ACE FREHLEY On 'Psycho Circus': 'I Had To Really Struggle Just To Get One Song On That Record'

Joe Matera of Ultimate-Guitar.com recently conducted an interview with legendary KISS guitarist Ace Frehley. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: [Your new solo] album ["Anomaly" has a] release date of September 15 [which] also coincides with the third anniversary of you being sober. It must certainly make a huge difference to how you now feel personally and professionally?

Frehley: Yeah, the mornings are really nice now without the hangovers. When I was younger, I always thought I needed that junk in order to perform and to be creative, but now when I look back, I realize I am a lot more creative and more focus without it. That is one of the fallacies that a lot of musicians feel that they need something to depend on like a crutch. But once you get past that, and realize it mentally, you are much better off without it.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Did the drinking problem first come about as a result of the pressures you felt from being in such a successful rock group as KISS?

Frehley: The touring schedule with KISS was really so hectic back then and so I needed something to help take the edge off the day. Well, at least I thought I did. When I toured last year I was completely sober, and it was a joy. When you start drinking young and you depend on it, your brain tells you, you need it to relax, you need it to do this or that, you need it to perform, yet it's really just your brain telling you this fallacy. But it is still your life.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: How did the approach you used making this record compare to the way you made your previous recordings?

Frehley: This is the first album that I made totally digitally. And I really had to get a crash course in Pro Tools in order to keep up with everybody who worked with me on it. So I took some lessons from some Pro Tools teachers and some good engineers and I also picked up a lot of stuff over the last two years. And I'm at the point now where I can do whatever I need to do with Pro Tools when I'm by myself in my studio. But I don't want to do that really because, like I said, I like having an objective ear and somebody to bounce ideas off.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Because Pro Tools gives you so much at your disposal, do you find it less satisfying than when you worked with analog technology?

Frehley: The possibilities it gives you in editing is unbelievable. And it is really a godsend because I remember the days when we used to do guitar solos and we had to cut the tape to edit. While Marti [Frederiksen] and Anthony [Focx] were mixing the songs, I was in my hotel room cutting and pasting sound bites on "Outer Space" and "Genghis Khan". The flexibility of cut-and-paste and moving things around is so easy in Pro Tools, it is, like, effortless.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Gene [Simmons] has stated in numerous interviews over the years that you didn't actually play on some KISS tracks and that the band actually brought in studio players at times to play and record some of your guitar parts?

Frehley: I'm sure it happened because I remember as early back as the "Destroyer" album, I had come in and done a solo for "Sweet Pain" but when I later listened back to the final mix of the album, there was somebody else [Dick Wagner] playing the solo on the song. It was stuff like that where they would switch my solos without telling me, which probably led me to eventually leave the group.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Another album that proved to be an unsatisfying affair for you was "Psycho Circus".

Frehley: I had to really struggle just to get one song on that record. Even half way through that album, they had accepted the song but then it was rejected and I had to fight tooth and nail just to get that one song on there. And I had submitted three songs. But there was always a lot of competition between Gene and Paul [Stanley], him and myself and Peter [Criss].

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Are you still good friends with any of the KISS guys?

Frehley: I'm friends with all of them. I don't have any animosity … personally. We had some great times together years ago and they decided to take a different path and I decided to take a different path, so let bygones be bygones.

Read the entire interview from Ultimate-Guitar.com.

Below are several photos of the packaging for "Anomaly", the fifth solo album from Ace Frehley.