In a new Instagram post, Ace Frehley shared Paul Stanley’s ad looking for a guitarist.
“One call changed everything,” the guitarist wrote in the caption of his post. “That ad led to history. Take a chance this year—you never know what’s waiting on the other side.”
Frehley played in local bands in the early 1970s. In late 1972, his friend Chris Cassone saw this ad for a lead guitarist and showed it to Frehley. Frehley went to 10 East 23rd Street to audition for Stanley, Gene Simmons, and Peter Criss. The band liked his playing.
Ace was in KISS from 1973 to 1982. He talked about his stint with KISS on the Guitar Tales podcast, saying, “We created something that will endure way after we’re all dead and buried. I try to let the negative stuff go and focus on the positive memories.”
“We had a lot of fun. We used to really be very closely knit. And we’d have weekly band meetings and get the stuff off our chest that was bothering us,” the musician further shared.
Frehley said the start of the end came when he saw the negative side of fame. He explained, “Once we became rich, we all became millionaires, everybody started going their own way. Everybody had their own limo. Everybody had their own bodyguard. So, you know, nothing can last forever.”
In another interview, Frehley remembered how the band had to work other jobs to pay their bills in the beginning. He noted, “Paul [Stanley] worked in a sandwich shop. I delivered liquor. I was a postman for six months. We did all sorts of jobs before we started making the big bucks.”
“In the early days, me and Gene [Simmons] used to room together in a Holiday Inn. And then after ‘Alive’ hit we each had our own suites. That’s when the band started, you know, everybody was going in their own direction. And it was kind of the beginning of the end,” the rocker stated.
In 1996, Frehley rejoined KISS for a reunion tour with the original lineup. They recorded the album ‘Psycho Circus.’ Frehley contributed the song ‘Into The Void’ and played on ‘You Wanted The Best.’ After the ‘Farewell Tour’ in 2001, Frehley left and focused on his solo career.
