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A final KISS goodbye: spaceman Ace Frehley dies at 74
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- Web Desk
- Oct 17, 2025
NEW YORK: The stars dimmed a little Thursday night as the rock world lost one of its most electric icons. Ace Frehley, the glittering, gravity-defying Spaceman of Kiss, has died at the age of 74, following complications from a fall in his New Jersey recording studio last month.
The guitar-slinging co-founder of Kiss, born Paul Daniel Frehley in the Bronx in 1951, helped launch one of rock’s most recognisable bands into the stratosphere. As the news of his demise broke, tributes poured in from across the music galaxy, hailing Frehley not just as a player, but as a flame-throwing astronaut in platform boots, with fingers that could bend steel and starlight into riffs.
The Kennedy Center issued a statement, “We will be paying tribute to this “rock soldier”, his work, and his legacy at our ceremony in December”.
“We are completely devastated and heartbroken,” Frehley’s family said in a statement. “In his last moments, he was surrounded by love, peace, and deep gratitude. The magnitude of his passing is epic — beyond comprehension.”
Frehley suffered a traumatic head injury in late September while working in his studio. Initially hospitalised and placed on life support, he had been forced to cancel tour dates before the full extent of his injuries was revealed. Fans hoped for a recovery, but it was not to be.
THE SPACEMAN ASCENDS
In 1973, Frehley answered a Village Voice ad placed by Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons. What followed was a supernova of sound and spectacle. Alongside drummer Peter Criss, the four painted faces, strapped on leather, and gave birth to Kiss – a band equal parts comic book, circus, and musical juggernaut.
Frehley’s persona, the Spaceman (or “Space Ace”), wasn’t just makeup; it was mythology. His blazing solos, often delivered through a smoke-belching Les Paul guitar of his own design, helped define Kiss’s interstellar sound across their first nine albums.
“He was an essential and irreplaceable rock soldier,” Stanley and Simmons said in a joint statement. “His DNA runs through every classic Kiss track. He is and always will be a part of our legacy.”
Criss, who once shared hotel rooms and hungover mornings with Frehley across countless tours, posted simply on X, “I’m shocked!!! My friend … I love you!”
NO LESSONS, JUST LIGHTNING
Frehley was famously self-taught. “I don’t know how to read music,” he once told an interviewer. “But I’m one of the most famous guitar players in the world, so go figure.”
When all four members of Kiss dropped solo albums on the same day in 1978, a PR stunt for the ages, it was Frehley’s that stole the show. His cover of “New York Groove” hit the charts like a meteor.
But fame burned hot, and Frehley, like Icarus in eight-inch heels, came too close to the sun. In 1982, amid mounting personal struggles and artistic friction, he left the band that made him a legend. “I was mixed up,” he later said. “If I had stayed in that group, I would’ve driven my car into a tree. Literally.”
But what awaited him was riffs, reunions, and Rock’n’Roll firestorms. Frehley launched his own band, Frehley’s Comet, in the mid-80s, and later released solo albums under his name, including Trouble Walkin’ in 1989. Though he never matched Kiss’s arena-sized success, he retained a loyal fanbase who saw him as the beating heart of the band’s golden era. He rejoined Kiss for a thunderous reunion tour in 1996 and stayed through 2002.
Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready called Frehley “a hero and a friend,” recalling how a Kiss lunchbox at age 11 turned him toward guitar for life. “RIP it out, Ace,” he wrote. “You changed my life.”
Frehley is survived by his wife, Jeanette, and daughter Monique. The Spaceman may be gone, but in the echoes of power chords, in teenage bedrooms plastered with posters, and in the ringing ears of every concertgoer who ever shouted “Rock and roll all nite”, his constellation shines on.
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