Written By Caine Blackthorn
Farewell To Ace Frehley
Farewell to Ace Frehley. There are some guitarists you listen to. And then there are the rare few you orbit, Ace was the latter. Farewell to Ace Frehley, a name that forever altered the orbit of rock ‘n’ roll. A gravitational force in silver boots, a kid from the Bronx who strapped a Les Paul to his chest and taught rock ‘n’ roll how to leave Earth’s atmosphere. On October 16, 2025, that force slipped the bonds of gravity for good. The world feels colder without him in it.
Farewell To Ace Frehley. From the Bronx to the Cosmos
Paul Daniel Frehley wasn’t supposed to be a star. He was a misfit with a guitar and a head full of sound but misfits have a way of rewriting history. In 1973, he answered a newspaper ad that would become rock folklore. The lineup that formed was as unlikely as it was explosive: Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss, and Ace Frehley. Four outsiders building a sonic empire one power chord at a time.
Ace’s “Spaceman” persona wasn’t a gimmick. It was prophecy. His molten-metal tone, those gravity-defying solos, the flashpots that erupted from his guitar, he felt like he’d been beamed down from somewhere else. While KISS stomped in platform boots and breathed fire, Ace made the music soar. His fingerprints are etched into the DNA of “Shock Me,” “Cold Gin,” “Rocket Ride” anthems that turned kids into lifers, dreamers into disciples.
The Worldwide Wake
Frehley’s reach was never confined to American arenas. His guitar licks rang out from Tokyo’s Budokan to São Paulo’s stadiums, from London’s Hammersmith to Sydney’s Enmore. Bands from Scandinavia’s frozen tundras to South America’s blistering stages trace their lineage straight back to Ace’s fretboard. His influence bent genres: glam, hard rock, thrash, even the earliest sparks of metal owe a debt to the spaceman who made noise feel infinite.
And when he left KISS in 1982, that gravitational pull didn’t fade, it scattered. Frehley’s Comet carved its own trail through the ‘80s and ‘90s, reminding the world that his power wasn’t bound to greasepaint or theatrics. He returned to the mothership in the ‘90s for a final supernova of reunion tours, proving that the magic that began in a New York basement still burned white-hot on the biggest stages in the world.
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Beyond the Riffs
But Ace was more than riffs and smoke machines. He was the embodiment of every kid who felt too weird, too loud, too much and picked up a guitar anyway. He never played to impress critics or chase trends. He played because he had to. Because there was electricity under his skin that demanded to be released in bending strings and screaming solos.
Ask any guitarist from Slash to Dave Grohl to Marty Friedman where their spark came from, and you’ll hear the same confession: Ace made me want to play. That’s a legacy no critic can quantify and no obituary can contain.
Final Descent, Eternal Orbit
The end came as a shock, a fall in his studio, a brain bleed, a final battle he couldn’t shred his way through. Surrounded by loved ones, he slipped into silence on October 16, 2025. But silence is relative when your music still roars from car stereos, basement speakers, festival PA systems, and the calloused fingertips of generations still chasing that same fire.
We call him gone, but that’s not really true. Ace Frehley is still here in the pick slides that raise the hair on your arms, in the kids scrawling band logos on their notebooks, in every dream that dares to go beyond the stratosphere. Farewell to Ace Frehley, your music will live on.
Because the Spaceman never really landed.
He just left a trail of stardust for the rest of us to follow.
Legacy Highlights: Ace Frehley (1951 – 2025)
- Signature Songs: “Shock Me,” “Cold Gin,” “Rocket Ride,” “Parasite,” “New York Groove”
- Essential Albums: KISS (1974), Destroyer (1976), Love Gun (1977), Ace Frehley (1978), Frehley’s Comet (1987)
- Global Impact: Inspired generations of guitarists across every continent; cited by artists from Guns N’ Roses, Anthrax, and Mötley Crüe to modern shred icons as a formative influence.
- Accolades: Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with KISS in 2014; featured on Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists list; recipient of multiple lifetime achievement awards.
- Legacy: Bridged glam, hard rock, and metal with cosmic showmanship and unforgettable tone, proving that even the loudest music can carry stardust in its veins.
Ace Frehley’s orbit reminds us why this music matters and why it still evolves. Explore more stories like this in our Deep Cuts series, discover the latest essential releases in Seven Deadly Songs, and see how the cosmos aligns with your playlist in this week’s Metalhead Horoscopes.