ACE FREHLEY: ‘When PETER CRISS Left KISS, I Realized I Had Lost All My Power In The Band’
February 23, 2024
In a new interview with The Rock Experience With Mike Brunn, original KISS guitarist Ace Frehley was asked if he thinks it was necessary for him to leave the band in order to achieve the sobriety that he has now maintained for over 17 years. Ace responded: “It’s a lot easier being sober away from those guys. They know how to push my buttons, and we don’t always see eye to eye on everything. But once Peter [Criss, original KISS drummer] left the band, Paul [Stanley, KISS frontman] and Gene [Simmons, KISS bassist/vocalist] always overrode my point of view.”
He continued: “When Peter was in the band, it was a democratic group. And I didn’t even realize it, but when Peter left, I realized I had lost all my power in the band because pretty much Paul and Gene are workaholics and like to do things their way. So, if I don’t like the way something is happening, I get outvoted. I was dead set against ‘The Elder’ [KISS‘s controversial 1981 LP ‘Music From ‘The Elder’]; I didn’t think it was the right album for the right time. It’s not a bad record; I don’t think our fans were expecting a record like that. And I kept telling him during the recording process, I said, ‘I think it’s a big mistake.’ And, of course, it bombed. Because I’m the kind of guy that has this feeling of — I’m a street kid, and I have a sense of what kids wanna hear. And that’s why I think this new album is gonna be successful.”
Last month, Ace spoke to Rock Candy magazine about why he never made it on stage one last time with KISS for their final show at Madison Square Garden last December after last leaving the band back in 2002.
“Fans would constantly reach out to me and say, ‘Ace, please come back to the band,'” Frehley explained. “So the fans were and are my primary motivators, and I want them to know that I did try, but I couldn’t make it happen. They never asked me.”
Frehley dismissed the idea that his well-documented troubles with drugs and alcohol could ever have been a reason for Simmons and Stanley not reaching out to him.
“I’m sober, and all my friends and associates will tell you as much,” he stated categorically. “I got to the point in life where drugs and alcohol had taken me over, and I’m just so happy to be away from all that.”
Despite the much-reported rifts with Simmons and Stanley over many years, nevertheless Frehley insisted that he still had affection for both of them.
“I want people to know that I do love Paul and Gene,” he said. “I wish things would have been different, but it wasn’t to be…” Nor does Frehley hold any animosity towards his replacement Tommy Thayer.
“He’s a good guy and deserves a break,” Ace said. “He’s not me, but he was never going to be me. In a lot of ways, his task was impossible.”