Former KISS guitar legend ACE FREHLEY told Steve Palisin from Myrtlebeachonline.com that he's shooting for 12 tracks on his upcoming solo album, his first in 18 years, with a release in early summer. Studio work has spanned more than six months, and some of the songs go back 12 years.

BW&BK spoke to Frehley earlier this year about the as-yet-untiled album. “There’s a heavy rocker called ‘Pain In The Neck’. And actually, I wrote this song two weeks ago called ‘A Little Below The Angels’. That’s a bit more of a commercial one, with a catchy hook. There’s another song called ‘Genghis Khan’, which is kind of like, if I had to categorize it, it’s maybe a little like ‘Kashmir’ from LED ZEPPELIN, a slower kind of grooving track with a good melody. There’s a slower track, which also has a kind of commercial… you know, the word commercial has changed. It’s called ‘Change The World’, which is an interesting kind of track, probably different from anything I’ve ever done. In fact it is different from anything I’ve ever done. You know, I think people are going to dig it. It’s slower, something you could imagine hearing on the radio. My bass player Anthony Esposito, he’s been helping me with the record from the beginning. He is playing bass on all the tracks so far. Anton Fig is playing drums on most of the tracks. I’ve got my touring drummer Scot Coogan; he’s going to be on a couple of tracks on the record. And I don’t think I mentioned Derrek Hawkins, the other guitar player.

Any covers on this new album?
“You know, we are toying around with a couple of covers, but we haven’t made a decision whether or not they are going to make the record. One is a STONES cover, and we were fooling around with a BOWIE cover.”

Of note, Ace also mentions two songs that he had submitted for possible use on KISS’ Psycho Circus album, one called ‘The Pursuit Of Rock ‘n’ Roll’ and one called ‘Steamroller’ which he says is the heaviest track on the album.

"This album is going to be heavier than those Frehley’s Comet records," Frehley says. "You know what I do? I read my fan mail. I listen to what the kids say and what they want to hear. They really want me to play heavier stuff, and do wild stuff. I think that is an element in music that is lacking today. There doesn’t seem to be any guitar hero bands out there. I think guitar players today are too lazy. They don’t want to practice. They talk to me; guitar players say, ‘What can you tell me about being a guitar player?’ And I say three things: ‘Practice, practice and more practice’ (laughs)."