In a new interview with Australia’s Heavy, former KISS guitarist Ace Frehley was asked to name the defining album of his career. He responded (hear audio below): “Probably my first solo album, with ‘New York Groove’. That was my biggest hit, and I think it was the biggest surprise to all the KISS fans that my album did the best. Considering I wasn’t the main lead vocalist or the frontman of the band, I think people maybe thought Paul‘s [Stanley] or Gene‘s [Simmons] album was gonna be number one and number two, but my album actually surpassed all of ’em in sales and popularity. So I think that was a very defining album for me. Plus, it also made me realize I was more creative away from those guys than with them. Me and Eddie Kramer pretty much did that whole record. Then we got Anton Fig to do the drums.”
Co-produced with frequent KISS collaborator Eddie Kramer, “Ace Frehley” is widely hailed as the best of the four KISS solo albums released simultaneously in 1978. It peaked at No. 26 on the Billboard 200 and outsold the solo efforts of his three bandmates.
“Origins Vol. 2”, the sequel to Ace‘s 2016 collection of cover songs that inspired the former KISS guitarist, was released on September 18 via eOne. Frehley told Canada’s iHeart Radio about the effort: “These albums are becoming fun. I just re-signed with eOne, and they want an ‘Origins Vol. 3’ after the next studio record, which I’ve already started writing songs for. But it’s become a really fun process. It’s much easier than doing a studio record where you have to write the material yourself. I’m basically just taking other people’s material that influenced me as a kid and putting my stamp on it.”
Frehley also talked about the status of his next all-original album. The record will be the follow-up to “Spaceman”, which was released in October 2018 via eOne.
“I’ve only written about three songs, and they’re not finished,” he said. “My studio’s not gonna be done for another month. 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.”
KISS bassist/vocalist Gene 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.
