When Ace Frehley played what would be his final concert Last month, he took the stage with the rhythm guitarist who has been by his side longer than anyone else in his solo bands: Nashville shredder Jeremy Esbrock. Together they broke through Kiss classics like “Deuce” and “Cold Gin” Frehley's main solos such as “New York Groove” and Comet Frehley’s immortal battle cry “Rock Soldiers.”
Esbrock, who played in bands like Shazam and John Corabi before joining the Kiss Spaceman guitarist in 2018, was a true rock soldier. He calls the game with Frehley, who died October 16 at 74 years old, a dream concert for a Kiss superfan like himself.
“Ace didn't just influence me. He's the guy who paved the way for me when I was four years old. I never wanted to do anything else, and he was the guy who brought it all to me,” he says. Rolling Stone. “Some nights on stage were extremely surreal, especially when he had a really great show and he would get into this stance and start doing his thing. It was like, 'Dude, this is it.' There it is, standing right next to me.”
Along with Esbrock, Frehley's latest solo band included fellow Nashville native Ryan Spencer Cook on bass and Scot Coogan on drums. Ironically, the band was born out of Gene Simmons' band. Esbrock says they were playing with the Kiss bassist during a tour of Australia that Frehley was scheduled to open when Frehley asked Simmons if he could lend him his musicians.
“Gene said, ‘If it’s okay with them, it’s okay with me,’” Asbrock recalls. “Gene later pulled me into his dressing room when the Kiss cruise was coming up and he told us that Ace was going to ask us to go on a cruise. Then we went from there to Japan with Ace and he asked us to be a band. I joined him in September 2018, so I've held the position of guitarist longer than any other musician he's had, in a row.”
Nashville's Philip Schhaus also performed in Frehley's solo band, playing bass from 2018 to 2022 before landing a full-time job with German metal band Accept. He, Esbrock and Cook are longtime friends and are instrumental in Nashville's vibrant rock scene: for years they hosted a weekly hard rock showcase called Rock 'n' roll residence for you which featured surprise guests such as Alice Cooper, Halestorm's Lizzie HaleCheap Trick's Robin Zander and others from the local rock community.
Schhouse says touring with Frehley was a chance to see the guitarist's creativity. keen sense of humor close up. “He was really funny. He was really goofy. And I mean that in the best way, sometimes it was like, 'Wow, he's from another planet, isn't he?'” Shaws says. “He was just different from anyone I've ever met.”
Like his buddy Esbrock, he credits Frehley for his decision to become a guitarist. “Ace taught me how to play lead guitar. I took guitar lessons and learned scales, but nothing sounded like music to me. It never made sense until I heard Ace, and that was in 10th grade,” he says. “When I heard him solo, it all clicked.”
Esbrock and Schaus, who also lost their father a few months ago, are still trying to understand a world without the space ace. But Esbrock says fans should know how much of a regular guy Frehley was behind the face paint.
“He's totally human. We had conversations where he was very vulnerable with me, just like real dudes would,” he says. “Gene wasn't going to call me and talk about real things. And, you know, Ace did it.”
