Ace Frehley

Frehley has 2 siblings named Nancy and Charles. Both of them played piano and the acoustic guitar during their younger days, around the same time when Frehley got his hands on the first musical instrument.

Ace Frehley was born on April 27, 1951 as the youngest of the three kids to his parents Carl Daniel and Esther Anna Frehley. While his father was of Dutch origin, mother Esther was a German raised in the United States. Ace, born in Bronx county of New York City, was originally named Paul Daniel Frehley.

He attended ‘Theodore Roosevelt High School’, ‘DeWitt Clinton High School’, and finally graduated from ‘Grace Lutheran’. He was thirteen years old at the time.

Though Frehley was least interested in studying further, he pursued a diploma as per his family’s advice. Post the completion of the course, Frehley got engaged in petty jobs such as mail delivery boy and furniture delivery boy.

Frehley’s first tryst with music was in 1964, when he received an electric guitar as a Christmas present. He rigorously practiced playing the instrument, and eventually mastered the art of playing the guitar without the guidance of any music teacher.

After a series of unsuccessful collaborations with few bands, the turning point of Ace Frehley’s career came towards the end of 1972. During this time, Frehley’s friend had spotted an advertisement of a music audition in a newspaper named ‘Village Voice’. As per the friend’s suggestion, Frehley attended the audition, and performed before the members of the band ‘Wicked Lester’.

The band members were impressed by Frehley’s performance and decided to appoint him as the lead guitarist of their troupe. This troupe was later re-christened ‘KISS’. Other than contributing through music, Frehley also designed the logo of this new formed band.

During the initial days of the band, Frehley took up a job to support his living expenses. However, the group found a manager in mid-1973. The manager paid each member a weekly wage of $75, and soon Frehley hung his boots from the routine job to pursue music fulltime.

In 1974, the band KISS released their first album with the same name. Frehley not only played the guitar, but also co-wrote two songs namely ‘Love theme from KISS’ and ‘Cold Gin’. The song ‘Cold Gin’ from the album garnered critical acclaim.

Frehley continued contributing to the band through his guitar skills and the lyrics until 1977. He made his debut as a vocalist this year through the song ‘Shock Me’ of the album ‘Love Gun’.

The year 2011 saw the release of Frehley’s autobiography titled ‘No Regrets: A Rock n Roll Memoir’. The book widely spoke about his musical journey, and also contained few pictures from his life. ‘No Regrets’ reached the #1 and #10 spots on the ‘amazon.com’ and ‘New York Times’ lists.