ACE FREHLEY THOSE GUYS IN KISS WORKING WITH HALF A COVER BAND
Ace Frehley has once again commented on the possibility of a reunion with KISS, saying that it “could be really special for the fans.”
Rumors about Frehley‘s return to KISS gained strength last year after he teamed up with KISS lead singer Paul Stanley on a cover of FREE‘s “Fire And Water”, marking their first collaboration since 1998’s “Psycho Circus”.
More recently, Ace and KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons got together in Southern California to write two songs for the former KISS guitarist’s next solo album.
Frehley‘s version of “Fire And Water” appears on his covers collection “Origins, Vol 1”, which received great reviews and landed in the Top 25 on the Billboard album chart.
Asked by radio personality Eddie Trunk during an October 9 interview if he thinks his renewed friendship with Stanley and Simmons will eventually lead to his return to KISS, Ace said: “Well, Paul and Gene haven’t really talked to me about that. So until I get the phone call, as far as I’m concerned, we’re just having fun and reconnecting for old times’ sake. And if that happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, that’s okay too. I have my own career at this juncture, and those guys… well, they’re working with half a cover band, actually. [Laughs]”
Frehley added that he would be open to playing at least a one-off reunion show with KISS under the right circumstances. “Yeah. I mean, I think it could be great,” he said. “If it was handled correctly and presented in the right way, I think it could be really special for the fans. It’s a wait-and-see kind of situation, but I’m not holding my breath. I stay busy working on my new studio album in the studio, leaving for Australia this Friday. And we have some shows booked in Texas in December, which will be probably wrapped around some other shows, so I stay busy.”
Ace‘s latest comments came just two weeks after he and Simmons performed together onstage for the first time in over sixteen years at The Children Matter benefit concert to support the victims of Hurricane Harvey.
The September 20 event at CHS Field Stadium in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota saw the two musicians sharing vocal duties for three classic KISS songs: “Parasite” from the 1974 album “Hotter Than Hell”; “Cold Gin” from KISS‘s self-titled 1974 debut; and “Shock Me” from 1977’s “Love Gun”.
Even though Frehley reached out to Simmons a couple of years about contributing to “Origins Vol. 1”, the bassist/vocalist ended up not appearing on the record. Frehley told Trunk that Gene may have been “just really busy” and couldn’t commit to taking part in the project. “I mean, he’s such a workaholic,” Ace said. “He hasn’t changed very much from when I worked with him in the band, when I was still performing with them. He’s always… He gets up at seven o’clock in the morning, he’s making phone calls. He actually said to me in the lobby of the hotel in St. Paul that… I said, ‘Gene, better go upstairs and get some rest.’ And he goes, ‘No, I’m gonna be on the phone until three or four in the morning’ with different places in the world, where the time is different, where it’s earlier and so on and so forth. He just loves making business deals and doing this and doing that. That’s kind of the way he’s always been — it feeds his ego and personality.”
Ace also dismissed Internet chatter about whether his drinking and drugging days are truly behind him. “It’s definitely in my past,” he said. “I celebrated eleven years [sober] on September 15th. Ironically, I was looking at some of the comments online, and, actually, some people were saying that I look drunk. That hurts, because I’ve worked so hard — it was the hardest thing in my life to overcome my demons. And after eleven years, you’d think people would use a little tolerance. Because even though I’m sober, I still have bad balance. And maybe sometimes I don’t talk as clear as I should, because I have a Bronx accent and it was a long day, so by the time I got up on stage, I was a little tired. But I can’t believe that some people are making cracks, that I was drunk. So that’s unfortunate. But I actually got one apology online when I was looking at some of the comments, where one guy said, ‘You know, Ace, I apologize I said that [you were drunk] in an earlier comment, because I realized that you weren’t, because I spoke to people that were seeing you before you went on and after, and that you were sober.’ So that made me feel better.”
Stanley told Billboard earlier this year that he had no interest in a reunion of KISS‘s original lineup.
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