Even as he brings out his new solo album, Spaceman, this week — check out the video for the track “Rockin’ With the Boys,” premiering exclusively below — Ace Frehley is predicting a possible return of some kind to the roster of Kiss.
With the band embarking on a One Last Kiss: End of the Road World Tour in 2019, Frehley is reading the tea leaves that he might be included in some fashion — though Kiss itself has not said anything about that and co-founders Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons have long maintained Frehley and drummer Peter Criss are gone for good. But there have been recent signs of a thaw: Stanley guesting on Frehley’s 2016 covers album Origins Vol. 1; Frehley making guest appearances at shows Simmons did to promote his opulent Vault package; Simmons writing and recording two songs with Frehley for Spaceman; and most recently Frehley dismissing the band seen in the “Rockin’ With the Boys” video and hiring Simmons’ solo band.
“I think anything can happen,” Frehley tells Billboard. “It looks like we’re going in that direction. If you go on the Internet and see what the fans are saying, they want it, and Paul and Gene usually don’t have a deaf ear to fans. They try to make the fans happy, ’cause that’s who pays our rent. I think it boils down to dollars and cents; If (Kiss manager) Doc McGhee says that after talking to promoters around the world (Kiss) could make double the amount of money with Ace in the band, it’s a no-brainer.” Frehley is quick to note that no discussions have taken place with Stanley and Simmons, so his optimism is tempered — but still there.
“Who knows what’s going to happen,” the guitarist says, “but I think they’d be foolish not to include me in some capacity, if not full-blown capacity. I think the fans will be really pissed.”
Until that’s worked out, or not, Frehley is pumped about Spaceman, his eighth solo album. With a title that alludes to his alter ego in Kiss, the nine-song set has a slight autobiographical and sentimental feel in tracks like “Bronx Boy” and “Rockin’ With the Boys,” the latter of which came from a chorus Frehley wrote during the ’70s. “For some reason I could never get a verse and a bridge that I liked that went along with that chorus,” Frehley says about the song — whose video was filmed live during an August concert in Kiss’ fabled Detroit Rock City. “I figure if a chorus is great, the rest of (the song) has to be equally good. Up until when I started recording Spaceman I wasn’t able to come up with anything, and then it just came to me in one day.”
Spaceman also includes a cover of Eddie Money’s “I Wanna Go Back,” while Frehley says working on the two songs with Simmons — “Without You I’m Nothing” and “Your Wish Is My Command” — was like riding a proverbial bike. “It was a lot of fun,” Frehley recalls. “I had done a Vault Experience (show) with him up in L.A., and I think I just emailed him a few days later; I did him a favor, so I said, ‘Hey, why don’t you come down to my place and try writing a song or two?’ and he said ‘Great!’ and within a week he was down at my studio, and within three hours we came up with both of those songs. It was painless.” Frehley acknowledges that his 12 years of sobriety has helped reunite him with his former Kiss mates.
“We’re on the same level again,” he explains. “Years ago I was loaded half the time and we weren’t on the same plane of consciousness, so to speak. A lot of the things they said about me made sense to me once I got sober — that’s why I don’t hold any grudges. I hate being around drunk people now, too.”
With Spaceman out Oct. 19, Frehley will be taking part in this year’s Kiss Kruise, setting sail Oct. 31, and play a few shows in Florida and southern California. His next recording move, meanwhile, may be a second volume of Origins, which he hopes to begin “right away. I’m gonna start kicking around ideas for songs and so on and so forth. I’m not wasting any time.”