Ace Frehley is The Spaceman: co-founder, lead guitarist and singer in KISS. He joined the band in early 1973 and left in 1982. Later he rejoined KISS in the 1990s and left again in 2001.
Frehley was born Paul Daniel Frehley on 27 April 1951 and raised in The Bronx, New York City. He was the youngest of three children and descended from Dutch and German immigrants to the USA.
In late 1972 Frehley auditioned for Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons and Peter Criss, who were starting a new group together. Frehley joined them as Ace Frehley, and they became KISS.
Frehley invented the character of The Spaceman, where a space age make-up design combined with inventive lead guitar playing and pyro effects made him a powerful focal point of KISS’ live shows. He is also known for writing and sometimes singing several of the band’s greatest songs, including Cold Gin and Parasite (both sung by Simmons), Shock Me, Rocket Ride, New York Groove (a track from his first solo album that KISS often adopted for concerts), 2000 Man and Talk To Me.
Substance abuse and disillusionment led to Frehley leaving KISS in 1982. Throughout the 1980s he was a moderately successful solo artist under his own name and the band moniker Frehley’s Comet. In 1996 Frehley returned to KISS for a hugely successful reunion tour, but he left the band permanently in 2001.
Frehley published his autobiography in 2011, titled No Regrets: A Rock ‘N’ Roll Memoir.
Ace Frehley passed away on 16 October 2025.
STRANGE WAYS 