The former Kiss guitarist on his old bandmates, early life, being sober and getting fit, and his latest solo album.
Heeeey!” says Ace Frehley, by way of introduction. “The Ace is here!” Behind him on the Zoom screen, the room he’s sitting in is illuminated by purple, blue, red and white lights. “Where am I? I’m on a spaceship,” he says with a cackle. “Nah, I’m in my studio. Looks cool, right?”
The irrepressible former Kiss guitarist is on top form, and rightly so. His sizzling new album 10,000 Volts keeps up the late-career hot streak that began with 2009’s Anomaly and continued through 2014’s Space Invader and 2018’s Spaceman, as well as the two-volume Origins covers albums.
We’re talking a couple of weeks after his former band played their last ever show, at Madison Square Garden. “I really don’t think that much about Kiss any more,” he insists, although it becomes evident that this isn’t strictly true. Still, if anyone embodies that band’s original rock’n’roll spirit, it’s the Space Ace.
How are you, Ace?
Better than most days [laughs]. Wait, I have some cough drops in my mouth, I need to get rid of them [leans over and disposes of them].
Your new album is called 10,000 Volts. It’s got songs called Walkin’ On The Moon, Cosmic Heart and Blinded, which is about being ‘blinded by science’. Where does your interest in science and space come from?
My father was an electrical engineer. He designed some of the transformers that are in the rover that’s on the Moon. So my dad’s transformers are on the Moon as we speak. He bought me my first guitar – a cheap, twenty-five-dollar Japanese guitar. Once I hit the E-chord with the volume all the way up on the amp, it was love at first sight; or first hearing or whatever you want to call it.
On this record you worked with Steve Brown, formerly of the hard rock band Trixter. Where did you meet him?
My fiancée hooked me up with him. She said: “You gotta work with Steve.” He came up with this song, and one of the lines was: ‘Walking on the Moon.’ I said: “Steve, come over to my house, rewrite the song and make ‘Walking on the Moon’ the chorus.” And we came up with the song Walking On The Moon. Once we finished that we just kept churning ’em out.
You’ve put out five albums in the past ten years alone. Most people are slowing down at this point in their career. You’re speeding up. Why?
I love to write songs, I love to record. My fiancée’s got me on a strict diet of organic foods. She’s got me working out, lifting weights and doing push-ups. I’m down to a hundred and seventy-five pounds; I’ve lost about forty pounds. I’ve never felt better in my life.
All your recent solo albums have been great. It doesn’t sound like you’re coasting. What’s the secret?
There i
