ACE FREHLEY: my new solo album will embarrass PAUL STANLEY and GENE SIMMONS

06-02-2024

In a new interview with Cassius Morris, ex-KISS guitarist Ace Frehley was asked how he feels about the fact that his recording career has now outlasted that of Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley and even that of KISS itself. He responded: “Well, getting sober was probably one of the major stepping stones for me to keep myself going. I’m much healthier now than I was 10, 15 years ago. But Paul and Gene, over the years, have always kind of dragged my name through the mud. To try to validate the fact that they had Tommy Thayer in the band, they used to make statements. You can look ’em up in videos — there’s dozens of ’em — where they say, ‘Oh, Ace wasn’t up for the job.’ ‘Ace was unemployable.’ ‘He was always late.’ And that got to me. And to this day, it still bothers me, but it doesn’t hold water.”

Ace, who is preparing to release a new solo album called “10,000 Volts”, continued: “I made this statement before this record even started. I said, ‘This album’s gonna embarrass them,’ because they can’t do a record this good. I dare them to.”

Ace Frehley will release his new solo album, “10,000 Volts”, on February 23, 2024 via MNRK Music Group (formerly eOne Music). The official music video for the LP’s title track — directed by Alex Kouvatsos from Black Wolf Imaging — is now released.

Watch “10,000 Volts” below.

The 11-track “10,000 Volts” LP was produced by Ace and Steve Brown (TRIXTER) and will be released on February 23, 2024 via MNRK Music Group (formerly eOne Music).

“10,000 Volts” track listing:
01. 10,000 Volts
02. Walkin’ On The Moon
03. Cosmic Heart
04. Cherry Medicine
05. Back Into My Arms Again
06. Fightin’ For Life
07. Blinded
08. Constantly Cute
09. Life Of A Stranger
10. Up In The Sky
11. Stratosphere

Last month, Frehley told Jeff Napier of Nuvo about “10,000 Volts”: “It’s probably the best record I’ve ever done. I’m very excited about it. It’s the fIrst time I ended up writing most of these songs with a good friend of mine, Steve Brown. He used to play in TRIXTER and has a group called RUBIX KUBE. Anyway, we live 40 minutes from each other, and my fiancée Lara hooked us up. I’d met him several times over the years, but just briefly, but she knew him when she was in her twenties, and she said, ‘You’ve gotta get together with Steve.’ He’s a great songwriter and guitar player. He sent me a song, and there was one line that just jumped out from his chorus, and it was ‘Walking On The Moon’. So I said, ‘Listen, let’s get together and rewrite this song, and the hook will be ‘Walking On The Moon’,’ because it wasn’t the end of the chorus he had prepared. So, we rewrote the song, and it came out great. We were actually gonna call the album ‘Walking On The Moon’ until we recorded a song called ‘10,000 Volts’, which came out amazing. I got Anton Fig, my old drummer, who played on my original ’78 solo album and most of my solo stuff, to play drums on that. So, working with Steve has made a huge difference in my playing and writing because when he and I put our heads together, it just clicks. If I’m at a loss for a chord or a verse or a line, he comes up with it and vice versa, and within three or four hours, we write a song.

“So that’s how the record’s been going,” Ace added. “Then, once you record the basic track, you gotta do the overdubs and double and triple the vocals, harmonies, and stuff. He’s an excellent engineer. So I didn’t have to pay an engineer to engineer this record. So I saved money on that, working with Steve as well, which is nice.”

Asked if making “Origins Vol. 2”, the sequel to his 2016 collection of cover songs that inspired the former KISS guitarist, affected the way he put together the new record, Frehley said: “It’s one thing doing an ‘Origins’ record because you don’t have to write the songs. Basically, I was picking songs that influenced me that were written by other people. So it’s a lot easier to do than when you do a regular studio record where all the songs are original. On this record, all the songs are original except for one. I did one cover of a song called ‘Life Of A Stranger’, written by a gal named Nadia. When she did the song, it was Europop, and it was very sparsely recorded. I listened to it and loved the melody, and I loved the lyrics. I played it for Steve, and he said, ‘We could kill this song with heavy drums and power chords and stuff and keyboards even.’ It came out great. All the other songs did as well. There’s really not a weak song on the record. Most people do a record, and they concentrate on three or four songs that they think might be singles, and then the rest of it is a lot of filler. But every song on this album I can hear on the radio. I hope DJs agree with me.”

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Last month, Frehley told Jeff Napier of Nuvo about “10,000 Volts”: “It’s probably the best record I’ve ever done. I’m very excited about it. It’s the first time I ended up writing most of these songs with a good friend of mine, Steve Brown. He used to play in TRIXTER and has a group called RUBIX KUBE. Anyway, we live 40 minutes from each other, and my fiancée Lara hooked us up. I’d met him several times over the years, but just briefly, but she knew him when she was in her twenties, and she said, ‘You’ve gotta get together with Steve.’ He’s a great songwriter and guitar player. He sent me a song, and there was one line that just jumped out from his chorus, and it was ‘Walking On The Moon’. So I said, ‘Listen, let’s get together and rewrite this song, and the hook will be ‘Walking On The Moon’,’ because it wasn’t the end of the chorus he had prepared. So, we rewrote the song, and it came out great. We were actually gonna call the album ‘Walking On The Moon’ until we recorded a song called ‘10,000 Volts’, which came out amazing. I got Anton Fig, my old drummer, who played on my original ’78 solo album and most of my solo stuff, to play drums on that. So, working with Steve has made a huge difference in my playing and writing because when he and I put our heads together, it just clicks. If I’m at a loss for a chord or a verse or a line, he comes up with it and vice versa, and within three or four hours, we write a song.

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