Ace Frehley (20/08/2014)
Ace Frehley. One of the most recognizable names in rock music, from his tenure in the legendary KISS to the respect he commands as a solo artist, there aren’t many musicians in the world who are still so well recognized this late in their careers.
The inspiration behind his new album Space Invaders was based on his desire to better himself and his music; he states that: “I wanted to top my last album Anomaly, some of the things the fans said about it was it could’ve had more guitar work, some of the songs could’ve been heavier. So with that in mind, and also trying to recapture some of the moments from my ’78 solo album, which many fans cite as their favourite Ace record. With that in mind I forged forward and started tracking last July, and it took about ten months to complete and I’m very happy with the end result.”
The recording process was anything but traditional however as many songs were written down to the wire. “The album’s a surprise for me as well because I didn’t know all these songs were going to come together because most of them were written during the recording process. In fact, ‘Space Invader’ the title track and ‘Past The Milky Way’ were written in the last two weeks of mixing. I don’t have a formula, sometimes it starts off with a musical riff, and sometimes I’ll come up with a catchy lyric line that I put music to, a combination of all that stuff. Some of the variables when I write, what comes into play is what instrument I’m writing on. Like, ‘Inside The Vortex’ is a heavy riff song, which I ended up writing on a bass guitar, you can’t play chords on a bass; it came up in the same way with ‘Immortal Pleasures’, as that was written on an acoustic, so on and so forth. But I like to use different instruments sometimes because I end up coming up with variable material.”
Frehley has never taken a lesson though, but is there a chance that he’d ever give up guitar as his favourite instrument? “No, guitar will always be my main instrument even though I never took a lesson. I think the most important thing is if you have talent and you follow through with it; I’m sure lessons could be helpful, I just never feel the need to take them. I grew up in a musical family, the youngest of three kids, I was surrounded by music my whole life and I sung in a church choir. I had a lot of music around me so I kind of got it by osmosis, just by being there *laughs*. When I hit 11 and 12, and listening to rock and roll, I just picked up my brother’s acoustic guitar and started figuring out chords and the rest is history!”
After mentioning his brother’s acoustic, and since Ace is a well known Gibson aficionado, asking him about his favourite guitar model at this point in time was a no brainer. It turns out that the answer hasn’t changed for years since it’s his “Ace Frehley AFS Cherry Sunburst. I still perform with that live and it is still my favourite guitar; I got several Les Paul standards that I use in the studio that are very valuable that I wouldn’t take on the road with me. My AFS 002 is my favourite touring guitar.”
Onto the state of the industry at the moment, the possibility of music piracy derailing album success doesn’t seem to faze Ace as he doesn’t “get involved with that; I leave that up to my manager. I just try to make the best product possible and leave it up to the record company and management to find the best way to get it to the fans. I’m a firm believer in not getting involved in politics, I never thought music and politics mix.”
Of course the topic of KISS had to come up in the conversation; without referencing his most famous role, it would be like questioning Paul McCartney entirely on his solo success. A native of New York, of course Frehley’s best memory of course involves the Big Apple. “People ask me that all the time, what’s a landmark memory? I usually bring up growing up in New York, it was the weekend we did three nights at Madison Square Garden sold out. That was a special weekend and a big highlight in our career. So that’s always the first thing that comes to mind. Probably another highlight was when we rejoined and did the reunion tour, we sold out a stadium in Detroit in 48 minutes or something like that; those highlights are very memorable to me.”
The infamous Hall of Fame debacle was an unavoidable topic as well, but Ace is quick to state that the media was responsible for the majority of the drama as “there wasn’t a feud, Paul and Gene called me on a conference call a week after we got the news and they congratulated me and we exchanged pleasantries. It was unfortunate though that even though the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and myself and Peter Criss wanted to perform, Paul and Gene opted not to, I think it was a mistake; after 40 years you can’t even give the fans 15 minutes? But you know, it was out of my hands at that point. [But] I mean we speak to each other from time to time, somehow the press makes out that we hate each other and that’s really not the case. When we all got together to receive our Hall of Fame induction awards, there were no bad vibes. Since then I’ve called Gene, exchanged emails with him on several occasions, I called him up a few months ago and we were reminiscing about the 70’s, we’re all on speaking terms. Paul and Gene just decided to go in a different direction, and I’ve gone in another. But who knows what the future will bring, I’m the kind of person that says never say never.”
For someone who’s been in Rock and Roll for 40 years, it’s seemingly impossible to ask him any question that hasn’t been asked before. When asked about the Spaceman image, Ace can’t imagine being anyone else. “The Spaceman image was a natural extension of my personality, you know I grew up loving sci-fi and science, astronomy. I remember sitting in class when we landed on the moon, supposedly *laughs*, the jury’s out on that, but space has always been a fascination for me, space travel, astronomy. I have a few telescopes that I’ve purchased over the years, some nights I’ll go out to the desert and look at the stars and the planets. It’s just something that I’ve always loved; in school my two favourite subjects were art and science. I’ve pretty much been asked every question at this point *laughs*. I’m still waiting for someone to come up with a new question. I’ve written a book that was number 10 New York times bestseller, hopefully this album’s gonna take off like I hope it will. I’m really chomping at the bit to hear the reaction from the fans because up to this point I’ve only heard stuff from reviewers. But ultimately it’s up to the fans.”
But with the current state of pop domination, Ace is nonplussed since he spends his downtime away from both visual and aural media. “I have to be honest with you, there isn’t really a heavy hard rock band that has come out in recent times that I’ve got really excited about. You’ve got to understand, when I grew up as a teenager you had groups like Led Zeppelin, Jimi Henrix Experience, The Who, Cream you know; The Beatles and The Stones. It just doesn’t seem like there are that many bands coming out that are that original.[…]I’m pretty much out of the loop with current music; I rarely listen to the radio, I have to be honest I don’t even watch TV. For the last year I’ve locked myself up in the studio trying to make the best record I could, and hopefully I succeeded and hopefully the fans are gonna like it. So far the reviews have all been overwhelmingly positive, but I need to hear it from the fans to cement it in my mind.”
Finally, without TV and Radio, what’s a famous rockstar to do? Maybe return to Australia? “I drive my jaguar, I go to Las Vegas and gamble, I gamble in a lot of casinos. You know, go to the beach, ride my bicycle in the park. Me and my fiancé Rachel love to travel, a few years back we drove cross country a few thousand miles from Florida to Los Angeles and the whole process took us a month and we stopped at all these different places. Places I’d never been to, even though I’ve toured the US for 40 years, but we ended up stopping at Mount Rushmore, Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon; places I’d always wanted to visit but never really got there. I’ve already spoken to the record company down there [in Australia] and they’re real excited about bringing me back and I think if the album takes off like I hope it will, I’ll probably be in Australia sometime early next year.”
Jonty Simmons
Full Ace Frehley Tour Dates:
Tuesday 21st April TOWNSVILLE Civic Theatre
Friday 24th April WELLINGTON James Cabaret
Saturday 25th April AUCKLAND The Studio
Wednesday 29th April BRISBANE Tivoli Theatre
Thursday 30th April SYDNEY Metro Theatre
Friday 1st May HOBART Westpoint Showroom
Saturday 2nd May MELBOURNE Forum Theatre
Wednesday 6th May ADELAIDE The Gov
Thursday 7th May PERTH Astor Theatre
The inspiration behind his new album Space Invaders was based on his desire to better himself and his music; he states that: “I wanted to top my last album Anomaly, some of the things the fans said about it was it could’ve had more guitar work, some of the songs could’ve been heavier. So with that in mind, and also trying to recapture some of the moments from my ’78 solo album, which many fans cite as their favourite Ace record. With that in mind I forged forward and started tracking last July, and it took about ten months to complete and I’m very happy with the end result.”
The recording process was anything but traditional however as many songs were written down to the wire. “The album’s a surprise for me as well because I didn’t know all these songs were going to come together because most of them were written during the recording process. In fact, ‘Space Invader’ the title track and ‘Past The Milky Way’ were written in the last two weeks of mixing. I don’t have a formula, sometimes it starts off with a musical riff, and sometimes I’ll come up with a catchy lyric line that I put music to, a combination of all that stuff. Some of the variables when I write, what comes into play is what instrument I’m writing on. Like, ‘Inside The Vortex’ is a heavy riff song, which I ended up writing on a bass guitar, you can’t play chords on a bass; it came up in the same way with ‘Immortal Pleasures’, as that was written on an acoustic, so on and so forth. But I like to use different instruments sometimes because I end up coming up with variable material.”
Frehley has never taken a lesson though, but is there a chance that he’d ever give up guitar as his favourite instrument? “No, guitar will always be my main instrument even though I never took a lesson. I think the most important thing is if you have talent and you follow through with it; I’m sure lessons could be helpful, I just never feel the need to take them. I grew up in a musical family, the youngest of three kids, I was surrounded by music my whole life and I sung in a church choir. I had a lot of music around me so I kind of got it by osmosis, just by being there *laughs*. When I hit 11 and 12, and listening to rock and roll, I just picked up my brother’s acoustic guitar and started figuring out chords and the rest is history!”
After mentioning his brother’s acoustic, and since Ace is a well known Gibson aficionado, asking him about his favourite guitar model at this point in time was a no brainer. It turns out that the answer hasn’t changed for years since it’s his “Ace Frehley AFS Cherry Sunburst. I still perform with that live and it is still my favourite guitar; I got several Les Paul standards that I use in the studio that are very valuable that I wouldn’t take on the road with me. My AFS 002 is my favourite touring guitar.”
Onto the state of the industry at the moment, the possibility of music piracy derailing album success doesn’t seem to faze Ace as he doesn’t “get involved with that; I leave that up to my manager. I just try to make the best product possible and leave it up to the record company and management to find the best way to get it to the fans. I’m a firm believer in not getting involved in politics, I never thought music and politics mix.”
Of course the topic of KISS had to come up in the conversation; without referencing his most famous role, it would be like questioning Paul McCartney entirely on his solo success. A native of New York, of course Frehley’s best memory of course involves the Big Apple. “People ask me that all the time, what’s a landmark memory? I usually bring up growing up in New York, it was the weekend we did three nights at Madison Square Garden sold out. That was a special weekend and a big highlight in our career. So that’s always the first thing that comes to mind. Probably another highlight was when we rejoined and did the reunion tour, we sold out a stadium in Detroit in 48 minutes or something like that; those highlights are very memorable to me.”
The infamous Hall of Fame debacle was an unavoidable topic as well, but Ace is quick to state that the media was responsible for the majority of the drama as “there wasn’t a feud, Paul and Gene called me on a conference call a week after we got the news and they congratulated me and we exchanged pleasantries. It was unfortunate though that even though the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and myself and Peter Criss wanted to perform, Paul and Gene opted not to, I think it was a mistake; after 40 years you can’t even give the fans 15 minutes? But you know, it was out of my hands at that point. [But] I mean we speak to each other from time to time, somehow the press makes out that we hate each other and that’s really not the case. When we all got together to receive our Hall of Fame induction awards, there were no bad vibes. Since then I’ve called Gene, exchanged emails with him on several occasions, I called him up a few months ago and we were reminiscing about the 70’s, we’re all on speaking terms. Paul and Gene just decided to go in a different direction, and I’ve gone in another. But who knows what the future will bring, I’m the kind of person that says never say never.”
For someone who’s been in Rock and Roll for 40 years, it’s seemingly impossible to ask him any question that hasn’t been asked before. When asked about the Spaceman image, Ace can’t imagine being anyone else. “The Spaceman image was a natural extension of my personality, you know I grew up loving sci-fi and science, astronomy. I remember sitting in class when we landed on the moon, supposedly *laughs*, the jury’s out on that, but space has always been a fascination for me, space travel, astronomy. I have a few telescopes that I’ve purchased over the years, some nights I’ll go out to the desert and look at the stars and the planets. It’s just something that I’ve always loved; in school my two favourite subjects were art and science. I’ve pretty much been asked every question at this point *laughs*. I’m still waiting for someone to come up with a new question. I’ve written a book that was number 10 New York times bestseller, hopefully this album’s gonna take off like I hope it will. I’m really chomping at the bit to hear the reaction from the fans because up to this point I’ve only heard stuff from reviewers. But ultimately it’s up to the fans.”
But with the current state of pop domination, Ace is nonplussed since he spends his downtime away from both visual and aural media. “I have to be honest with you, there isn’t really a heavy hard rock band that has come out in recent times that I’ve got really excited about. You’ve got to understand, when I grew up as a teenager you had groups like Led Zeppelin, Jimi Henrix Experience, The Who, Cream you know; The Beatles and The Stones. It just doesn’t seem like there are that many bands coming out that are that original.[…]I’m pretty much out of the loop with current music; I rarely listen to the radio, I have to be honest I don’t even watch TV. For the last year I’ve locked myself up in the studio trying to make the best record I could, and hopefully I succeeded and hopefully the fans are gonna like it. So far the reviews have all been overwhelmingly positive, but I need to hear it from the fans to cement it in my mind.”
Finally, without TV and Radio, what’s a famous rockstar to do? Maybe return to Australia? “I drive my jaguar, I go to Las Vegas and gamble, I gamble in a lot of casinos. You know, go to the beach, ride my bicycle in the park. Me and my fiancé Rachel love to travel, a few years back we drove cross country a few thousand miles from Florida to Los Angeles and the whole process took us a month and we stopped at all these different places. Places I’d never been to, even though I’ve toured the US for 40 years, but we ended up stopping at Mount Rushmore, Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon; places I’d always wanted to visit but never really got there. I’ve already spoken to the record company down there [in Australia] and they’re real excited about bringing me back and I think if the album takes off like I hope it will, I’ll probably be in Australia sometime early next year.”
Jonty Simmons
Full Ace Frehley Tour Dates:
Tuesday 21st April TOWNSVILLE Civic Theatre
Friday 24th April WELLINGTON James Cabaret
Saturday 25th April AUCKLAND The Studio
Wednesday 29th April BRISBANE Tivoli Theatre
Thursday 30th April SYDNEY Metro Theatre
Friday 1st May HOBART Westpoint Showroom
Saturday 2nd May MELBOURNE Forum Theatre
Wednesday 6th May ADELAIDE The Gov
Thursday 7th May PERTH Astor Theatre