Up to the release of their album “Creatures of the Night,” Ace Frehley was a recognized part of KISS, but it was on his final record, “Music from the ‘Elder,” that he gave his final contribution to the band. In a recent interview with Guitar World, KISS bassist Gene Simmons discussed these recordings and pointed out one mistake they made about Frehley.
“By the time ‘Creatures’ happened, Ace was already gone,” Simmons recalled. “Ace doesn’t appear on a single song on ‘Creatures of the Night.’ His only appearance was in the promotional shots, and he did us a favor by appearing in the ‘I Love it Loud’ music video.”
By including Ace Frehley in the song’s official music video, KISS made a mistake. Gene remarked,
“But even that was a mistake because he clearly didn’t know the song and had to fake his way through the entire thing. So, not only were we feeling very unsure of what we were doing, we didn’t even have a lead guitarist.”
Ace Frehley and the surviving KISS members had a disagreement regarding the band’s sound even before “Creatures of the Night” was released. The band chose to release their previous album, “Music from the “Elder”,” as a concept album even though Frehley had planned it to be a plain rock album.
After this, Ace Frehley’s relationship with the band started to deteriorate, which was followed by the guitarist’s quick departure. As a result, the musician didn’t contribute any songs to KISS’ follow-up album “Creatures of the Night.” In Simmons’ opinion, Frehley’s participation in the “I Love it Loud” music video was a mistake because he wasn’t familiar with the song.