Metal Anarchy

During his November 9 set at the “Love Ride” charity motorcycle event at Castaic Lake in Southern California, Gene Simmons paid tribute to his former KISS bandmate Ace Frehley. The bassist/vocalist also confirmed that the band intend to leave an empty seat for the late guitarist during the upcoming Kennedy Center Honors event.

Simmons said the following:

“I wanna take a moment just to tell you that somebody I’ve known for many decades who started the band with us, a guy named Ace Frehley…

Very sad. Paul [Stanley] and myself and Peter Criss, we went to Ace’s funeral. He sadly passed. And the saddest part of all, besides the pain and suffering to his friends, family, his daughter, his wife, his whole family, is that Ace didn’t live long enough to be with us on December 6th when the president and everybody’s gonna get up there and honor KISS in entering the Kennedy Center Honors. And the first person who’s gonna walk out there and talk about how KISS changed his life is [country star] Garth Brooks, who’s gonna host a little bit. Then he’s gonna play ‘Shout It Out Loud’ and knock it out of the park. And in Ace’s memory, we’re gonna make sure one of the four chairs is empty with Ace’s name, because he deserves to be there in spirit, even if he can’t be there physically.

So, one day Ace walked in. The very first song he ever wrote we’re gonna do now. It’s called ‘Cold Gin’.”

[via Blabbermouth]