Ace Frehley

Paul Daniel Frehley was born on 27 April 1951 in the Bronx, New York City, the youngest of three children of Esther Anna Frehley (born Hecht) and Carl Daniel Frehley, an electrical engineer. His father, the son of Dutch immigrants, came from Pennsylvania. His mother came from North Carolina and was of German and Cherokee descent.

The Frehleys were a musical family. "I never went to music school; I never took a guitar lesson, but everybody in my family plays an instrument," he later said. His parents played piano, his father was the church organist, and his brother and sister played piano and acoustic guitar. He started playing at 13 and received an electric guitar as a Christmas present in 1964. His heroes were Jimi Hendrix, Albert Lee, Buddy Guy, Jeff Beck, B. B. King, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and The Who.

His childhood was troubled. He joined a local street gang at 13, though music gradually pulled him away from it, and he said seeing The Who and Cream live as a teenager saved him from gang life. Friends started calling him "Ace" because they thought he was a real ace at getting dates.

Frehley was expelled from several high schools and eventually dropped out when his band Cathedral began getting paid gigs. His girlfriend and family persuaded him to go back, and he finished school and earned his diploma. After graduation he worked a string of short jobs, including mail carrier, furniture deliverer, messenger, taxi driver and liquor store delivery man. At 18 he worked as a roadie for Jimi Hendrix. He never learned to read music.

Before Kiss, Frehley played in a run of New York bands including the Outrage, the Four Roses, King Kong, Honey, the Magic People, Molimo (who recorded half an album for RCA in 1971) and Cathedral.

In late 1972 his friend Chris Cassone spotted a Village Voice advertisement for a lead guitarist. Frehley auditioned for Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons and Peter Criss above the Live Bait Bar at 10 East 23rd Street and joined about three weeks later. The band became Kiss in January 1973. Frehley designed the double lightning bolt logo, which Stanley refined, and created the Space Ace or Spaceman persona. He drove a taxi part time until manager Bill Aucoin took the band on in September 1973.

On Kiss's 1974 debut he wrote "Cold Gin" and co-wrote "Love Theme from Kiss", the only song credited to all four original members. He sang lead for the first time on "Shock Me" from Love Gun (1977). His playing on Alive! (1975) made him one of the most popular guitarists of the decade. Of the four Kiss solo albums released in 1978, his sold best and went platinum, and "New York Groove" reached the US Top 20. He contributed three songs each to Dynasty (1979) and Unmasked (1980).

After Peter Criss left in 1980, Frehley was often outvoted in band decisions and disliked the concept album Music from "The Elder" (1981). He left in 1982, appearing on the covers of Killers and Creatures of the Night without playing on them, and was replaced by Vinnie Vincent. He kept a quarter share in the Kiss partnership until 1985.

His new band, Frehley's Comet, played its first show on 30 November 1984 and released its debut album on 7 July 1987. It reached No. 43 on the Billboard 200, and the single "Into the Night" reached No. 27 on the Mainstream Rock chart. Live+1 and Second Sighting followed in 1988 and Trouble Walkin' in 1989.

In 1996 he rejoined Kiss for the original lineup's reunion tour, followed by Psycho Circus (1998) and a farewell tour that ended in 2001. He played with Kiss for the last time at the closing ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics and then returned to solo work. Later albums were Anomaly (2009), Space Invader (2014), Origins Vol. 1 (2016), Spaceman (2018), Origins Vol. 2 (2020) and 10,000 Volts (2024), which debuted at No. 72 on the Billboard 200 and topped Billboard's Hard Music and Rock album charts. He also appeared with Pearl Jam at Madison Square Garden in 2008 and with former bandmates on the Kiss Kruise in 2018.

Frehley married Jeanette Trerotola in 1976. They legally separated in 1985 but remained married until his death. Their daughter, Monique, was born in 1980. During the 2000s and 2010s he was in a relationship with the musician Rachael Gordon, who contributed lyrics to Space Invader and whose album Paper Doll he produced. His last relationship was with Lara Cove, whom he met at a Kiss fan convention in 2018 and lived with in New Jersey until they split in 2024.

Frehley began drinking at 13 and struggled with alcohol and drugs for decades. He became sober in 2006 after a worried call from his daughter led him to seek help from his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, and he spoke openly about his sobriety in later interviews.

Frehley was proud of being self-taught. "I'm an anomaly, I'm an un-schooled musician, I don't know how to read music, but I'm one of the most famous guitar players in the world, so go figure," he said in 2009. He told Guitar World in 1996 that he sometimes fretted chords with his thumb without knowing why. Paul Stanley recalled that Ace got vibrato by shaking his whole arm against the guitar neck.

His Spaceman character came from a lifelong fascination with science fiction and space travel, a theme that ran through his song titles from "Outer Space" to "Mission to Mars" and "Walkin' on the Moon". He was a lifelong Gibson Les Paul player and loved stage effects, using guitars that smoked, launched spinning pyrotechnics or lit up in time with the music.

Frehley is remembered as one of the guitarists who defined 1970s hard rock and as the player who made countless fans want to play. He said many guitarists told him that his playing on Alive! made them pick up the instrument. Pearl Jam's Mike McCready, Tom Morello and Tommy Thayer, who later played the Spaceman role in Kiss, were among the musicians who credited him as an inspiration. Gibson, his guitar maker of choice, said his sound "helped define rock 'n' roll". The Spaceman makeup, the smoking Les Paul and "New York Groove" remain among the most recognisable images and sounds in rock.

Frehley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 as a member of Kiss. His 1978 solo album was certified platinum. In 1981 a star was named after him in the International Star Registry. Guitar World ranked him among the greatest metal guitarists of all time. On 7 December 2025 he was honoured posthumously, alongside the other members of Kiss, at the 48th Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C.

His memoir, No Regrets: A Rock 'N' Roll Memoir, written with Joe Layden and John Ostrosky, was published by Gallery Books on 1 November 2011 and entered The New York Times hardcover non-fiction best seller list at No. 10. On screen he appeared in Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978), Detroit Rock City (1999), the Kissology video series and an episode of Family Guy (2001). Interview releases include Behind the Player: Ace Frehley (2010) and Ace Frickin' Frehley (2023).

Frehley's relationship with Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons was often strained after he left Kiss. He declined to take part in the band's final tour, which began in 2019, and the two sides gave conflicting accounts of whether he had been invited to the final shows and on what terms. In April 1982 he was involved in a police chase in White Plains, New York, while driving a DeLorean, an episode he later wrote into the Frehley's Comet song "Rock Soldiers". After their breakup in 2019, Rachael Gordon filed for a domestic violence restraining order against him in San Diego County.

On 25 September 2025 Frehley suffered a fall in his home studio, was taken to hospital and cancelled his upcoming tour dates on medical advice. He was later reported to have suffered a serious head injury in a further fall at home and to have been placed on life support with bleeding on the brain. He died on 16 October 2025 in Morristown, New Jersey, at the age of 74, surrounded by his family.

"We are completely devastated and heartbroken," his family said. "In his last moments, we were fortunate enough to have been able to surround him with loving, caring, peaceful words, thoughts, prayers and intentions as he left this earth." Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons called him "an essential and irreplaceable rock soldier". Peter Criss said he and his wife were with Ace to the end.

In line with his wishes, Frehley was buried near his parents at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx after a private memorial service at Sinatra Memorial Home in Yonkers on 21 October 2025, attended by family, friends and the three surviving original members of Kiss.