KISS Co-Founding Member Ace Frehley Returns With New Solo Album

The 2014 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and original KISS lead guitarist, Ace Frehley has a new solo album coming out on February 20 called 10,000 Volts with the first single and title track written and produced by Frehley and Trixter’s Steve Brown is out now. The accompanying music video for the single was directed by Alex Kouvatsos from Black Wolf Imaging and features Frehley and his band enthusiastically performing the KISS-like, hard rock song live.

Frehley is arguably the coolest member that KISS ever had, and back in 1978 when all the members of KISS simultaneously released solo albums, Frehley’s album was universally recognized as the best one and it was the best selling; Frehley completed the first so-called “Farewell Tour” with Kiss in late 2001, after which he left the band and resumed his solo career. Frehley did play one last time with KISS at the end of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley continued on with KISS long after Frehley left the band; they had Tommy Thayer replace him on lead guitar and he started wearing Frehley’s Spaceman makeup while drummer Eric Singer wore Peter Criss’s Catman makeup. That decision really divided KISS fans as many of the old school fans found it blasphemous that the new guys were wearing the makeup and costumes of their childhood rock and roll heroes.

KISS played their last live show ever on December 2, 2023 at New York City’s famed Madison Square Garden as part of their “The End of the Road” farewell tour; at the end of the show they made an announcement that KISS would continue on as touring avatars and a video featuring a digital version of the band playing the song “God Gave Rock and Roll To You” debuted.

A lot of people including myself are pretty skeptical about this KISS touring avatars idea and it was met with a lot of bewilderment and ridicule online; seems a bit silly and yet another gimmick for the band to try and make a ton of money, but only time will tell how it goes over with the diehard KISS fans. The fact that Thayer and Singer will be immortalized as avatars over Frehley and Criss makes it even harder to swallow.

Sadly, KISS have stopped recording new music and the last studio album they recorded was Monster back in 2012; Frehley on the other hand has steadily been cranking out new albums every couple of years starting with the brilliant Space Invader in 2014.It seems like KISS stopped putting out new albums because there is not much money to be made from  them in recent decades and they became a nostalgia act, while Frehley continues to make new music because he has a real need to do so as a  musical artist and creative person and he isn’t solely concerned with how much money he makes off his albums. Yet another reason why he is the coolest guy who ever played in KISS; another big reason why Frehley is so beloved is that he has always had a great sense of humor and he can laugh at himself while Simmons and Stanley often take themselves way too seriously.

Many fans online commented that it was a real shame and bit of a disgrace that at the final KISS concert Gene and Paul never mentioned Ace, Peter or any of the other previous members of KISS like Vinnie Vincent, Eric Carr or Bruce Kulick; hey let’s not forget Mark St. John either. Animalize was actually the first KISS album I ever heard!

As I’m writing this I received a notification that Frehley dropped another video on YouTube called “10,000 Volts: Behind The Scenes,” which shows Frehley in the studio recording the new album with co-producer Brown.

In the video Brown explains, “Making this record is one of the most incredible experiences of my life, working with somebody like Ace Frehley the icon; he’s the reason that I started playing guitar, KISS is the reason that I started writing songs. Being a producer means that you have a big responsibility and that is making your artist, Ace Frehley, be the best that he can be and we did that on this on this record.”

“Most rock musicians can’t even read music, you know it comes from within here (puts fist over his heart) and I think this is the stuff that gets people,” explains Frehley in the video. “I’ve played it (the new album) for a lot of people whose opinions I cherish and trust and it’s always the same reaction, this is some of the best songs you’ve ever written. I’ve always felt that if you make a great record the music speaks for itself. All I can say is that I know that I love this record, I believe my fans are gonna love it and I can’t wait to perform some of these songs live because they kill.”

So glad to hear that Frehley will continue to tour and perform live, no digital avatar required.