Here’s the link to the obituary in The New York Times (Gavin Edwards). Here’s an excerpt:
October 16, 2025
Ace Frehley, the original lead guitarist of the hard-rock band Kiss, who often performed in white-and-silver face makeup as the group sold millions of records during his two tenures with it, from 1973 to 1982 and then from 1996 to 2002, died on Thursday in Morristown, N.J. He was 74…A consummate showman, like all the members of Kiss, Mr. Frehley was known for playing guitars rigged with pyrotechnic effects and for his distinctive stage persona: He was known as “the Spaceman” or “Space Ace” because of the silver stars on his face. He designed the band’s logo, with its lightning-bolt letters…
Many rock fans initially dismissed Kiss as gimmicky charlatans. Its members weren’t photographed without their stage makeup until 1983. But the band’s energetic and theatrical live shows built a following of teenagers, known as the Kiss Army. The band placed eight singles in the Top 40 during Mr. Frehley’s tenure, and he played on seven of them, including “Love Gun,” “Christine Sixteen” and “I Was Made for Loving You.”
[…]
During Mr. Frehley’s time with Kiss, the band released 11 albums, both studio and live, that went gold or platinum in the United States. (Kiss ultimately sold more than 100 million albums.) With the passage of time and the enduring popularity of its party anthem “Rock and Roll All Nite,” the band saw its critical reputation improve. Kiss was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2014. The guitarist Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine inducted the band, making the case for Kiss’s influence on everyone from Metallica to Lady Gaga. Mr. Frehley, he said, “blazed unforgettable, timeless licks across their greatest records.” Mr. Frehley himself bragged in a 2024 interview with the website Antihero that “out of the four founding members of Kiss, I definitely have been the most successful solo artist.” That was true largely because of his single “New York Groove,” a Top 20 hit with a stomping beat that is now played at Citi Field after every Mets victory. “New York Groove” was the most successful single from a typically excessive Kiss stunt: In 1978, the four members all released solo albums simultaneously.