In 2015, The AU Review’s John Goodridge interviewed Kiss founder Paul Daniel “Ace” Frehley after the release of his 2014 solo album Space Invader. We stumbled upon it while thumbing through our extensive archives and are now publishing it in tribute to the pioneering musician, who sadly passed away on 16th October 2025, aged 74.
Read the full Ace Frehley interview, with the rock icon discussing a pending tour in support of Space Invader, his relationship with his fellow Kiss members, his love for visual effects, and more.
Your new album Space Invader, seems very introspective. Is it a very personal album to you?
Yeah, it has my signature all over it. I had a lot of fun making it, and I’m very pleased that it’s been received so well in Australia and all over the world. And it’s exciting too for me. I felt like I had something to prove.
One of the songs, “Change” [is based on the idea of] picking yourself up and changing – seems to me that’s exactly what you’ve done recently. Is that correct?
Yeah, I actually co-wrote that song with Rachael Gordon, which was a first for me.
The song “Immortal Pleasures” talks about immortality versus mortality, which must be a pretty big thing for you, going through what you’ve been through. How do you feel about that?
I’ve been through just about everything. My time with Kiss was pretty much a roller coaster ride, and my solo career was a roller coaster ride, then we did the reunion tour. But I’m having a lot of fun as a solo artist. We actually start rehearsals tomorrow for the US tour, which I’m really excited about.
So you’re playing a lot of dates on that tour?
Yeah. We start in New Jersey, and we actually end in Disneyland in California.
That’s pretty surreal. The song “Inside the Vortex” you talk about being in the vortex and being sublime, and I was reading a quote from Kant: “the sublime needs critical distance, whereas the Dionysian demands a closeness of experience.” When I look at your time with Kiss, I think of it as an Apollo / Dionysus relationship that you had.
I mean, my time with Kiss was really turbulent, and we didn’t always see eye to eye on decisions. They were workaholics and more into merchandising everything that we did. I like to focus more on the music and not so much on the stuff that surrounds it.
What I find interesting is that this Apollo, Dionysus relationship is necessary; that straightness versus the wildness, and I think that’s what made Kiss great.
Well, we had really good chemistry. All four of us were from different backgrounds, and somehow when we all met on stage there was a kind of a push-pull thing going on. But it seemed to work for many years. But it didn’t work any more.
Of course, you were the first person to put smoke inside of a guitar. It must have been pretty exciting times.
Yeah, I invented that, I invented the light guitar, I invented the rocket guitar, so I had my fun with visual effects.
So that creativity, what’s the feeling like when you go up onstage and show off something new, and the crowd go wild?
I mean, it’s always a good feeling to be creative and come up with new ideas, and people appreciate those ideas and right now with the new record, Space Invader, being very well received all over the world, it’s very exciting for me. I worked ten months on the album and wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out. I retained the services of Warren Huart, who mixed the record. He gave the record the sound that I was striving for. It all came together in the last couple of weeks of mixing. I wrote the title track while he was mixing a different song, and then that song came together in one day. In the song “Past the Milky Way”, all the vocals and guitar work were done during the mixing process.
In “Past the Milky Way” you say that you can live without oxygen, but you can’t live without your guitar. You’ve obviously had a lifelong love of the guitar.
I write funny lyrics. They’re tongue-in-cheek and silly, but rock and roll is supposed to be silly. I hope people don’t take my lyrics too seriously because I don’t take them seriously.
That’s the point, really. Rock and roll is supposed to be a celebration and a fun thing to get people away from their everyday lives.
Exactly! It’s supposed to be entertainment, and when I worked with Kiss, that’s one thing that we strived for – to put on a show and not just play. We do today, to a certain extent, with limitations, but I’m always conscious of the appearance of the band and the look of the band. I still do my smoking guitar and light guitar on stage. It’s a lot of fun.
My favourite track on the album is “Starship”, I really got into the guitar playing. Do you still get that sort of feeling when you’re playing on stage and you let yourself go?
Yeah, I’ve been playing guitar now for fifty years and touring now on and off for probably forty and when I get in front of an audience and start playing, I feel right at home. It’s still a lot of fun to perform these days and fun to record and be in the studio. I have a lot of friends who are actors and people in other walks of life, and they’re kind of envious of me.
One of my friends who’s an actor in a film is at the mercy of the script, he’s at the mercy of the other actors in the film, the mercy of the director, and the editor. So many actors say to me, “Man, how does it feel to be at the start and the end and have complete creative control?” and I say, “It feels great.”
The song “Immortal Pleasures” touches on the theme of immortality and mortality, and I find that interesting that we are all mortal, yet something like making music leaves a bit of immortality behind. How do you feel about leaving that piece of immortality in the world?
Well, I think my body of work over the years has stood the test of time. I created a legacy that people are going to enjoy long after I’m done. It’s a good feeling. Hopefully, I’ll be remembered as the Space Ace and a top-flight songwriter. It’s a great feeling. I didn’t know how a lot of people were going to react to this record. I felt positive about it, but you don’t know until the fans give their feedback.
It’s literally got good reviews for the most part, but all the fans I’ve talked to and met are really thrilled with the record, and I’m so excited to get out on the road. My tour in the US starts soon in New Jersey, and working our way across the country so it’s a great time right now.
You did a cover of Steve Miller’s “The Joker”; what made you choose to put that on the record?
The record company in America, eOne Music, came up with that idea. I’d always liked the song, but it wasn’t something that I’d really considered recording as a cover. But I just signed a record deal with eOne, and they were really hot on that track. I ended up doing that one before any other tracks. Once I got that out of the way, I focused more on all original material. But I’m happy with how it turned out. I think I made it a lot heavier than the original version.
When you got electrocuted on stage in the early days of Kiss, what went through your mind after that?
Yeah, I grounded out on the rails, which was before we had wireless guitars. It was back in ‘78. I pretty much got knocked out and had to be revived.
That must have been a pretty scary experience.
It was really scary, you know, I had no feeling in my hand. I have some burns on my hand where I grounded out. A lot of the fans, I don’t think, were even aware of what happened because it all happened so quickly.
I think it was the Destroyer set, and I ended up getting pulled off the top of the amplifier and Paul came out and made an announcement that there had been an accident with me and after a few minutes all the fans just started chanting my name which kinda made my adrenalin kick in and I ended up finishing the show but pretty much couldn’t feel my hand during the remainder of the concert.
I notice that the album is available on vinyl. What’s your feeling of vinyl versus CD? Do you collect records yourself?
Yeah, I have about six thousand albums. I like to listen to CDs I like tape, I listen to everything. Every medium has a slightly different feel to it. There’s not one I prefer to the other. I come from the school of recording on tape. In those days editing was with a razor blade, now I can edit digitally on my laptop.
Check out the photos from his show from the Gov in Adelaide back in 2015 taken by John Goodridge
