ACE FREHLEY: 'I'm Going To Be Remembered As A Straight Shooter And A Guy Who Stayed True To His Craft'

KISS legend Ace Frehley recently sat down with journalist and author Chaunce Hayden and told Hayden how he wished to be remembered. Ace said: " I believe I'm going to be remembered as a straight shooter and a guy who stayed true to his craft and was respected by his peers. I brought happiness to a lot of people. I was always the funny guy in KISS. That's how I would like to be remembered. The other thing that makes me proud is that a lot of kid come up to me and say they have been in recovery for six months or so and that it's all because of me. They say if I can do it, they can do it to. That makes me feel good."

Chaunce's full interview with Ace will appear in Hayden's third book of interviews, "Music: 30 Years Of Interviews", due out in January 2026.

In an interview with The Aquarian earlier this year, Frehley said of his legacy: "I think it's going to live on for hundreds of years. I do what I do very well, and I have the respect of my peers."

Ace died on Thursday (October 16) at the age of 74. The news of his passing came just hours after TMZ reported that Frehley was hospitalized on life support after he suffered a brain bleed when he took a fall in his studio a couple of weeks ago.

Ace co-founded KISS with guitarist/vocalist Paul Stanley, bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons and drummer Peter Criss in New York City in 1973. Frehley appeared on KISS's first nine albums, and returned for the band's 1998 reunion album, "Psycho Circus", only to leave again. He was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame with the rest of KISS's original lineup in 2014.

Frehley first left KISS in 1982. He rejoined in 1996 and parted ways with the band once again in 2002 after the conclusion of KISS's first "farewell tour." Since his departure, guitarist Tommy Thayer had assumed the role of the Spaceman.

In a February 2024 interview with The Rock Experience With Mike Brunn, Ace was asked if he thought it was necessary for him to leave KISS in order to achieve the sobriety that he had maintained for nearly decades. Ace responded: "It's a lot easier being sober away from those guys. They know how to push my buttons, and we don't always see eye to eye on everything. But once Peter left the band, Paul and Gene always overrode my point of view."

He continued: "When Peter was in the band, it was a democratic group. And I didn't even realize it, but when Peter left, I realized I had lost all my power in the band because pretty much Paul and Gene are workaholics and like to do things their way. So, if I don't like the way something is happening, I get outvoted. I was dead set against 'The Elder' [KISS's controversial 1981 LP 'Music From 'The Elder']; I didn't think it was the right album for the right time. It's not a bad record; I don't think our fans were expecting a record like that. And I kept telling him during the recording process, I said, 'I think it's a big mistake.' And, of course, it bombed. Because I'm the kind of guy that has this feeling of — I'm a street kid, and I have a sense of what kids wanna hear. And that's why I think this new album is gonna be successful."

In January 2024, Ace spoke to Rock Candy magazine about why he never made it on stage one last time with KISS for their final show at Madison Square Garden in December 2023 after last leaving the band back in 2002.

"Fans would constantly reach out to me and say, 'Ace, please come back to the band,'" Frehley explained. "So the fans were and are my primary motivators, and I want them to know that I did try, but I couldn't make it happen. They never asked me."

Frehley dismissed the idea that his well-documented troubles with drugs and alcohol could ever have been a reason for Simmons and Stanley not reaching out to him.

"I'm sober, and all my friends and associates will tell you as much," he stated categorically. "I got to the point in life where drugs and alcohol had taken me over, and I'm just so happy to be away from all that."

Despite the much-reported rifts with Simmons and Stanley over many years, nevertheless Frehley insisted that he still had affection for both of them.

"I want people to know that I do love Paul and Gene," he said. "I wish things would have been different, but it wasn't to be…" Nor did Frehley hold any animosity towards his replacement Tommy Thayer.

"He's a good guy and deserves a break," Ace said. "He's not me, but he was never going to be me. In a lot of ways, his task was impossible."

In November 2023, prior to KISS's final concert, Frehley told Mark Strigl of SiriusXM's Ozzy's Boneyard that he didn't hold a grudge against KISS, despite all the badmouthing that had gone on between him and some of the other original KISS members in recent years.

"I wish KISS the best, all the best on their final shows for the 'End Of The Road' tour," he said. "There's really no hard feelings. We say things sometimes in the heat of passion or sometimes our memory isn't… [we don't] recall things. But I love those guys. We're all getting old, our memory isn't what it used to be, so I just let it roll off my back."

Despite everything that had been said between all the parties, Ace claimed in a 2023 interview with SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk" that he still looked back fondly on his time with KISS and he didn't hate his former bandmates.

"Look, the bottom line is this: deep down in my heart, I love those guys, because we created something so special that it will be remembered for years," he said. "When we're all dead and buried, there will still be people listening to KISS music. And I'm overjoyed. But I want my legacy to be cleared of any of this bullshit and lies."

Photo credit: Jayme Thornton (courtesy of MNRK Music Group)