Quotes

I remember taking the cassette and smashing it against a wall" - to Guitar World magazine in 1993, describing his negative response to the 1981 KISS album, "Music From the Elder.

I eat, sleep, and drink my character. It is my fantasy to go to another planet. By the time I'm 40, interplanetary travel will be common. Nobody will want to talk to me at that age, anyway.

That's not my idea of what KISS is. Maybe that's his idea. You know, they say things like that just to cover their asses, so that they can carry on and still say it's KISS. That's all that is: smoke. [when asked if he agrees with Paul Stanley about the idea of KISS continuing without any of the original members].

I knew I was destined to do a solo album, but when I did that first album in 1978, I had no idea it was going to be that well received.

I can't even read notes. But I can teach someone how to make a guitar smoke.

I believe that the only way that the human race is gonna survive is to start colonizing space and setting up colonies on the moon, and then space stations.

Every time Paul and Gene use my makeup, they have to pay me a royalty check. I think they changed the makeup so they didn't have to pay me.

[on Tommy Thayer replacing him as the "Space Ace" in KISS]: They can put Tommy Thayer in make-up, I don't give a fuck. But I don't think he can sing... or do the moves like me.

Anybody who says anything bad about me is foolish, because a lot of people like me. You're gonna make enemies when you put down Ace Frehley. And that's because I'm a straight shooter - I tell it like it is.

[on Tommy Thayer, who replaced him in KISS] I could sense he always wanted to be me - he used to be in a KISS cover band. He didn't do anything; he was hired by Paul [Paul Stanley] and Gene [Gene Simmons] to put on my makeup and costume and play my guitar solos - a business deal. Look, if he wouldn't have done it, they would have hired somebody else. I walked out on the band; I quit. What they really should have done is, if they wanted to dress up a guy to play lead guitar, they should have come up with different makeup like they did with Eric Carr and Vinnie Vincent.

[on KISS] We started out as this heavy, mean, nasty rock 'n' roll group wearing leather and it turned into a goddamn circus.

[on Paul Stanley] Now he's trying to take credit for the fucking KISS logo? Unbelievable. I designed the logo - all he did was draw straighter lines. And you know, I told Paul to wear the star on his eye. Do you know what his makeup was before he put the star on his eye? It was a round circle. He looked like the dog from The Little Rascals (1955) [Pete the Dog]. It told him it looked kinda silly and that he should put one star on his eye. But do I go around taking credit for that? No. I let him say he designed it. Who cares, you know? Let's not be petty.

[2014, on Paul Stanley] Paul's cranky because he can't call me a drunk or a drug addict anymore. He can't say I'm unemployable. He can't say I don't show up, because I do these days. So now he's grasping at straws just to grab headlines for his goddamn book.

[on Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley publicly badmouthing him] I think they're just cranky. For years, when I was fucked up, Gene used to say that I was a drunk and a drug addict and that I was unemployable. Kick a guy when he's down, right? But they can't do that anymore, so it's like they're scratching their heads trying to come up with new ways to insult me. The most recent thing was that I'm anti-Semitic, that I'm a fucking Nazi. That's just below the belt. Next I'll be a member of the Ku Klux Klan. And my fiancée is Jewish! My whole life I've worked with Jewish people in all different capacities - my accountants, my attorneys, people on the road. Jesus Christ, I can't believe the stuff that comes out of their mouths. But the truth is that I don't want to be negative. I just want to keep everything light and be happy.

Paul has been so goddamn cranky lately. I mean, what's wrong, Paul, aren't you happy? I know they must be frustrated because people are always writing about how Ace was the real guy or Ace was the real deal. It's gotta rub them the wrong way. They would like nothing more than for me to start drinking again, start taking drugs again and end up as a bum on skid row. But that's not gonna happen.

I was growing up in the Bronx, you know, being in a gang and getting in trouble with the police. A lot of crazy shit went down. Luckily, I got out of it unscarred. When I started playing in bands, it got me away from that negative element. And it did save my life.

KISS fans are weird - everybody knows it. These days I have to be transparent, you know? There's nothing I'm gonna say that's gonna shock anybody. So, yeah, a lot of KISS fans are kinda strange. But that's okay because *we're* strange.

I still got the chops. I definitely blow [current KISS guitarist] Tommy Thayer off the stage.

[on Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer, who replaced him and Peter Criss in KISS] They're not contributing anything original to the band. They're just copying stuff that Peter and me did during the first ten years of the group. So they're just actors, basically.

When I look back at all the mistakes I've made, I feel I had to get through those mistakes to get where I am today. That's why I don't have any regrets.

[2014] I haven't had the urge to drink in a long time. And I don't miss the hangovers, I don't miss the smells, the late nights at the bars, or the people. I was hanging out with some pretty shady people in my heavy-drinking-and-coke years. I was in some situations that really could have gone sideways. I was just lucky. And you have to realize that my fans used to emulate my behavior when I was a crazy man - "Ace is a party animal, let's go get loaded!". Then they'd go crash their car, and I'd feel terrible.

[2014, on Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley] These guys just come off so cranky. I mean, you've got millions and millions of dollars, you live in a big house, you're a huge rock star, people all around the world think you're great. What do you have to put people down for? Paul and Gene are way too uptight, and it's making them look bad.

[on Paul Stanley's memoir, "Face the Music: A Life Exposed"] I haven't read it, but I'm sure he threw me under the bus in one way or another. Although I heard he threw Gene [Gene Simmons] under the bus more than anyone.

[on KISS' merchandising] There's a lot of things that Gene [Gene Simmons] has done with the merchandising that are just over the top. He's got everything from prophylactics to toilet paper - anything to make a buck. It's embarrassing. That's one of the reasons I left the group. Towards the end, I'd go out and see kids in the front row with KISS dolls and lunchboxes and my manager is going, "Hey, Ace - watch the cursing tonight. We've got kids in the front row".