The KISS Album Ace Frehley Would’ve Bet “A Million Dollars” Would Fail

Most of the time, it’s impossible to say with absolute certainty whether an album will be a success or a flop—former KISS guitarist Ace Frehley’s opinion of the rock band’s divisive 1981 album was not one of those times. According to Frehley, he had no doubt in his mind that the album would be a commercial failure. In fact, he was so upset when he heard the final cassette tape that he smashed it against a wall.

But hey, at least there’s some satisfaction in being right, right?

The KISS Album Ace Frehley Knew Would Be A Failure

In the early 1980s, American rock band KISS struggled to connect to their fans. After back-to-back commercial flops, the quartet embarked on a journey to make a record similar to The Who’s Tommy. What they created was the theatrical, orchestral, and highly controversial 1981 album Music from “The Elder.” Critics and fans alike denounced the record, and even members of the band would go on to say it was a mistake—one that Gene Simmons takes the blame for.

But Ace Frehley? Well, he knew the whole time.

During a 2018 interview at Hollywood’s Musicians Institute, the former KISS guitarist told his bandmates and producer Bob Ezrin that Music from “The Elder” was a mistake. “I kept telling all those guys, ‘This is the wrong album for this period of time. I think fans want to hear a heavy hard rock album.’ They just had a deaf ear to me. I said, ‘It’s not going to work,’ and of course, the album bombed.”

“I guess I had a handle on what was happening. Those guys never had any street sense,” Frehley continued. “I always had my pulse on what was going on, and I knew all the time—I would have bet a million dollars that the album was going to fail” (via BlabberMouth).

A Love-Hate Relationship Ensued

In a 1993 interview with Guitar World, guitarist Ace Frehley definitively ranked Music from “The Elder” as his least favorite KISS album. “That album was really the icing on the cake, as far as me leaving the band is concerned,” Frehley said. “For starters, they brought in Bob Ezrin to produce, who I don’t relate to that well. Plus, I felt that the music on that album just wasn’t where we should have been going at that point.”

Frehley said he knew KISS shouldn’t have tried to release a “slick, bulls*** concept album. When I heard the final mix of that album, I didn’t even want it released. But I was outvoted. They cut out half of my guitar solos without even telling me—and I had done some amazing stuff. I remember taking the cassette and throwing it against the wall. It was our least successful record. So, I know my gut reaction was right.”

Still, hindsight tends to soften even the hardest of opinions. During his conversation at the Musicians’ Institute, Frehley admitted that the album on its own wasn’t terrible. Its biggest pitfall was its placement among the other KISS albums, Frehley argued. “I was doing an interview with Billboard magazine, and they said, ‘What would happen if The Elder never happened, and you went from Unmasked [1980] to Creatures of the Night [1982]? I thought for a second, because I like Creatures of the Night. It’s heavy, it’s powerful, it’s everything I said we should be doing when we recorded The Elder.”

“I may not have quit the band,” Frehley admitted. “But you can’t rewrite history unless we go into a time warp or a black hole.”

Photo by Gary Miller/Getty Images