ACE FREHLEY: 'I Dropped 25 Pounds Since The Last Time I've Been On Stage'

Original KISS guitarist Ace Frehley is celebrating his 70th birthday today, (Tuesday, April 27). This afternoon, Frehley made an appearance on SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk", where he was asked how he felt this morning when he woke up as a 70-year-old for the first time. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I still had the same aches and pains I normally get. [Laughs] Growing old's a bitch. But mentally, I still think like I'm 25, so there's a conflict of interest there. But I've been working out, watching my diet. I dropped 25 pounds since the last time I've been on stage. So I'm ready to rock. Hopefully this fall I'll be back out on the road."

Speaking about whether he has heard from his former KISS bandmates on his 70th birthday, Ace said: "I got off the phone with [drummer] Peter Criss about an hour ago. Peter was nice enough to give me a sweet call — him and his lovely wife Gigi. So that was nice. I haven't heard from Paul [Stanley, guitar/vocals] and Gene [Simmons, bass/vocals], and I probably won't. But that's okay. I may get a text. But we're still on good terms. They're just a little more distant than me and Peter's relationship; that's all."

According to Ace, he was always closer to Peter than he was with the other members of the original KISS lineup. "Me and Peter used to pair off, because we were the two party animals in the '70s," he said. "Gene would go his wife, and Paul would go his way, and me and Peter ended up hanging out with — like, when we were touring with CHEAP TRICK, we'd end up in CHEAP TRICK's room, or they'd end up in our room, and so on and so forth. It was that kind of scene."

Last December, Frehley told Talking Metal Live that he would begin recording his next all-original album "after the New Year." The record will be the follow-up to "Spaceman", which was released in October 2018 via eOne. Ace is laying down the effort at the newly built studio at his new house in New Jersey.

Earlier last year, Frehley told Canada's iHeart Radio that he has "only written about three songs" for his next LP, and he added they were "not finished." He said: "Now that I'm [living] on the East Coast [after moving to New Jersey from Southern California], my engineer only lives an hour from me, Alex Salzman, who worked with me extensively on this last record, and he played a lot of bass guitar as well, So it's gonna be even easier, 'Origins Vol. 3' and the next [original] record."

Frehley's latest release was "Origins Vol. 2", the sequel to his 2016 collection of cover songs that inspired the former KISS guitarist.

Simmons co-wrote two tracks on "Spaceman", "Without You I'm Nothing" and "Your Wish Is My Command", the latter of which also features Simmons's bass playing.