In a deeply reflective new interview, Kiss bassist and vocalist Gene Simmons discussed the complicated dynamic he shared with the late Ace Frehley, expressing profound regret over how he and the band handled the original guitarist’s substance abuse issues. Ace Frehley tragically passed away last October at the age of 74.
Appearing on the “Inside Of You With Michael Rosenbaum” podcast, Gene Simmons was asked if he had any “good” conversations with his former bandmate prior to his death. The musician answered with stark honesty regarding their decades-long turbulent relationship.
“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,” Gene said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
Reflecting on the early, hungry days of Kiss, the bassist painted a picture of a beloved bandmate whose trajectory was ultimately altered by addiction.
“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.”
He pointed to a specific, high-profile incident early in their career to illustrate the severity of the unreliability.
“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…”
He continued: “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.”
Looking back, Gene expressed deep remorse for not taking stronger action to force the guitarist to confront his addictions.
“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.”
“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 dr*gs 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,” he explained.
Despite the harsh realities of their working relationship, Gene Simmons acknowledged the undeniable talent and influence of his former bandmate, noting how proud the guitarist was to hear that Kiss would be receiving a Kennedy Center Honor.
“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,” Gene noted. “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.”
Simmons also highlighted that, underneath the friction, a genuine bond remained. He recalled instances where he traveled to help his former bandmate write material for his solo records, even during periods of heavy tension.
“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.”
The comments follow an apology Gene Simmons issued last December after facing backlash for initially suggesting the guitarist’s death was a result of his “bad decisions.” At the time, he wrote: “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.”
Ace Frehley passed away peacefully surrounded by family in Morristown, New Jersey, following a severe head injury sustained during a fall at his home. According to the Morris County Medical Examiner, the official cause of death was blunt-trauma injuries to the head, with the manner of death ruled an accident. The report noted multiple contusions, bone fractures, a subdural hematoma, and evidence of a stroke. A separate toxicology report has not been publicly released.
