Classic Rock
Ace Frehley says he is still very close to Gene Simmons
Although Ace Frehley was not part of the final Kiss tour and his ex-bandmates did not always have good things to say about him over the past years, he said in an interview with Guitar Tales Podcast (Transcribed by Ultimate Guitar), that he is still very close to Gene Simmons. According to the guitarist, he even sent an email to Gene last year when the bassist collapsed during a show in Manaus, Brazil. He said that Gene replied to him in 10 minutes.
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Ace Frehley says he is still very close to Gene Simmons
“We can still talk to each other civilly… If we have to,” admits Frehley (transcribed by Ultimate Guitar). “When Gene got sick in South America and he collapsed on stage, he was dehydrated. I got very concerned, because I’m very close with Gene to this day. I sent him an email, and I said, ‘Gene, are you okay? I just read that you collapsed.'”
“And within 10 minutes, he got back to me from South America, and he goes, ‘Ace, we were playing in the jungle. It was 106 degrees. And very high humidity. I was completely dehydrated.’ And his costume weighs about 30 plus pounds. So he said pretty much he just needed a lot of Gatorade. He had to hydrate himself. And after that, he was okay, thank God.”
He continued:
“We created something that will endure way after we’re all dead. I try to let the negative stuff go and focus on the positive memories. We had a lot of fun. We used to really be very closely knit. And we’d have weekly band meetings and get the stuff off our chest that was bothering us.”
“But like I said, once we became rich, we all became millionaires. Everybody started going their own way. Everybody had their own limo. Everybody had their own bodyguard. So, you know, nothing can last forever,” Ace Frehley said.
Ace Frehley was part of Kiss from 1973 to 1982 and from 1996 to 2002. In the late 80s he released two studio albums with his band Frehley’s Comet and as a solo act he already released 8 studio albums, the most recent one being “10,000 volts” (2024).
