KISS ... AND TELL
Bizarre tales of rock excess
DUST flying, sirens wailing . . . Ace Frehley, former Kiss guitarist, is telling me about the time he was driving his DeLorean through the desert being chased at high speeds by 10 police cars.
‘‘It was a bit like Smokey and the Bandit, ya know,’’ Frehley says, in an accent which could have come straight from the movie The Godfather. Why were 10 police cars chasing him?
‘‘That’s a good question,’’ he replies jovially.
‘‘I got pulled over and I had a suspended licence and I had bumped the back of another car. The officer said ‘licence and registration’. I said ‘one moment, it’s right here in the glove compartment’ and hit the gas and took off. That sparked the whole crazy thing.’’
He would have got away, he notes, were it not for an observant member of the public.
‘‘The only reason I got caught was because I left them in my dust, but then I pulled over to make a phone call and a guy saw smoke coming out of the car and assumed I had stolen it and called the police.’’
Before the grand chase in the DeLorean story we had got off to an awkward start.
When the phone was answered in a hotel somewhere in the United States and I had asked to speak to Paul, Ace had sputtered in response: ‘‘You can call me Ace, only my family call me Paul.’’
Somewhat cheerily, Frehley admits he’s had a crazy life and comments that he can’t remember a lot of what he terms his ‘‘worst moments’’ as he was ‘‘too loaded’’. He starts to talk about smashing up a Porsche before going off on another tangent.
‘‘Considering all the crazy things I’ve done in my life, by all rights I shouldn’t even be alive. Car accidents, drug overdoses, you name it, I’ve been there. Thrown in jail . . . growing up in the streets of New York City taught me how to land on my feet.’’
I remind him of the time he received an electric shock on stage.
‘‘Oh yeah, 1978, Florida. I’ve had lots of close calls.’’
Frehley first split from Kiss in 1982 when the band decided to record a concept album rather than a rock album. He rejoined in 1996 and left again at the end of their ‘‘farewell’’ tour in 2002 to pursue his solo interests.
The man with the persona Spaceman or Space Ace is touring his latest solo album, Space Invaders, which saw him perform his first solo shows here in April.
‘‘I’m really happy with the way it turned out. You know I had the same feeling when I finished mixing Space Invaders that I did when I finished mixing my 1978 solo record.’’
After a long, enthusiastic discussion about the benefits of Pro-Tools versus analogue methods for recording, which I won’t bore you with here, Frehley became contemplative about his artistic process.
‘‘Once the creative vision starts to form sometimes the words come faster than I can write them down. Sometimes I get the feeling that someone is beaming them into my head. You get in that zone and it’s like boom. That’s a good feeling.’’
At 64, he is enjoying touring and performing more than ever. As a young kid he saw his musical heroes perform live and it sparked something deep inside him that has never waned. ‘‘I went to see Zeppelin, The Who, Cream . . . I worked as a roadie for Jimi Hendrix in 1970. I went backstage and when they realised I wasn’t one of the rock stars they said ‘what can you do?’. I said ‘I can do anything’ so they put me to work on the stage crew. The next thing you know I’m setting up drums. It was like a dream come true.’’
Frehley describes his experiences with Kiss as ‘‘a joke’’.
Whether you ever care to think about Gene Simmons’ extended tongue or their somewhat tacky gothic flares again, the story of the sordid exploits of these grease-painted men is interesting.
Frehley recalls shooting a movie which required him to get up early in the morning.
‘‘I had to be up early to go on set to put the makeup on,’’ he explains. ‘‘In those days I was partying pretty hard and sitting in the makeup chair with a hangover. But once my dealer showed up I was ready.
‘‘The makeup looked great but it was a pain in the ass to put on and a pain in the ass to take off. During the show, during the drum solo, we’d be back behind the amps touching up our makeup.’’
In the 70s their signature look also afforded the band members some degree of anonymity.
‘‘Before we were famous,’’ Frehley says, ‘‘we could walk around and go into the clubs with our platforms and long hair. But those days have gone since we were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.’’
Right now he’s working on a follow-up to his book No Regrets. ‘‘I might call it Some Regrets. Ha.’’
Back to the future. For some reason I sense his parting comment is referring to the day that Space Ace and The DeLorean didn’t get away.
THE DETAILS Ace Frehley’s solo album Space Invaders is out now. Kiss - Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer - play one show at Auckland’s Vector Arena on October 16. (The tour includes 900 pieces of pyrotechnics.)