Ace Frehley, who has died aged 74, was the lead guitarist of Kiss, the glam metal rockers as famous for their warpaint as their music; Frehley’s starry maquillage led to the nicknames “Space Ace” and “the Spaceman”, and he had the most spectacular onstage presence of any of the band, his pyrotechnically rigged guitar shooting out fireworks and lasers to match his blistering solos.
Kiss liked to refer to themselves as “the heavy metal Beatles”, and Frehley added a shot of gritty blues to the mix; he also designed the band’s famous lightning-bolt logo. The Telegraph attended their Hammersmith Odeon gig in 1976 and commended his “aggressive lead guitar”, also noting: “Smoke bombs ignited, seven Black Mass-like candles burned throughout and the music tore from a wall of speakers with the relentless fury of a tornado.”
Paul Daniel Frehley was born in the Bronx, New York, the youngest of three children, on April 27 1951; his father, Carl, was an electrical engineer while his mother Esther, née Hecht, looked after the family. When he was given a guitar for Christmas in 1964 in a fruitless attempt to keep him on the straight and narrow he set about mastering it by learning his favourite solos note by note.
He played with local bands in his teens and early 20s; a drummer in one of them christened him “Ace” for his ability to set up him up with hot dates. But in 1972 he was still living at home when he answered an ad in the Village Voice: “Lead guitarist wanted with flash and ability.”
Frehley in 1994 at Electric Ladyland Studios in New York – Steve Eichner/WireImage
It had been placed by Gene Simmons (bass), Paul Stanley (rhythm guitar) and Peter Criss (drums), and the new band, soon called Kiss, rapidly forged their unique style – inspired visually by Japanese kabuki and musically by Alice Cooper and the New York Dolls – and played their first gig in January 1973.
A year later they released their self-titled debut album, which eventually went gold and included Frehley’s first credited composition, Cold Gin, which Simmons sang. The critics were sniffy but the band built up a devoted following known as “the Kiss Army” and began selling records by the million.
On the band’s sixth album Love Gun (1977), Frehley got his first lead vocal, on Shock Me, his song about being electrocuted on stage in Florida. He released his first solo album the following year, on the day each Kiss member did likewise; his cover of New York Groove, by the British glam band Hello – a meaty improvement on the original – remains the only solo Kiss track to reach the US Top 20, and is played at Citi Field in Queens after every victory by the New York Mets baseball team.
But Frehley became unhappy with life in Kiss – bridling, he later said, at the rampant commercialism: “There were Kiss lunchboxes, Kiss action figures, Kiss make-up kits, Kiss dolls. You name it, we sold it.”
Kiss in 1975, l-r, Frehley, Peter Criss, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons – Steve Morley/Redferns
He also had the usual substance issues, he recalled: “Alcohol and drugs were my constant companion, my best friend – and worst enemy.” In the authorised 2003 Kiss biography Kiss: Behind the Mask, Simmons, a lifelong teetotaller, concurred: “Ace’s judgments have been clouded since the beginning, and that’s being kind.”
He left in 1982 and formed Frehley’s Comet, who released a couple of albums, one of which scraped into the US Top 50. In 1995 Kiss reconvened for MTV Unplugged; the “Alive/Worldwide” tour (1996) followed, and the Psycho Circus album (1998), though Frehley played on only three tracks. He quit after playing with the band at the closing ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
In 2006 he gave up alcohol, encouraged by his daughter Monique – and, he told an interviewer, “after 10 car accidents”.
In 2014 he was inducted with Kiss into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He last played with the band in 2018 on one of their “Kiss Kruises”, but he soon fell out with Simmons again.
A few weeks before his death he had cancelled tour dates because of “ongoing medical issues”, having reportedly suffered a fall.
He married Jeanette Trerotola in 1976; they had a daughter, Monique, and separated in the 1980s, though they never divorced. His relationship with his fiancée Lara Cove ended earlier this year.
Ace Frehley, born April 27 1951, died October 16 2025