Ace Frehley, the unique lead guitarist and founding member of the glam rock band Kiss, died on Thursday, his household and agent mentioned. He was 74.
Frehley died peacefully surrounded by household in Morristown, New Jersey, following a latest fall, his agent advised The Related Press.
Members of the family mentioned in an announcement to AP that they’re “utterly devastated and heartbroken” however will cherish his laughter and have fun the kindness he bestowed upon others.
Frehley’s former Kiss bandmates, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, mentioned in an announcement they had been “devastated” by Frehley’s passing.
“He was a vital and irreplaceable rock soldier throughout a few of the most formative foundational chapters of the band and its historical past,” the 2 mentioned. “He’s and can all the time be part of KISS’s legacy. Our ideas are with Jeanette, Monique and all those that liked him, together with our followers all over the world.”
Frehley is the primary dying among the many 4 founding members.
Frehley was recovering from a “minor fall” that pressured him to cancel a scheduled efficiency in late September, his tour supervisor, John Ostrosky, also called John Ostronomy, mentioned in a Facebook post final month addressed to followers. Docs suggested Frehley to not journey following his fall, Ostrosky mentioned.
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Born in 1951 within the Bronx, Frehley grew up surrounded by music and obtained his first electrical guitar as a Christmas current in 1964. Earlier than becoming a member of Kiss, he performed in native bands round New York Metropolis and was a roadie for Jimi Hendrix at age 18.
Frehley co-founded Kiss in 1973 alongside Stanley, Simmons and Peter Criss. He performed on lots of Kiss’ basic albums, together with “Destroyer,” “Rock and Roll Over” and “Love Gun.” At present, Kiss has extra gold albums than another American band and has sold more than 100 million records worldwide.
Kiss, whose hits embody “Rock and Roll All Nite” and “Detroit Rock Metropolis,” was recognized for its intense stage reveals, which included fireworks, smoke and eruptions of pretend blood carried out by band members in black-and-white painted faces, platform boots and black wigs.
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Band members took on the personas of comedian book-style characters — Frehley was generally known as “Area Ace” and the “Spaceman.” The New York-born entertainer usually experimented with pyrotechnics, making his guitars glow, emit smoke and shoot rockets from the headstock.
The band was extraordinarily fashionable, particularly within the mid-Seventies, promoting tens of thousands and thousands of albums and licensing its iconic look to promote quite a few merchandise. “Beth” was its greatest business hit within the U.S., peaking at No. 7 on the Billboard Prime 100 in 1976.
Frehley later launched his first solo album, “Ace Frehley,” in 1978, and his track “New York Groove” shortly grew to become successful. Frehley ceaselessly feuded with Stanley and Simmons by the years and left Kiss in 1982 to kind the band Frehley’s Comet and later continued recording below his personal identify.
In 1996, Frehley rejoined Kiss for his or her 1996 reunion tour however left once more within the early 2000s. The band continued with substitute members sporting the Frehley and Criss make-up and costumes. Kiss carried out a farewell tour in 2023.
When the unique 4 entered the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, a dispute scrapped plans for them to carry out. Simmons and Stanley objected to Criss and Frehley being inducted as an alternative of then-guitarist Tommy Thayer and then-drummer Eric Singer.
Simmons advised Rolling Stone journal that 12 months that Frehley and Criss “now not should put on the paint.” “The make-up is earned,” he added. “Simply being there at the start isn’t sufficient.”
Frehley and Kiss additionally had an enormous affect on the glammy fashion of Nineteen Eighties so-called hair metallic bands, together with Mötley Crüe and Poison.
“Ace, my brother, I absolutely can not thanks sufficient for the years of nice music, the various festivals we have carried out collectively and your lead guitar on Nothing However A Good Time,” Poison entrance man Bret Michaels wrote Thursday on Instagram.
Because the Kennedy Heart’s new chair, President Trump named Kiss as one in every of this 12 months’s honorees.
In 2024, the band offered its catalog, model identify and mental property to Swedish firm Pophouse Leisure Group in a deal estimated to be greater than $300 million.
