No Regrets (25 page)

By the time the movie came out it was apparent that
we all were getting complacent and wanted to do other things. Our two previous albums,
Alive II
and
Double Platinum
, were basically compilations, bringing to nine the total number of KISS albums. All nine were released in the span of four years. I remember at the end of the shoot, sitting around a table with the other guys in the band, with Bill Aucoin and some of our business advisors and accountants, and talking about how we were going to fill the next six months. Bill suggested that instead of making another KISS record, each of us should consider a solo project. I thought it was a great idea. We could all pursue our musical interests, take a turn in the spotlight, and give fans a virtual buffet table of choices from the guys in KISS. Creatively and commercially, it seemed to make a lot of sense, and it had the additional benefit of giving us a break from each other. We had spent so much time with each other over the previous five years that it was inevitable for tensions to arise.

I felt good about my solo project from the beginning, mainly because I knew I’d be teaming up with Eddie Kramer. I had a lot of confidence
in Eddie. I respected him and he respected me. We’d been a good team on KISS albums, and there was no reason to think we wouldn’t work well together on a solo venture. Apparently, though, no one else shared my confidence. I still remember Gene and Paul saying to me, in front of at least a dozen people, “Hey, Ace, if you need some help on your record, don’t hesitate to call.”

It wasn’t said with malice, but neither was it said with sincerity. There was a tone of condescension to it, like
You’re gonna need help.
Remember—

Paul and Gene dominated every KISS album. They wrote and sang most of the songs. They were the dominant personalities. I’m sure they figured my album would bomb, or that maybe I wouldn’t even get it done. If you want to give them the benefit of the doubt, you could say they were trying to look generous in front of our management team by offering their assistance if I needed it. You know, because I was crazy Ace… unreliable Ace… the Spaceman. Regardless, I remember walking out of that meeting and thinking,
I’m gonna show these fuckers, and I’m gonna show the world!

For the first time in a long time, I felt motivated. When somebody says to me, “You can’t do that,” it makes me want to do it all the more. Even as a teenager, when my parents would say that I was the black sheep, I found it inspirational in a weird sort of way. Yeah, I had a drinking problem. I had a drug problem. I lacked some confidence, but I knew I had the chops; after all I was the lead guitarist in one of the biggest rock groups in the world. I knew I had the ability to make a great solo record. It was just a matter of staying focused and teaming up with the right producer.

Admittedly, focus has never been a strong suit of mine (only later on in life was I diagnosed with attention deficit disorder). I don’t work well under the pressure of a deadline and I find it almost impossible to force myself to be creative. Gene once told me, “Ace, I write a song every day.” I don’t get that. How can you force yourself to write? Writing has to be a creative process, and if you’re not feeling creative, it just won’t work well. Sometimes I won’t write a song for weeks. Then, on a given
weekend, I might write two or three songs. When the juices are flowing, you have to be ready. When they aren’t flowing, you do something else: hop on a motorcycle, go fishing, have a party, or maybe build a remote-controlled helicopter. Whatever. Fill the time and divert your attention until you feel inspired. I never write by formula, either. Sometimes I start a song with a guitar riff, sometimes with a vocal hook or a melody. It varies. Ideas come from anywhere and everywhere—my personal life, books or magazines, movies, and sometimes even dreams. A good idea is a good idea, regardless of the source.

In the case of my first solo album I was lucky to have a few songs already in the vault, tunes that had been rejected on earlier KISS records. That gave me a head start. I brought them back, did a little rewriting and tweaking, and that helped ease some of the anxiety about going off on my own. Other songs just kind of happened—spontaneous combustion, I guess. It helped, too, that I cleaned up a little bit (although not completely) during the making of the record, usually limiting my alcohol and drug use to the evenings after a long day of recording. I also felt I didn’t really have much of a choice. I knew that I couldn’t blame anyone else if my solo album bombed. If a KISS record sucked, I could always chalk it up to Paul’s or Gene’s megalomania. Not now. This time it was all on me. Whatever praise or blame would be heaped on the record, I’d have to take responsibility.

The first thing I did (after getting Eddie Kramer on board, of course) was go out and find a great drummer, since Peter was tied up making his own record. An old friend of mine named Larry Russell (we went to high school together and jammed a little back in the day) came up with this name: Anton Fig. I’d never heard of Anton and wasn’t sure if he was right for the project, until I asked Eddie Kramer if he had any suggestions.

“You know,” he said, “there’s this guy I worked with recently named Anton Fig. He’s unbelievable. You should check him out!”

Anton was playing in a band at the time with his two closest friends, Keith and Amanda Lentin. Born in South Africa, he moved to the
States in the early seventies and settled down in Boston, where he studied at the New England Conservatory of Music; he later moved to New York City. When I heard his name from two unrelated sources, I figured it was destiny that we meet. So I invited Anton up to a studio in the North Bronx that was run by my friend Eddie Solan, and we jammed for a while. We hit it off right away, both musically and personally. I immediately hired him for the job and we have enjoyed a lasting friendship in and out of the studios since 1978. (He recently performed on my latest solo effort,
Anomaly,
which was released in September 2009.) Anton has had one of the best steady gigs in show business for the last twenty-five years, as the drummer for David Letter-man’s house band, featuring Paul Shaffer. He’s also one of the busiest session drummers in New York City and has worked with everyone from Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, and Joe Cocker to Miles Davis, Richie Havens, and Paul Butterfield.

When I first started writing songs for
Anomaly,
one of the compositions was “Genghis Kahn.” Listen to the thundering drum work on that song and you’ll understand what makes Anton so special. He holds the pocket back, playing a little behind the beat, just like John Bonham of Led Zeppelin would do. If you listen closely to any Zeppelin tune you’ll find that what gives it that groove is Bonham’s drumming. He’s never racing ahead of the guitar; he’s always holding back. Same with Anton. It’s a unique talent, playing slightly behind the beat. It doesn’t come naturally for most rock drummers, but when executed properly it sets up a great pocket and can really make a song swing. Anton is one of the most versatile drummers I’ve ever met. I bring out the best in him, and he brings out the best in me. We have a musical bond. I don’t have to say much when we’re in the studio. Usually just a few words about tempo and feel and some suggestions about where I might want a fill. He just gets it, plain and simple.

When I wrote “Genghis Khan,” I immediately thought,
Man, Anton is going to kill this song
! I played it with two other drummers prior to Anton, since he was tied up recording, and it just seemed okay, but
when Anton got ahold of it he really took the song to the next level. Just as I had envisioned it.

Ace Frehley
was recorded at the sprawling Colgate Mansion, on the Filston estate in Sharon, Connecticut, right by Lime Rock Park speedway. Once elegant, the hundred-acre estate had been vacant for a few years and had begun to fall on hard times. The grounds were a bit unkempt. Chips of paint and plaster sometimes fell from the ceiling. But parts of it were still very much intact and impressive. I thought to myself, If only these walls could talk. The library, for example, in which we recorded a lot of the acoustic guitar work, had beautifully carved woodwork and turn-of-the-century textured wallpaper, still intact. It was enormous and grand; I found it to be an inspirational and creative workplace. We used several other rooms to create different acoustic effects. On “Fractured Mirror,” for instance, we placed microphones at the top of a stairway on the second floor to get a huge, reverberating drum sound.

We did a lot of stuff like that. Eddie liked working with me because I didn’t put many restraints on him and encouraged him to experiment with unorthodox recording techniques. With KISS, Paul and Gene usually wanted things done by the book. I didn’t even have a book. I was more interested in having fun and taking chances.

I’d say “Eddie, don’t be afraid to try some crazy stuff,” and “Let’s try something you’ve never done before. Fuck it! Go for it.”

I’ll never forget the first time Eddie flipped the tape over on a twenty-four-track, two-inch tape machine. I was a little bewildered.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Don’t worry. Just play your ass off!”

That ended up being my first backward guitar solo and it sounded amazing. I asked, “Where did you learn that” and Eddie went on to tell me what it was like working with Jimi Hendrix at Electric Lady Studios.

Eddie always had interesting stories to tell. Sometimes he’d talk about when he worked with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, or the Kinks at Olympic Sound Studios in London. Once he talked about
what it was like recording
Led Zeppelin II,
including working with Jimmy Page at the mixing board at the Record Plant in New York, and I was on the edge of my seat. Eddie also worked with Dionne Warwick, Peter Frampton, Carly Simon, and David Bowie.

In my wildest dreams I never thought I’d be working with a producer who had worked with so many people that I love and admire. I felt really privileged at that point and I always wanted to give Eddie my very best performance when he hit the record button.

Sometimes we’d put four different amps in four different places and blend them all together in the mix. Crazy shit. Always pushing the envelope. Sometimes even double-tracking drum fills… like the drum solos in “Rip It Out.” On “Fractured Mirror,” Eddie and I achieved a unique metallic bell sound on the guitar. I was playing a Gibson double-neck guitar into a Marshall stack with the volume turned all the way up. I mean, this thing was ready to explode. On one neck I had the pickups on, so if I were to hit the strings on that neck, it would have been loud as hell, but instead I played the picking figure on the other neck, with the pickups off—the sound coming out of the amp was the body resonating through the pickups from the other neck. That’s how I got those bell overtones. It’s a technique I still use today and you can hear it on an instrumental I recorded and produced for
Anomaly
titled “Fractured Quantum.” I was also one of the first guitar players in history to use a synthesizer guitar on record. I used it in the song “Ozone,” which was lots of fun, and Eddie and my assistant engineer, Rob Freeman, did a great job transferring that sound to tape. The device was called the ARP Avatar and was elementary in design compared to the synthesizers available on the market today.

Of the songs I wrote for the first solo album, “Fractured Mirror” turned out to be one of my most unique and enduring favorites. So much that since then I’ve recorded three more instrumentals in the Fractured Series, ending with “Fractured Quantum.” What’s next? I don’t know. The most popular song off that record would probably be “New York Groove,” a song I didn’t even write and frankly didn’t think
that much of the first time I heard it. The credit goes to Eddie’s assistant, who suggested the song. Originally recorded by a band called the Hello People, “New York Groove” was written by Russ Ballard. Russ had a band called Argent in the seventies and I was lucky enough to see them perform in concert as a teen. Eddie pushed hard to include “New York Groove” on the record. I’ve always been the kind of guy who will give anything a shot, especially if I respect the person I’m working with, so I agreed.

The signature sound of “New York Groove” is that
acka-acka
crunch at the beginning. It almost sounds as if it’s being created on a guitar using a wah-wah pedal. But it’s not. It actually was produced by using a device similar to the “talk box” used by Joe Walsh and Jeff Beck, and, most famously, Peter Frampton on
Frampton Comes Alive!
It works like this: A speaker or driver is enclosed in a metal box, into which a tube is inserted. Then a guitar is plugged into an amp, but the speaker output is routed through the box and the signal is routed back from the box into the amp again. The other end of the tube goes into the musician’s mouth, allowing him to sing or talk in a manner that sounds as though the words are being produced by the guitar in a weirdly robotic way.

Done well, and sparingly, it’s an awesome fucking effect.

I couldn’t master the technique well enough to play the part on my own, so I had my friend Bobby help out. Try to picture this: Bobby sitting there next to me, opening and closing his mouth around the tube while I played guitar.

“ACKA-acka-acka…”

It was pretty funny. But it worked. As did another of Eddie’s ideas. He suggested we add loud, rhythmic clapping to the song, figuring it would sound better when the song was performed live. To get that effect we brought in a big, hollow wooden box, and then three or four of us stomped on it together, as hard as we could. And Eddie recorded the whole thing.

It seemed kind of silly at the time, but actually it was brilliant and
innovative. They don’t do shit like that anymore. Somebody now would just go out and get a stomp box. Or, more likely, they’d grab a digital sample. In those days everything you heard was real. We
created
all the effects. Today you just press a button or click a mouse. It takes a lot of the fun out of the process, really. I’m all for technology, but I do think it has a tendency to stunt the imagination.