The 1978 hit that Ace Frehley regrets but will always be remembered for
No one from the Kiss camp was expecting Ace Frehley to steamroll the band’s creative leads back in 1978, least of all the spaceman guitarist himself.
‘Kissmania’ was at its peak by this point. The hard yards had finally started paying off after the commercial wobble across their early LPs, 1975’s Alive! concert album truly breaking the greasepaint glam quartet into the mainstream rock charts. Before long, the records began flying off the shelves, along with the mountains of licensed merchandise raking in millions, from bed sheets and lunch boxes to their very own NBC TV movie, Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park.
They were on a lucrative roll. Fuelled by hubris and the tantalising sounds of further cash register ‘kerchings’, all four Kiss members decided to drop a solo album simultaneously, September 18th, 1978, seeing the release of Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Peter Criss, and Ace Frehley to eagerly bring in four times the dough for a regular album release.
All four entries nabbed Platinum sales combined, but for fans, it may well have spelt the end of their classic run. Stanley’s syrupy love songs, Criss’ stodgy disco, and Simmons neutering all his fire-breathing, demonic prowess with his bafflingly saccharine cover of Disney’s ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ smacked of a band who just didn’t possess the material to spread across their quad-solo efforts.
Frehely stuck to his guns, however. As the lead guitarist, the spaceman played to his strengths and cut a solo record that dwelled closer to the band’s hard rock formula than his Kiss comrades, eventually selling more copies than the four solo entries. Ace Frehley’s success owed plenty to its sole single, a song that’s endured as one of New York City’s many adopted anthems.
Not that he wanted to record it. It was co-producer Eddie Kramer who twisted Frehley’s arm, convinced the solo album needed one surefire, commercial hit, and suggested a take on old UK glam outfit Hello’s ‘New York Groove’. Originally dropped in 1975, Hello’s defining tune peaked at the Top Ten domestically, and helped define its songwriter, Russ Ballard, as a later hit source for Rainbow, who covered his ‘Since You’ve Been Gone’ and would gift Hot Chocolate their ‘So You Win Again’ UK number one.
Obliging Kramer’s pop pushing, the pair shot down to Manhattan’s Plaza Sound Studios above 51st Street’s famous Radio City Music Hall and cut his own take on the old glam tune with his trusty sunburst ‘59 Gibson Les Paul. Released in September along with the four albums, ‘New York Groove’ would peak at number 13 on the Hot 100 and stand as the Kiss-quad LP cash grab’s signature single, Ballard’s pop flair immortalised over in the States by Frehley’s strutting cover.
“A lot of people think I wrote ‘New York Groove,’” he once told Louder. “It’s not a myth that I’ve perpetuated, but that’s the way it is,” adding, “I wish I would’ve wrote the song, though. I would’ve made a lot more cash out of it.”
It wouldn’t be the last time Ballard’s lyrical pen would lend a hand to the Kiss camp. A member of Rod Argent’s namesake band post-Zombies, Ballard’s ‘God Gave Rock and Roll to You’ in 1973 for the Argent group would later find another life as the revised ‘God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll to You II’ in 1991 during Kiss’ unmasked era and boosting their popularity again after its inclusion on Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey that year.
