Ace Frehley, founding guitarist of the theatrical rock band Kiss, has died at the age of 74

Ace Frehley, who played lead guitar as a founding member of the face-painted, blood-spewing rock band Kiss, died Thursday in Morristown, New Jersey, at the age of 74.

His family announced his death, saying that he had recently suffered a fall. “In his final moments, we were fortunate enough to be able to surround him with loving, caring and peaceful words, thoughts, prayers and intentions as he left this earth,” the family said in a statement.

In his alter ego as Spaceman, Frehley played with the original incarnation of Kiss for less than a decade, from 1973 — when he formed the group in New York with Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, and Peter Criss — until 1982, when he quit shortly after Criss left. However, he was instrumental in creating the band’s flamboyant sound as heard on songs like “Detroit Rock City,” “Rock and Roll All Nite,” “Strutter,” and “I Was Made for Lovin’ You.” In the late 1970s, those hits — along with Kiss’ outstanding live show — made the group an inescapable pop culture presence seen in comic books and on lunch boxes. Today the group is widely viewed as a pioneer in the commercialization of rock and roll.

A member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Frehley rejoined Kiss in 1996 for a highly successful reunion, then left again in 2002 to return to the solo career he began in the early 1980s. In 2023, Kiss completed what Simmons and Stanley called a farewell tour with a show in their hometown of Madison Square Garden in New York.

Frehley, whose real first name is Paul, was born on April 27, 1951, in the Bronx. He learned to play guitar as a child and joined Stanley on rhythm guitar, Simmons on bass and Chris on drums after answering an advertisement in the Village Voice.

Inspired by Led Zeppelin, the New York Dolls and Alice Cooper, the quartet called themselves Kiss and began playing all over New York. Frehley designed the band’s eye-catching logo with a pair of lightning bolts. Each member chose a character with a specific makeup scheme: Frehley the Spaceman, Stanley the Starchild, Simmons the Demon and Criss the Catman.

Kiss signed to Casablanca Records and released their self-titled debut in 1974; Stanley and Simmons wrote most of the songs, though Frehley contributed “Cold Gin,” about a frustrated man who’s not too proud to admit that “the cheapest stuff is all I need to get me back on my feet.”

The band broke out in 1975 with the release of “Kiss Alive!”, an EP that broke into the top ten on the Billboard 200. By 1978, Kiss was such a sensation that every band member released a solo album on the same day; Frehley scored a hit from it with a cover of Ross Ballard’s song “New York Groove.” That same year, the band starred in a TV movie called “Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park”, which was partly filmed at Magic Mountain amusement park in Valencia.

“Kiss is the band that made me and millions of others love rock and roll,” Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine He said When he inducted Kiss into the Rock Hall in 2014. “What Elvis and the Beatles were to previous generations, Kiss was to us.”

Frehley left Kiss in 1982, shortly after the band’s “Music from ‘The Elder'” LP was poorly received.

“The idea of ​​a kiss started out as a great idea, but after a while, it became a nightmare for me, like a chain around my neck,” Frehley told The Times a decade later. “I hated wearing that damn makeup.” He remembers drinking too much after a concert in Paris. “I fell asleep with my makeup on, and when I woke up, my eyes were swollen from an allergic reaction to the silver paint,” he said.

After Kiss, he recorded and performed under his own name and with a group he called Frehley’s Comet. In 1996, he rejoined the band with the other three original band members for a tour and album titled “Psycho Circus”; In recent years he has collaborated with the likes of Slash, Lita Ford and Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready.

His survivors include his wife, Janet; His daughter, Monique. His brother Charles. his sister Nancy and numerous nieces and nephews.

During Kiss’ Rock Hall induction, Frehley male That he had been sober for 7 1/2 years and used the opportunity to advocate from the stage to educate about sobriety.

“Some people think it’s about willpower, but unfortunately most addicts are born that way,” he said. “It is only by the grace of God that I am here.”