During an appearance on yesterday’s (Thursday, September 16) episode of SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk”, original KISS guitarist Ace Frehley said that he has been in contact with Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons in the days after they were both diagnosed with COVID-19. “I spoke to Paul, and he told me he was completely baffled [as to how he got infected],” Ace said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “The minute I heard he had it, I got hold of him. The minute Gene got it, I got hold of him. Gene sent me a video of him with a nurse, telling him he’s okay. They followed the guidelines. Paul goes, ‘I’m completely baffled, Ace. I have no idea how I got it.’ He was stuck in a hotel in Pennsylvania. I said, ‘Be careful.’ ‘Cause I thought he might be going back to L.A. I said, ‘You’ve got young kids at the house.’ He goes, ‘No. I’ve gotta self-quarantine.’ But as far as I know, they’re back on the road again… So they got over it pretty quick. Some people get laid up for weeks. My cousin has a ranch in Dallas and he got the delta virus, and he was laid up for 11 days. And he said it was like the flu on steroids. That’s something I do not wanna get.
“But I’ve been vaccinated,” he revealed. “I take my vitamins. I work out. My new girlfriend is a personal trainer, on top of being a schoolteacher and a graphic artist. So I eat right. She keeps me in great shape. I’m down to 198 [pounds], which is the thinnest I’ve been since — I can’t remember.”
Frehley‘s U.S. tour as the support act for Alice Cooper is scheduled to launch September 18 at Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion in Gilford, New Hampshire. This will be the first time Frehley has hit the road since the pandemic.
Frehley‘s band features guitarists Ryan Cook and Jeremy Asbock, bassist Philip Shouse and drummer Matt Starr.
When Ace‘s tour with Alice was first announced in May, Frehley said in a statement: “I’ve known Alice for over 30 years. We’re good friends, and we’ve toured together numerous times and always had a blast. Our musical roots are very similar, and the combination of our two bands make for a great event that nobody is gonna want to miss. Being off the road for more than a year because of the pandemic has been tough on everyone in the music industry, and I’m really looking forward to seeing all of the fans happy, healthy, and ready to rock.”
Last December, Frehley told Talking Metal Live that he would begin recording his next all-original album “after the New Year.” The record will be the follow-up to “Spaceman”, which was released in October 2018 via eOne. Ace is laying down the effort at the newly built studio at his new house in New Jersey.
Earlier last year, Frehley told Canada’s iHeart Radio that he has “only written about three songs” for his next LP, and he added they were “not finished.” He said: “Now that I’m [living] on the East Coast [after moving to New Jersey from Southern California], my engineer only lives an hour from me, Alex Salzman, who worked with me extensively on this last record, and he played a lot of bass guitar as well, So it’s gonna be even easier, ‘Origins Vol. 3’ and the next [original] record.”
Frehley‘s latest release was “Origins Vol. 2”, the sequel to his 2016 collection of cover songs that inspired the former KISS guitarist.
Simmons co-wrote two tracks on “Spaceman”, “Without You I’m Nothing” and “Your Wish Is My Command”, the latter of which also features Simmons‘s bass playing.
