KISS’ founding guitarist, Ace Frehley, says he hopes to be involved in the band’s upcoming farewell tour, but is yet to be asked.
Just last week, we learned that after 45 years, KISS are set to call it quits with a massive farewell tour.
“This is gonna be our last tour,” said vocalist Paul Stanley. “It will be the most explosive, biggest show we’ve ever done. People who love us, come see us. If you’ve never seen us, this is the time. This will be the show.”
Of course, many fans are wondering what this final tour will include. Back in the mid-’90s, KISS announced the reunion of their original lineup, which saw Ace Frehley and Peter Criss rejoin the group for the first time in over a decade. Both Frehley and Criss stayed with the group until the early ’00s, while KISS embarked on what was supposed to be their ‘final’ tour at the time.
Now, Ace Frehley says he’s hoping that he might be asked to be involved in the group’s last tour dates.
As Blabbermouth notes, Ace Frehley opened up about his desires to be involved in the upcoming tour in a conversation at Hollywood’s Musicians Institute.
“I haven’t been asked,” Frehley explained. “I had a meeting with those guys several months ago, and they talked about retiring to me, and that didn’t seem right either. Who knows what’s going to happen?”
“Hopefully next year, what all the KISS fans really want to happen will happen. I’m hoping,” he continued. “I want to be involved, especially for the fans. It’s not like my dream job, because I’ve done it a couple of times and quit, but I really want to do it for the fans if it’s going to happen.”
Notably, there doesn’t appear to be much bad blood between the members, with Frehley joining Gene Simmons on his recent tour to Australia. In fact, even Paul Stanley has revealed that previous members of the group could indeed be making an appearance on the new tour.
Speaking to Rolling Stone’s ‘Music Now’ podcast, Stanley discussed why the band are calling it quits now, and whether we could see some original members returning to the fold.
“The farewell tour took place 19 years ago,” he began. “The farewell tour was at the end of the time that we had brought back the two original members [guitarist Ace Frehley and drummer Peter Criss] and it was such drudgery and so difficult and so unhappy that it just seemed like ‘let’s put the horse down.’”
“And after the tour was over, it didn’t take me very long to realize I didn’t want to say goodbye to the band; I wanted to say goodbye to two members. So that was the differences. We’ve had 19 years of the band. The band has never been better, happier… But with all that in mind, it’s time to think about an end.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlSFmotba2I
When asked if previous members would be involved in these dates, Paul Stanley admitted he’s not sure what will be happening with these final shows.
“This will be a celebration of Kiss and not any individual lineup or any individual members,” he revealed. “I wouldn’t rule anything out but it’s not the crux of what we’re doing… and I’m not being coy either.”
“I don’t want to mislead anybody, really that’s not something that’s been given a lot of thought at this point, the majority of our time has gone into what is the stage going to be, what is the show going to be, and we’re actually in the midst of toying with setlists now.”
While we’re eagerly awaiting any news of Australian tour dates from the rock icons that are KISS, don’t forget you can always hire Ace Frehley to be the best man at your Las Vegas wedding if you have that sort of cash lying around.
Check out KISS’ ‘Detroit Rock City’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylVe9mMa_Ls
