| Circus 1987 �1987 Circus Magazine Written by: Paul Gallotta It takes about 30 minutes via the #4 IRT subway to get from the Mosholu Parkway birthplace of Paul "Ace" Frehley to the Manhattan digs he now calls home. But it might as well be 30,000 light years away; if the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, then it wasn't the route selected by the former lead guitarist of KISS. Stretched out across a sofa in Atlantic Records' New York headquarters, Ace reflects that the road he traveled has had as many detours and dead ends as it had bright lights. "I came from a middle class upbringing in the Bronx," he sighs, adjusting his omnipresent shades. "In a few short years, I was a millionaire in a super group. That was cultural shock. I dealt with the stress by overindulging...too much whatever." Shifting his gaze towards a window overlooking St. Patrick's Cathedral, Frehley pauses for a moment. "This is a tough business," he continues. "Once you become famous, there are a lot of demands made on you that are sometimes too outlandish to handle without resorting to some form of escapism." The escapism to which Frehley alludes culminated in a near-fatal drunk-driving episode which is chronicled ion the song "Rock Soldiers" off Ace's comeback LP, Ace Frehley/Frehley's Comet. "That song is my message to the youth of America," he explains. "That's not the way to go. At the time I was going through a very stressful period of my life. That day, I cracked. I thank God that I didn't hurt myself or anyone else." The circumstances surrounding "Rock Soldiers" involve a minor fender-bender which escalated into Ace driving his DeLorean sports car "100 miles per hour against traffic" down the Bronx River Parkway in an effort to escape the police. "In retrospect, it's better that I got caught-I learned a good lesson," he concludes. "My daughter's going to be seven now and she's been a really strong force in my life to make me stay sober. I don't want to set a bad example for her or any of my fans who stuck with me. I've learned that reality can be beautiful if you just learn how to deal with it correctly." |
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