23:58
  Speaker 7: But you know, he thanked me for putting these things
• 24:00
  Speaker 7: together for him, and just was that sort of regular
• 24:04
  Speaker 7: guy where, hey, if you need me to do anything else,
• 24:07
  Speaker 7: here's my cell phone number.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: So you know.
• 24:10
  Speaker 7: The other thing too, is I got to thinking a
• 24:11
  Speaker 7: lot about a awful lot about Ace's impact and influence,
• 24:15
  Speaker 7: and I think he was as influential as Eddie Van
• 24:17
  Speaker 7: Halen was, and Eddie was certainly hugely influential, and a
• 24:22
  Speaker 7: whole generation guitar players that came up through the late
• 24:24
  Speaker 7: seventies in the eighties, certainly he had a massive influence
• 24:28
  Speaker 7: on any number of Sunset strip hair metal bands, the
• 24:31
  Speaker 7: hard rock bands of that era. But I think if
• 24:33
  Speaker 7: you look at really the gen Z folks, the folks
• 24:37
  Speaker 7: that came of age in the late eighties and really
• 24:40
  Speaker 7: their careers blew up in the nineties, namely basically the
• 24:43
  Speaker 7: entire grunge generation and all those grunch bands, all of them,
• 24:48
  Speaker 7: they probably mentioned, all of them were hugely influenced by Ace.
• 24:51
  Speaker 7: They you know, from Pearl Jam to Smashing Pumpkins, to
• 24:56
  Speaker 7: Alison Chains to I mean Stone Temple Pilots, all of
• 24:59
  Speaker 7: those guys. If they haven't mentioned, I'd be shocked if
• 25:02
  Speaker 7: you can find an invention with any of those guys
• 25:03
  Speaker 7: back then where they didn't say that. They were huge
• 25:06
  Speaker 7: Kiss fans and Ace was a huge influence for them,
• 25:11
  Speaker 7: a huge influence on them. And that's why I think
• 25:16
  Speaker 7: he was as influential as onto so many people. I mean,
• 25:18
  Speaker 7: all those people had Kiss Alive. They all said, just
• 25:22
  Speaker 7: about every one of them said their first album they
• 25:24
  Speaker 7: remember getting was Kiss Alive, right, And of course Kiss
• 25:27
  Speaker 7: had come along a little bit before. Kiss was a
• 25:30
  Speaker 7: few years ahead of timing wise ahead of Van Halen.
• 25:35
  Speaker 7: But still, I just think, you know, Ace's guitar playing
• 25:38
  Speaker 7: was super accessible. I think for so many of those people,
• 25:41
  Speaker 7: and I just I love Van Halen, of course. And
• 25:45
  Speaker 7: one of the things I always loved about Ace though,
• 25:46
  Speaker 7: is that was that massively fat tone that he had
• 25:49
  Speaker 7: to those Gibson lest pauls, and I also loved all
• 25:53
  Speaker 7: of his solos kind of give me a warm feeling inside.
• 25:55
  Speaker 7: I always call that kind of descending sort of flourish
• 25:58
  Speaker 7: that he does in the solos, everything from Geez, I mean,
• 26:01
  Speaker 7: if you listen to Deuce his solo Induced to his
• 26:04
  Speaker 7: solo in ten Thousand Volts, the title cut of his
• 26:06
  Speaker 7: last Awesome record, if you hit hear that flow floursh
• 26:09
  Speaker 7: I always called it descending little run the falling downstairs
• 26:13
  Speaker 7: riff because it's just kind of like it feels like
• 26:15
  Speaker 7: he's going to like kind of lose control a little bit,
• 26:18
  Speaker 7: and he doesn't, And it's just all his solos are
• 26:21
  Speaker 7: so memorable. He always played for the song, They always
• 26:24
  Speaker 7: fit the song. It was never about trying to trying
• 26:29
  Speaker 7: to blow anybody away with his guitar playing. He just
• 26:32
  Speaker 7: had that tone in a fantastic sense of rhythm, and
• 26:34
  Speaker 7: his riffing was just was just incredible and one of
• 26:37
  Speaker 7: the things I'm super thankful for, as with Ace in
• 26:40
  Speaker 7: particular is that he provided he put out so much
• 26:44
  Speaker 7: great music the last fifteen years of his life or
• 26:46
  Speaker 7: so right, and certainly he did more in those years
• 26:50
  Speaker 7: than all the members of Kiss, everybody else in Kiss
• 26:54
  Speaker 7: past and present combined.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Did I mean what?
• 26:56
  Speaker 7: Did He put out four or five solo albums plus
• 26:59
  Speaker 7: two of the Oranges Origins records, Volume one and Volume two,
• 27:02
  Speaker 7: and apparently was working on starting to work out a
• 27:05
  Speaker 7: Volume three, I guess before we passed. And all those
• 27:09
  Speaker 7: solo records are great, man, I absolutely love them. And
• 27:13
  Speaker 7: that's the other thing that reminds me. One last point
• 27:16
  Speaker 7: about ACE two is at Ace more than anybody else.
• 27:18
  Speaker 7: And Kiss and Kiss collectively always stayed true to the music.
• 27:21
  Speaker 7: He never went disco, never tried country, never said he
• 27:24
  Speaker 7: wanted to be Billy Corgan and go grunge. He never
• 27:27
  Speaker 7: followed the fads. All of his records just there's a
• 27:31
  Speaker 7: through line, and that is blues based Hendricks inspired late
• 27:35
  Speaker 7: sixties early seventies kick ass rock and roll. And you
• 27:40
  Speaker 7: hear that from from the Freeley's Comet records. Yeah, there
• 27:43
  Speaker 7: was some synthesizer in some of them, some keyboards, but
• 27:45
  Speaker 7: they were of the time.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: But there.
• 27:46
  Speaker 7: You couldn't call them hair metal. You couldn't say he
• 27:48
  Speaker 7: was chasing some sort of friend all the way through
• 27:51
  Speaker 7: to Anomaly, Space Invader, Spaceman ten thousand volts, and certainly
• 27:57
  Speaker 7: when those origins records where he was really paying just
• 27:59
  Speaker 7: great trip. You're doing fantastic cover versions. I mean, I
• 28:02
  Speaker 7: got thirty Days in the whole with Robin Zandern vocals, Killer,
• 28:05
  Speaker 7: what was it? Fire and Water with Paul Stanley singing,
• 28:09
  Speaker 7: just all great stuff and just there's so many reasons
• 28:13
  Speaker 7: while why Ace will be missed and why I'm really
• 28:17
  Speaker 7: sad about his passing, but more than anything else is
• 28:19
  Speaker 7: just the music and that we're never going to be
• 28:23
  Speaker 7: able to see him play live again, and you know,
• 28:25
  Speaker 7: won't know what he'll We'll never know again what he
• 28:28
  Speaker 7: could come up with musically and creatively. So rest in peace,
• 28:33
  Speaker 7: Rest in power, Ace freely man. Am I glad I
• 28:36
  Speaker 7: got to discover so all of your music, man, Thank you.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Another one from Julian Gil Julian doesn't get any better.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: As far as Kiss authors. Julian's written I think close
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: to forty Kiss books. He's amazing, He's got so many
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: books on the tours, on albums, you name it, he's
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: got a book on it. He's got a book on
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: music from the Elder, Crazy Nights, amazing author. I had
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: him on to talk about his book on Aerosmith at
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: one point, I'd love to have him to talk about
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: all his great kiss books. I reached out to Julian.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: He responded with a great tribute to Ace. I asked, basically,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: what are his thoughts on aces passing, any memories of
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: interviewing Ace for his books, and what Ace's legacy is.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Here's what he had to say.
• 29:15
  Speaker 8: What are my thoughts on Ace Fairley's passing. It's still
• 29:19
  Speaker 8: a very raw and difficult situation to feel that I
• 29:26
  Speaker 8: can adequately put it into words. On the show yesterday,
• 29:32
  Speaker 8: I noted that Ace lost his battle with gravity, and
• 29:37
  Speaker 8: that almost seemed flippant, yet ironically, in the back of
• 29:42
  Speaker 8: my head I heard his cackle going into a laugh loop.
• 29:47
  Speaker 8: It's just so tremendously sad at seventy four years old.
• 29:50
  Speaker 8: Now we think of that as not being old. The
• 29:55
  Speaker 8: work that people do into their eighties and longer, especially artists, writers,
• 30:03
  Speaker 8: unfortunately politicians means that old starts much later than it
• 30:10
  Speaker 8: did when we were kids. No everyone was old when
• 30:13
  Speaker 8: you're a kid. So my immediate thoughts are like, wow,
• 30:19
  Speaker 8: one of the founding members of Kiss is now gone
• 30:23
  Speaker 8: at a time when the Candy Center was going to
• 30:26
  Speaker 8: honor that group and that lineup specifically in a meaningful manner.
• 30:33
  Speaker 8: And regardless of what anyone thinks about that honor, I
• 30:37
  Speaker 8: know that it meant a lot to Ace. I'm sitting
• 30:41
  Speaker 8: here just thinking about how I try and frame my thoughts,
• 30:44
  Speaker 8: and again they're whirling around, like like I'm lost in
• 30:50
  Speaker 8: the void still. But it's so sad to think that
• 30:54
  Speaker 8: in the autumn of twenty twenty five, Kiss is essentially
• 30:58
  Speaker 8: back to what it was us in the autumn of
• 31:01
  Speaker 8: nineteen seventy two prior to Ace joining the group. They're
• 31:06
  Speaker 8: a trio again. I would hope in the years that
• 31:09
  Speaker 8: come that there can be more celebration of Kiss and
• 31:13
  Speaker 8: its members, not the sniping, not the negativity, and not
• 31:21
  Speaker 8: lingering on the past. What we're left with is a
• 31:25
  Speaker 8: vivid catalog of music, his exceptional playing and his infectious laugh.
• 31:35
  Speaker 8: And I think, as always happens with anyone's notable passing,
• 31:41
  Speaker 8: lost interviews come to surface things that have been hidden
• 31:47
  Speaker 8: in the midst of time, suddenly they jog someone's memory
• 31:50
  Speaker 8: and they decide that now is an appropriate time to share.
• 31:55
  Speaker 8: So I think Pandora's box has indeed been opened in
• 31:59
  Speaker 8: a way that we're going to learn quite a bit
• 32:01
  Speaker 8: more about Ace. Failely, my interactions with Ace weren't done,
• 32:07
  Speaker 8: and they're left incomplete, which is very sad. But the
• 32:12
  Speaker 8: ones that were complete, notably the interview I did with
• 32:17
  Speaker 8: him for the liner notes for the Argents one in
• 32:21
  Speaker 8: Argents two releases in twenty twenty. It was a reissue
• 32:25
  Speaker 8: for Origins one on Picture Disc leave a very fond
• 32:29
  Speaker 8: memory of the whole process involved of doing those liner
• 32:35
  Speaker 8: notes and interviewing him and reminding him that this wasn't
• 32:39
  Speaker 8: a fan interview or a podcast, that this was an
• 32:41
  Speaker 8: interview for his product, which was strictly related to his product.
• 32:48
  Speaker 8: And I sure got quite a few laughs. I just
• 32:52
  Speaker 8: hearing Ace talk in the Ace voice, just hearing Ace
• 32:56
  Speaker 8: laugh at some of his own stories, but also hearing
• 32:59
  Speaker 8: him be very serious about the music that he was
• 33:03
  Speaker 8: talking about. To hear the passion of what I assumed
• 33:07
  Speaker 8: was a very similar teen Ace in the nineteen sixties
• 33:11
  Speaker 8: when he was learning his craft and learning his trade
• 33:14
  Speaker 8: and he remained a music fan. He remained a fan
• 33:18
  Speaker 8: of a lot of the same music as we all
• 33:20
  Speaker 8: do that when we were growing up, So that passion
• 33:23
  Speaker 8: still burned fiercely for him even into you know, these
• 33:28
  Speaker 8: latter years of creativity. And what a great thing for
• 33:33
  Speaker 8: Ace in a way that he put out a very
• 33:38
  Speaker 8: well received studio album, ten thousand Vaults, that he had
• 33:44
  Speaker 8: kept working in the post Kiss period after two thousand
• 33:48
  Speaker 8: and two, that he had continued to tour probably too much,
• 33:53
  Speaker 8: well into his seventies. And I'm just very grateful that
• 33:58
  Speaker 8: I was able to see him during this final run
• 34:02
  Speaker 8: of shows that he ultimately ended up doing. And that's
• 34:07
  Speaker 8: a reminder to all of us to never put off
• 34:10
  Speaker 8: doing something today, because tomorrow isn't guaranteed. What should be
• 34:15
  Speaker 8: remembered for the most, I mean, his place in rock
• 34:18
  Speaker 8: history is secure. He's part of an iconic group. He
• 34:22
  Speaker 8: wrote riffs that told stories that required feel over technical expertise.
• 34:29
  Speaker 8: He was a blue collar player. He was someone who
• 34:36
  Speaker 8: spoke very well within a limited musical vocabulary, and he
• 34:43
  Speaker 8: was someone who continued to speak through that vocabulary throughout
• 34:48
  Speaker 8: his whole career. So there's a lot of consistency between
• 34:53
  Speaker 8: his first release material and his final release material. When
• 34:58
  Speaker 8: you go back to a live obviously that's going to
• 35:00
  Speaker 8: be you know, the cornerstone of his memory, for his
• 35:06
  Speaker 8: memorial is just that sonic masterpiece of Kiss live in
• 35:11
  Speaker 8: concert at the start of their heyday. If you listen
• 35:15
  Speaker 8: to a live too, Yeah, you listen to Frelie's comments,
• 35:19
  Speaker 8: you listen to anomaly, go back and listen again. Ace
• 35:24
  Speaker 8: has left the planet, but his music has not. And
• 35:28
  Speaker 8: as I always say, when anyone of note in the
• 35:32
  Speaker 8: music industry departs, don't be too sad. Be happy that
• 35:39
  Speaker 8: you are here at the same time as they, and
• 35:43
  Speaker 8: remember that their music is just push play away. Thank you.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: One more tribute from Darren Paltrowitz. He's the host of
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: The Paltrow Cast. He's got some thoughts on the passing
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: of Ace Frehley as well.
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: Hey Eric, it is your friend Darren Paltwittz and the
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: Paltrow Cast of Darren Paltrowitz, the DLR Cast and DLR
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: book How Daily Roth Changed the World. Thank you for
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: letting me get those plugs in. So, the loss of
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: Ace Frehley huge impact on multiple levels. The first thing
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: is that Kiss is and has been such a mainstream thing.
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: I can't think of a lot of artists who would
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: get a crossover movie with Scooby Doo for example, Hello Kitty, Merchandise, etc.
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: So we're talking about a band and a brand that
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: had a global impact and has had a global impact
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: for fifty eighth years.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: But a lot of people.
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: Considered the decline of Kiss the departure of Ace in
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: the early eighties. After Ace left the band, the band
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: wasn't able to really tour the US and most international
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: markets anymore, wasn't having the hits that it used to have.
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: People didn't want the merchandise until Ace came back into
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: the band in the mid nineties. So the revitalization of
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: Kiss was largely about Ace now putting that commercialism into
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: great guitar player influenced generations.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Of guitar players.
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: When you see Rivers Cuomo from Weeza wearing that lightning
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: bulk guitar strap which they mentioned in the song Back
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: to the Shack, which Ace is mentioned in the song
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: in the Garage, clearly an impact of Weezer, and Weezer
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: itself was an influential band, but a lot of the
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: grunge bands of the bands we call grunge, Nirvana, Pearl,
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: Jam Allison, Chains, Soundgarden. They've all talked about Ace being
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: an influence and Kiss being an early influence. If you
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: think about a generation before that, Slash Zack Wilde, John five,
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: who even though he's originally a hairband guy, he's now
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: at his commercial peak now. Either way, Big Ace fan
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: played on some Ace records and so forth, So his
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: guitar playing mattered the visuals of what he did. There
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: was no guitar player who looked like him before that,
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: and definitely a lot of people wanted to play guitar
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: based on just how he looked. In the a lot
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: gatefold vinyl release his solo album, I believe the nineteen
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: seventy eight one was the most successful Kiss solo album
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: by far, and ten thousand vaults which came out within
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: the past few years. That was sort of a revitalization
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: of his solo career. Curious to see what happens with
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: the sessions of the album that he was making at
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: the time of his death. But a couple of other
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: things about Ace that strike me first. I think that
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: he was the funniest member of Kiss. His interviews were great,
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: The Tom Snyder nineteen seventy nine episode never gets old
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: for me. Watch that on YouTube if you've never seen that.
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: As great as Ace was as a guitar player, I
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: don't think the majority of people realize what a talented
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: graphic artist and graphic designer he was. And he was
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: up on computers way before a lot of his peers did.
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: There's a commercial endorsement that he did in the nineteen eighties.
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: I forget the brand of computer, but that kind of
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: kicked off decades of him loving computers and being up
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: on that kind of thing. And another thing to speak
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: of with regard to Ace is I had the pleasure
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: of interviewing him three times. The third time was zoom based.
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: It was on video, and I didn't put out the
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: whole interview. There are certain things he said that were
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: off the record before we went on the record, and
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: I'm going to keep those close. But the reason I
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: mentioned that is because he's very honest. I think that
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: Ace was tired of answering questions along the lines of
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: when did you start playing guitar, why did you start
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: playing guitar, who were your influences, why did you leave
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: kiss those kinds of things. Bored him to tears, but
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: I think that he was up on new bands, new technology.
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: He was up on things, and people didn't always ask
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: him about those things. So I really enjoy talking to
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: him all three of those times. I found it to
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: be very pleasant, more pleasant than the majority of people
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: at his level. When I speak with him, he didn't
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: seem like he was phoning it in. So if I
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: recap everything, he influenced generations of people, I love the music.
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: All these years later. He was really nice to me,
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: and I look forward to what comes out from the
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: sessions of that last album that he was making at
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: the time of his passing. Condolences to his friends and family,
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: and thank you for fiftyish years of great art.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: Ace. So those are some of the thoughts from some authors, journalists,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: people in the business who worked with Ace, knew him,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: wrote about him, and the guy was one of a kind.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: You know, when they say they broke the mold, these
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: are the types of people that they're referring to when
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: they came up with that phrase. They broke the mold
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: when they made Ace Frehley. Ace is going to be
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: around forever, through his music, through the videos, to all
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: the funny moments that he had when the guy was
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: one of a kind, no doubt. So if you want
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: to honor Ace, just remember the laughs, Remember the great
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: music that he created. Kick ass guitarist, play kiss the fans,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: celebrate the music, celebrate the man, the hilarious stories, you know,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: all the great guitar work that he's done over the
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: years with kiss solo. Thoughts going out to his family.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: He has a daughter. I believe her name is Monique,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: So thoughts going out to her. And also make sure
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: you pick up a copy of Ace's book. I almost
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: forgot to mention this book. He put out No Regrets,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: and it's got some great stories in there. And he
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: did talk about he wanted to put out another book
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: because he had more stories to tell. Maybe somebody else
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: will be able to do it on his behalf. We'll see,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: but that's one worth getting. So Ace, God bless you man.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: I hope you're rocking in heaven. You were the shit.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Like I said, you had that rock and roll, cool,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: funny as hell. There will be no one like you,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: no one before you, and nobody will be like you
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: from this point on. Ace Frehley, rest in peace. See
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: you guys,