Before there was arena rock, before there was face paint and pyrotechnics and a generation of kids air-guitaring in their bedrooms, there was Paul Daniel Frehley — a kid from the Bronx who picked up a guitar and, in doing so, helped invent rock and roll as spectacle.

Known to the world as Ace Frehley, the self-styled "Spaceman" was the original lead guitarist, occasional vocalist, and a founding member of KISS, playing with the group from its inception in 1973 until his departure in 1982, before rejoining in 1996 until his final departure in 2002. He passed away on October 16, 2025, at the age of 74, following injuries suffered in a fall. With his death came an outpouring of grief from fans, fellow musicians, and bandmates who recognized what the world had lost — one of rock's most instinctive, melodic, and genuinely cool guitarists.

Known as the Spaceman or Space Ace, the Bronx-born musician wrote KISS classics "Cold Gin" and "Shock Me" and became known for virtuosic solos infused with bluesy grit and hard rock bite, inspiring future stars such as Slash, Tom Morello, John 5, and Pearl Jam's Mike McCready.

What made Ace different from his bandmates — the theatrical Gene Simmons, the commanding Paul Stanley, the rhythmic Peter Criss — was a certain effortless cool. Where KISS was bombast and theater, Frehley was the genuine article: a guitarist's guitarist who happened to be wearing a spacesuit. His song "Shock Me," from the 1977 album Love Gun, marked his lead vocal debut with the band — making Love Gun the first KISS studio album to feature lead vocal performances from all four band members.

When KISS released a series of solo albums simultaneously in September 1978, it was Frehley's that proved the most successful of the four — powered by his cover of "New York Groove," which reached No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album itself reached No. 26 on the Billboard 200 and was certified platinum, shipping over one million copies.

Behind the Paint

To understand Ace Frehley the man, you have to look beyond the Les Paul and the platform boots. Lot 516 in this year’s Music Icons auction offers a rare and irreplaceable window into exactly that: a handwritten set of responses to a Metal Edge magazine interview questionnaire, completed by Frehley himself in blue ink and dated January 28, 1998. Signed at the bottom with his signature ace-of-spades flourish and ringed with celestial doodles — planets, stars, a tiny rocket — it reads less like a press obligation and more like a private conversation with someone who genuinely didn't take himself too seriously.

The questions are the kind that invite candor, and Frehley delivered it in spades. Asked what day from his past he'd most want to relive, he didn't reach for a legendary concert or a chart milestone. He wrote about the day he led police on a wild car chase through White Plains, New York, at 100 mph in his DeLorean — going the wrong way against traffic — before adding in the margin, with the timing of a seasoned comedian, that he should have had a Porsche instead.

Asked if he could be the lover of anyone famous, living or dead, his answer was immediate and unambiguous: “Marilyn Monroe. No contest!,” he wrote — underlining it for emphasis, as if the question barely deserved the ink.

And then there is the answer that cuts right to the heart of who Ace Frehley was. Asked about hidden tattoos, he replied in his looping, emphatic handwriting: "On my butt I have a tattoo of the planet Jendell! (My birthplace) No shit!!"

Star Power Personified

Frehley saw himself as an alien from the planet Jendell in the Klaatu solar system and spoke in jovial interviews of wanting to live far from Earth. For most rock stars, the character ends at the dressing room door. For Ace, it went all the way to the bone — or at least, all the way to the back pocket of his jeans. Whether he truly believed it, played it for laughs, or had simply inhabited the Spaceman so completely that the line between Paul Frehley and Space Ace had dissolved, no one could ever quite tell. That ambiguity was part of his genius.

In a band of sensible businessmen, Ace was truly the wild one — the one who really did rock and roll all night and party every day, causing chaos wherever he went. The Metal Edge document captures that spirit perfectly: funny, irreverent, self-aware, and utterly committed to the bit.

Central to his identity was the guitar that has become perhaps the most storied instrument in KISS history. Lot 489 in our Music Icons auction is Ace Frehley's #1 "Budokan" 1975 Triple Pickup Gibson Les Paul Custom in Cherry Sunburst — the very guitar he played at KISS's legendary four-night residency at the Nippon Budokan arena in Tokyo in April 1977, and the instrument he used to record Love Gun that same May. It was his main stage guitar from the Rock and Roll Over tour through the Dynasty tour of 1979. Gibson has since released multiple limited-edition replicas paying tribute to this specific instrument, including "The Budokan" Custom Shop replica in 2011, cementing its place in the canon of iconic guitars.

But Frehley's story is also told in the quieter artifacts: the cream silk bomber jacket gifted to him personally by legendary Japanese promoter Mr. Udo during that same 1977 Japan tour (Lot 493), still bearing a makeup stain Ace himself confirmed came from backstage after a performance. Or the sealed promotional copy of KISS's 1974 self-titled debut, signed by Frehley in silver (Lot 487) — a document of the very beginning, when four New Yorkers in greasepaint were about to change rock and roll forever.

Frehley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 as a member of KISS. He was an indispensable part of KISS's explosive stage shows, wielding special-effects guitars that emitted smoke and flames, blasted off pyrotechnics, or pulsed light in tempo with the music. To own a piece of his legacy is to hold a piece of that history — and that's precisely what these lots represent.

Join us online and LIVE at the Hard Rock Cafe Times Square in New York to bid on these extraordinary pieces of rock history.