Shiftyās biggest guitar hero joins the podcast to run down his unique lead picking on the 1977 Love Gun hit.
Ace Frehley is the reason Chris Shiflett picked up a guitar in the first place, so itās only natural that Shifty invites his original tone teacher onto the pod to recap one his iconic solos. Frehley, saddled with a classic black-and-cream triple-humbucker Les Paul, shares that āShock Meā was the first KISS track on which he took lead vocal duty. The first time he sang it live, he remembers, was in front of 18,000 screaming fans at Madison Square Garden. As Frehley explains, that was quite a step up from how he recorded the vocals in the studio for Love Gun: lying flat on the floor on his back, racked with stage fright.
Frehley recalls that he ripped most of his solos through a dimed Marshall stack, and always on the bridge pickup. Turns out, he never went for pedals or boards because heād trip over them onstage. āWearing those boots?ā he snorts. āForget about it. Itās like a minefield!ā His signature sauce, he says, is in the way he picks the strings: He holds his picks loose, but plucks in such a way that his thumb often hits the string at the same time, producing a sound just shy of a pinched squeal, but more spunky than a regular strike.
Frehley drops tons of golden bits of KISS history: the engineering behind his famous āsmoke bombā effect, the time he woke up in Paris with his eyes swollen shut from makeup, how he accidentally roadied for Hendrix, the shared genealogy between his technique and Eddie Van Halenās, and which KISS member smelled the worst after shows.
Credits
Producer: Jason Shadrick
Executive Producers: Brady Sadler and Jake Brennan for Double Elvis
Engineering Support by Matt Tahaney and Matt Beaudion
Video Editors: Dan Destefano and Addison Sauvan
Special thanks to Chris Peterson, Greg Nacron, and the entire Volume.com crew.
The KISS co-founder partners with Gibson for second signature bass, a limited-edition run of 100 guitars.
Based on Geneās heavily modified 1959 EB-0, the new Gene Simmons EB-0 Bass is the first 30.5ā scale bass from the Gibson Custom Shop and the first bass the Custom Shop has produced in quantity. The Gene Simmons EB-0 Bass features a VOS finish in Ebony, as well as VOS hardware throughout, in addition, Gene made several modifications to his EB-0, including refinishing it, reshaping the neck to a custom profile, replacing the pickup with a later model Gibson unit, and relocating it much closer to the bridge, installing a custom pickguard, a fingerboard with Corian nut, adding binding, and changing the original tuners to Grovers. The bridge was also replaced with a high-mass model and can now be strung through-body or as a top-loaded bridge. All of these details are faithfully represented in the new Gene Simmons EB-0 Bass from Gibson Custom Shop. A custom hardshell case as well as case candy developed in collaboration with Gene is also included.
The Gene Simmons EB-0 Bass is inspired by the same Bass that Gene played with KISS in the 1970s. The new Gene Simmons EB-0 Bass is a limited-edition run of 100 guitars and is available worldwide at authorized Gibson Custom Shop dealers and via www.gibson.com. $6,999.00 USD.
Metal's bass icon on his Jackson's P-pickup mod, Kiss' 'Destroyer,' and the owner of his lonely '80s heart.