What if I told you the tributes from his

bandmates were too little, too late?

That the man who defined their sound

died after just turning down one last

chance to share a stage with them. That

his death wasn’t the end of a rock and

roll story, but the final bitter chapter

in a 40year feud. Here’s how the

spaceman’s journey ended in the long,

dark shadow of the band he never could

truly escape.

Like, subscribe. Thank you. So on

October 16th, 2025, the music world gets

the news. Ace Freely is gone. He’s 74

years old. The statement from his family

is heartbreaking. They talk about

surrounding him with love as he passed

away in a hospital in Morristown, New

Jersey. The cause feels cruy mundane for

a man who lived such a huge life. A few

weeks earlier on September 25th, he had

taken a fall in the studio. Just a fall.

It was described as minor. A word meant

to reassure everybody. a temporary

setback for a guy working on his next

record, Origins Volume 4. But instead,

it led to a brain bleed, and his

condition never improved. On October

16th, the dreaded reports confirmed that

he was on life support. And then the

family had to make that impossible

decision. Ace Freely, the spaceman, the

rock god who once seemed indestructible,

was brought down essentially by a slip

and a fall. The tribute started pouring

in. Rock stars, fans, everyone mourning

the loss. And then came the words from

Jean Simmons and Paul Stanley, the two

men he had built an empire with and then

spent decades fighting. They called him

an irreplaceable rock soldier. They

talked about his brilliance, his unique

talent. On the surface, it’s what you

would expect. Bandmates honoring a

fallen brother. But for anyone who had

been paying attention for the last 40

years, the words felt complicated.

Because the story of Ace Freel and Kiss

isn’t the story of brotherhood. It’s a

story of a messy, bitter public divorce

that never really ended. Let’s go back.

It’s 1973 in New York City. Jean Simmons

and Paul Stanley have a band called

Wicked Lester that’s going nowhere. So,

they decide to start over. They need a

lead guitarist with Flash and Fire. So,

they put out an ad in the Village Voice.

Lead guitarist Wanted with Flash and

Balls. This guy shows up to the audition

wearing two different colored sneakers,

one red, one orange. Looks like a total

space case. He’s quiet, plugs into his

amp, and just starts wailing. Doesn’t

say much. He just plays. That guy was

Paul Daniel Freley from the Bronx. They

weren’t sure about the sneakers, but

they were damn sure about the guitar

playing. And he got the gig. He became

Ace, a nickname he got as a teen for

being good at getting his friends dates.

And when the band decided to wear makeup

to become characters, he became the

spaceman or Space Ace. He was the one

who sketched out the band’s famous

double lightning bolt logo, a design

that would become one of the most

recognizable emblems in music history.

From the very beginning, he wasn’t just

a guitarist. He was part of the DNA.

Kiss blew up. They’re more than a band.

They’re a phenomenon. The makeup, the

pyro, the spectacle. It was all

consuming. And Ace’s guitar was the

engine. His solos were raw, crazy,

sloppy sometimes, but always full of

swagger. They weren’t technically

perfect, but they’re dripping with that

attitude. Think of that iconic driving

riff in Cold Jin. A song he brought to

the band, but wasn’t confident enough to

sing himself. with a blistering solo in

Shock Me, a song he wrote and sang after

being electrocuted on stage in Florida

in 1976. That was all Ace. He had that

quiet, cool charisma contrasted with

Jean’s demonic bluster and Paul’s

stareyed showmanship. On stage, while

Gene was spitting blood and Paul was

prancing, Ace was the effortlessly cool

alien letting that smoking less Paul do

the talking. Ace was the reluctant star,

the guy who just wanted to play his

guitar, preferably with it rigged to

shoot smoke and rockets. But inside the

machine, things were breaking down. The

chemistry that made them brilliant on

stage was a toxic mess offstage. Ace and

original drummer Peter Chris were the

parters of the band. They lived the rock

and roll lifestyle to the fullest.

They’re the street guys from New York,

and that energy was part of their

appeal. Jed Simmons famously was a tea

totler and a very shrewd businessman.

Paul Stanley was the driven frontman,

laser focused on the band’s success. The

clash was inevitable. Creative tensions

grew. Ace felt like his songs were being

overlooked in favor of Gene and Paul’s

more commercial material. He was getting

tired of the makeup, the character, the

whole damn circus. The breaking point

was the 1981 album Music from the Elder.

It was a full-blown orchestrical

orchestral concept album about a boy

being trained by an ancient order to

fight evil. It was as far from a rock

and roll all night as you could possibly

get. And Ace hated it with a passion. He

felt like it was a betrayal of

everything the band stood for. Legend

has it he refused to play on large parts

of it. And the solos that are there were

reportedly recorded at his home studio

in Connecticut and just mailed to the

band. By 1982, the friction was too

much. He was out. It was his first

escape. The Ace went solo and formed

Freely’s Comet, a band that kept his

hard rocking, guitar-driven sound alive.

And he had a genuine hit. Back in 1978,

at the absolute peak of their fame, all

four members of Kiss released solo

albums on the same day. Pretty wild act

of a commercial move never seen before

or since. While Jean, Paul, and Peter’s

albums did okay, it was Ace’s record

that was actually the runaway success.

His album Pure Rock and Roll and his

cover of the song New York Groove became

a top 20 hit. The only real smash from

the four records, and it became his

anthem, a declaration of independence.

And for a while, it seemed like he had

successfully broken free. Hayes Frilly

was his own man making his own music. He

was proud of it, too. Years later, he’d

boast in interviews that he was the most

successful solo artist of the four

original members. A New York Groove was

a big reason why he was proving that he

actually didn’t need Kiss. But the

shadow of Kiss is long. In 1996, the

unthinkable happened. The original four

members, spurred by a massively popular

appearance on MTV Unplugged, agreed to a

reunion. They put the makeup back on.

The world went nuts. The Alive worldwide

tour was one of the biggest of all time.

And for a moment, it was like 1977 all

over again. The magic seemed to be back.

But behind the scenes, it was the same

old [ __ ] Same arguments, same

resentments. The reunion money was huge,

but it couldn’t buy peace. Ace’s

sobriety was a struggle. And the power

dynamic with Gene and Paul had not

changed. By 2002, Ace was gone again,

this time for good. And that’s when the

war of words really began. For the next

20 years, the feud played out in public.

In interviews, tell all books. Gene and

Paul would criticize Ace’s work ethic

and his struggles with substance abuse.

They painted him as unreliable, somebody

who squandered his immense talent, and

they replaced him in Kiss with another

guitarist, Tommy Theer, who had once

played in a Kiss tribute band. And what

many fans saw as the ultimate insult was

that the wore Ace’s spaceman makeup and

played his solos note fornotee. It was

like they’re trying to erase him to

prove that he was just a replaceable

part in the Kiss assembly line. The

costume that anybody could wear. Ace,

for his part, never held back. He got

sober and he fired back at Gene and Paul

with both barrels. Called them out for

being driven by money, turning Kiss into

a nostalgia act, a cooperation with a

gift shop. He accused them of

disrespecting the legacy that he had

actually helped build. The fight got

ugly and personal, filled with he said,

she said accusations that kept rock

journalists busy for two decades. Total

soap opera fans felt like they were

forced to pick a side. Were you with

Ace, the rebellious, soulful artist who

created the sound, or were you with Gene

and Paul, all the pragmatic leaders who

kept the Kiss machine running at all

costs? The battle lines were drawn. Fast

forward to the months before his death.

Kiss was on their end of the road

farewell tour. There were whispers and

hopes the Ace and maybe Peter Chris

would make a guest appearance for the

final shows in Madison Square Garden.

The final bow with the band they started

in the city where it all began.

According to reports, Ace was invited to

participate in some way and he turned it

down. The details are murky. Some say it

was about money, others about how he

might be presented, but the message from

Ace’s camp was clear. He was not

interested in a manufactured feel-good

photo op. And after everything that had

been said, after another man had worn

his face on stage for two decades, a

quick wave and a smile even felt hollow.

It was a final act of defiance. He was

done. And then just a few months later,

he was gone. He was still working,

getting ready to finish Origins Volume

4. His tour was booked through the end

of 2025 before the fall forced him to

cancel. He wasn’t finished, but it was

that fall that took it all away. took

away any chance, no matter how small of

a true reconciliation. It left the feud

hanging in the air unresolved forever.

So when Gene and Paul released their

statements calling him irreplaceable, it

struck a nerve with a lot of people.

Irreplaceable. They had literally

replaced him for 20 years. Fans

immediately jumped online pointing out

the hypocrisy. They posted old interview

clips where Gene and Paul had trashed

Ace’s playing and his character. They

saw the tributes not as a genuine olive

branch, but as brand management. It felt

like an attempt to smooth over a messy

history to present a clean, unified

front in the face of tragedy, but the

cracks were too deep. The bad blood was

too public. The wounds were still open.

And the tragedy of Ace Frill’s death

isn’t just that the legend is gone. It’s

the story of a broken brotherhood of a

man who helped create a monster and has

spent his life trying to escape its

clutches only to be pulled back in again

and again. Ace Frley was a Bronx kid who

wanted to be a rock star and it became

one of the biggest in the world. But the

price was a piece of his identity, a

piece he fought to get back until the

very end. His death did not end the

feud, it cemented it. It leaves us with

a question that will be debated in

comment sections for years to come. Were

the tributes real or was it just the

final move in a long sad game? And of

course, the spaceman is gone and he took

that answer with him. 2025, what a

shitty year, huh? We took Aussie, Ace,

John Sykes, Brent Hines, Rick Daringer,

Sly Stone, Brian Wilson. That’s just to

start. It’s a sad day for all of us who

dug Ace’s work with Kiss as well as his

solo stuff. The man was truly

irreplaceable. And to you, I just want

to say thank you for joining me in

celebrating Ace. If you haven’t joined

the family yet, smack that subscribe

button. And if you could kindly hit the

like button on the way out the door, I

do appreciate it. Thank you for watching

and may our boy Ace rest in peace.