In my newest e-book, Discuss to Me: Conversations With Ace Frehley, I collected all of my many interviews with Ace over time. Plus, all-new interviews with such famend rock names as Eddie Trunk, Joe Bonamassa, and Soundgarden‘s Kim Thayil (amongst others), to pay tribute to certainly one of rock music’s all-time greats, who handed away on October 16, 2025, on the age of 74.
Additionally interviewed for the e-book was That Steel Present co-host and slapstick comedian Don Jamieson. And through our chat, I could not assist however ask if he felt that Ace may have reduce it as a comic. Right here is an excerpt from the e-book, during which Jamieson shares his opinion.
“Effectively, here is the factor – being a stand-up comedian, you must be very self-disciplined. You must take the job actually severely. Be lethal severe, to have a whole lot of enjoyable with it. And I feel Ace was slightly bit extra scattered. The factor that he put all his vitality in was enjoying the guitar. That is the place his focus all the time went. But when he simply wished to place the guitar down and stand up there and do jokes, with slightly advantageous tuning, yeah, he may have been hilarious. As a result of, hey, at the least he would have laughed at his jokes.”
Additionally within the e-book, I had the chance to ask Jamieson about an notorious TV interview from Halloween 1979, during which the unique 4 members of Kiss had been interviewed by Tom Snyder on The Tomorrow Present. Throughout which, Ace steals the present along with his joking method and infectious laughter.
“I’m going again and watch that Tom Snyder factor at the least yearly. It truly is like watching a headline comic do a full set, as a result of there’s even some extent in direction of the top of the interview – it is a few 30-minute interview – the place Ace does have a lull with Tom. However then like, the final couple minutes, he has a flurry of actually humorous jokes, and he ends robust. That is like, each comedian – you are killing the entire present, then you have got this lull for slightly bit, however then you have got a couple of extra that you already know it is going to kill them on the finish. And also you get off stage on the large chortle. And that is what it was like.”
“Tom Snyder beloved Ace a lot – to the purpose the place he actually turned his again on Gene and Paul. He wasn’t even taking a look at them for minutes at a time. And even the director had turned the digicam in direction of Ace and Peter, and you may hear Gene off digicam making an attempt to throw one-liners in. However they are not touchdown. They’re simply all bombing. However each time they’d carry the digicam again to Gene and Paul, they had been livid – this was all the things they did not need the general public to see.”
Lastly, Jamieson recalled a memorable look Frehley made on VH1’s That Steel Present again in 2011, which once more, displayed his humorousness, and, unpredictable nature.
“When Ace did That Steel Present, he would all the time come ready with one thing humorous, which I all the time beloved. Ace had such an incredible humorousness. So, we had been interviewing him about how he created the smoking guitar he is well-known for. And he goes, ‘Truly, I’ve a brand new invention that I wish to debut in your present at this time.’ Now, our producer didn’t inform us this was coming, so it was a complete shock. He goes, “You guys know the electrical smoking guitar. Effectively, I bought a brand new factor…the smoking flute.” And he takes out slightly picket flute. He begins enjoying it, smoke begins billowing out the top of it, and the three of us doubled over in laughter. It was such a priceless second. And I feel Eddie nonetheless has that flute to this present day.
Discuss to Me: Conversations With Ace Frehley is accessible on the market now, as paperback, hardcover, and Kindle editions.
