ALT HEADLINE: GENE SIMMONS: ACE FREHLEY Told Us ‘If I Do Another Tour, I’m Gonna Kill Myself’ — And We Still Didn’t Step In
ALT HEADLINE: GENE SIMMONS On ACE FREHLEY: ‘When He’s Straight — Lovable, Everything’s Great. When The Stuff Started To Take Hold, It Was Jekyll And Hyde’
Gene Simmons has given one of his most candid interviews yet about Ace Frehley — covering the guitarist’s substance abuse, his repeated exits from KISS, his undeniable influence on generations of guitar players, and the intervention that never happened. The KISS co-founder spoke at length on the Inside Of You With Michael Rosenbaum podcast.
Asked whether he had any meaningful conversations with Frehley before Ace died last October at 74, Simmons responded (transcribed by Blabbermouth): “It’s been up and down for 50 years with Ace. And the fans often would hate me for telling the truth. When the kids are at home and there’s mom and dad and all of a sudden dad gets thrown out of the house, the kids don’t understand — they love mom and dad — why mom kicked dad out of the house. And she tries to explain to them: ‘He was a drunk, he was a loser, he was late, didn’t show up on time, didn’t do what he was supposed to do, was barely around the kids, but he’s your father.’ And the fans are like kids. They don’t know.”
Simmons continued: “If you would’ve met Ace at the beginning [of KISS] — God bless him — you would’ve fallen in love with the idea, who he is and all that. And then [as Niccolò Machiavelli said], [when you] have power, [you must sometimes] abuse it. It affects all of us in different ways. Me too. But Ace turned to beverages and chemicals. Early on, he wouldn’t show up… I mean, he wouldn’t show up to do his guitar parts on even Destroyer early on. And the fans don’t like to hear this because he’s so talented and everybody, all the new guitar players, were influenced by him and all that. Yeah, but when you’re together in a band, you’re together more time than your family members or your wife or kids. So he’d be late and all this stuff. And Peter [Criss, original KISS drummer], we love him, and God bless, he’s still around, but really from the early days, as soon as the money and the fame came in, it was like the dark cloud came over. And they were both in and out of the band three separate times. And the fans just couldn’t understand it.”
Among the examples Simmons gave of Frehley‘s unreliability was a high-profile no-show at Eurovision: “We were doing the Eurovision contest, and we were the headliners. People in America don’t know what that is, but 600 million people at that time, now a billion people, tune in to the Eurovision where all the countries in the world basically send their representatives and it’s music based. It’s one of the few times such a large audience in the early days would tune in. Ace didn’t show up. We had to do it as a trio. It just went on and on and on… And had we not been as popular, we would’ve asked Ace to leave. But strangely, the first time Ace left, he turned to us, and it’s sad, and said — this is a quote; he said it to me two times, twice — ‘I’m leaving the band. I’m gonna have a solo career.’ And we tried to talk to him — I know I did — in front of the manager and everybody else: ‘Stay in the band. Have your solo career. Have your cake and eat it too. We don’t want anything from you. If you’re not happy, do other stuff, but don’t break up the band. That’s lunacy.’ And he just never made smart decisions. So, he said on the way out, ‘You just watch. I’m gonna sell 10 million copies of my solo record.’ That’s a quote. And we said, ‘No, don’t do that. Just stay in the band.’ And he said, more than once, ‘If I don’t leave the band and if I do another tour, I’m gonna kill myself.’ So whatever was going on, it breaks your heart.”
Despite the frustrations, Simmons was clear about Frehley‘s status as a guitarist’s guitarist: “You look at his body of work, and guitar players from Eddie Van Halen to — who’s the kid from METALLICA? God, I just forgot it — they point to Ace, or Tom Morello and everything, ‘I cut my teeth on guitar by listening to Ace.’ Of course. And he was so proud and so happy to hear from the White House — not from the president — that KISS had won the Kennedy Center awards thing [last year]. And he so much looked forward to [being honored last December]. As a kind of a street kid joins a band and goes to the highest level of American — I don’t know — awards. And he just didn’t make it.”
When host Michael Rosenbaum asked what Simmons would say to Frehley now if given the chance, the answer was unsparing: “I should have, and could have, but I should have, a long time [ago], when you see the disease starting to get ahold of him, I should have, decades ago, took, took him aside — it’s called an intervention — and forced him to understand he’s not just hurting himself by his lifestyle choices, but his family, his child and the fans. It was a stupid and shameful decision on all our parts — I know mine too — is, ‘No, you don’t wanna get the fans upset. Let’s make believe he’s in the band and everything’s okay at home.’ And it it’s tough. It’s really tough.”
Simmons acknowledged the criticism he’d likely face: “Right now the fans who are gonna listen to this are gonna [say], ‘Prick Gene, he never says anything [positive].’ … But the kids at home don’t understand [what it was like when Ace was loaded on drugs and alcohol]. They never met and spent time with Ace. When he’s straight — lovable, everything’s great. Early on, and when the stuff started to take hold, it was Jekyll and Hyde. You just can’t make smart decisions when you’re drunk or high.”
After Rosenbaum observed how much Gene clearly cared about Ace, Simmons recalled driving out to the desert to write songs with him even during their roughest periods: “Look, over the years, whether it was up or down, he’d call and ask for my favor: ‘Can you come up and write some songs with me?’ At the height of me telling him, ‘You’re a moron. You’re making horrible life decisions’ and stuff. But he calls: ‘I’m doing a new record. You wanna write some [songs with me]?’ ‘Sure.’ I got in my car, drove out to the desert where he was, and we wrote two new songs.”
Asked whether those sessions were enjoyable, Simmons said: “Sure. Because Ace was focused. He cared and was committed to him, which is understandable. We all love our stuff. But when it came to being around other guys… And when it came to guitar, nobody touched him. But when it came to songwriting, unfortunately, there were other guys — Paul [Stanley, KISS guitarist/vocalist] and myself — that wrote most of the stuff [in KISS].”
Last December, Simmons issued a public apology after drawing criticism for suggesting Ace‘s death was a product of his “bad decisions.” He wrote on social media: “On reflection, I was wrong for using the words I used. I humbly apologize. My hand to God I didn’t intended to hurt Ace or his legacy but upon rereading my words, I see how it hurt everyone. Again, I apologize. I’ve always loved Ace. Always.”
Frehley died of blunt-trauma injuries to his head due to a fall, the Morris County Medical Examiner confirmed. A CT scan revealed multiple contusions, skull fractures, hemorrhages, and a subdural hematoma. The report also noted he had suffered a stroke. A separate toxicology report has not yet been released.
Born Paul Daniel Frehley, the guitarist passed away peacefully surrounded by family in Morristown, New Jersey, nearly two weeks after a second fall at his home led to a brain bleed and a period on life support. His family made the decision to remove him from the ventilator.
Frehley co-founded KISS with Simmons, Stanley, and Criss in New York City in 1973. He appeared on the band’s first nine studio albums and returned for the 1998 reunion record Psycho Circus before departing again in 2002. He was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame alongside the original KISS lineup in 2014. Following his final exit, guitarist Tommy Thayer took over the Spaceman role.
The post GENE SIMMONS On Not Staging An Intervention For ACE FREHLEY: ‘It Was A Stupid And Shameful Decision On All Our Parts’ appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.
