A Farewell to the Spaceman: Ace Frehley Forever
- Paul Fitzgerald
- Oct 16
- 2 min read
It’s hard to imagine a world without Ace Frehley. For so many of us, he wasn’t just a guitarist — he was the spark that made us believe rock and roll could take us somewhere bigger, louder, and wilder than the world we knew.
When Ace hit the stage with Kiss, the air changed. You could feel it in your chest — the rumble of the amps, the flash of the lights, and then that guitar. The way he bent notes felt like he was tearing open the sky. He didn’t just play solos… he launched them like rockets. He made every kid with a beat-up guitar believe they could be a star.
For me — and for millions of fans around the world — Ace was pure magic. He was the mischievous grin behind the silver makeup, the coolest guy in the room without trying. His riffs on songs like “Shock Me,” “Cold Gin,” and “Strange Ways” are burned into our DNA. And when “New York Groove” hit, it was like every bar, every car stereo, every pair of headphones lit up with his swagger.
Ace wasn’t perfect. He was human — wild, reckless, brilliant, flawed. But that’s what made him real. He wasn’t some untouchable rock god behind velvet ropes. He was one of us… who just happened to strap on a Les Paul and take the world by storm.
His legacy isn’t just in the records or the tours or the makeup. It’s in every teenager who stood in front of a mirror, air-guitaring to a Kiss album. It’s in every real guitar player who chased that tone, that feel, that freedom.
Ace Frehley didn’t just play rock and roll. He was rock and roll. Loud. Defiant. Unapologetically alive.
Goodbye, Spaceman.
Thank you for the riffs, the fire, the laughter, the lightning in a bottle. You showed us how to dream louder. And somewhere out there, in the great cosmic jam session, I know that Les Paul is still screaming.
Rest easy, Ace.
We’ll keep the volume up for you.
