Copyright AL.com
The stage volume of Ace Frehley’s Marshall amps was “louder than God,” recalls Philip Shouse, with equal parts fondness and wonder. And when Frehley’s guitar playing was really in the zone? Shouse says being onstage with the Kiss legend was “surreal and chill-bump giving.” An Alabama native and longtime Nashville resident, Shouse played bass in Frehley’s touring band from 2018 to 2022. Shouse adds, “And when he would launch into like ‘Rip It Out’ or “Deuce’ or ‘She’ or one of those [classic Frehley/Kiss songs] that it was just muscle memory, and it was like, wow, there’s 1975,” Shouse says. “He would sound the exact same [as back then].” Onstage with Frehley, Shouse would often back up in front of his own amp to listen to watch Ace instinctively go into his signature, knock-need posture during one of his hummable guitar solos. “It’s like, man, that’s him doing it right there. Like, I’m playing in this big noise here and we’re making this together. And there’s Ace, like right next to me. Yeah, it was special. There were moments like that every night.” On October 20, Shouse found out Frehley had died, at age 74 from a brain bleed after a couple recent falls at his New Jersey home, the same way most of us did, via social media. “I had heard through, you know, kind of the inside network that the outlook wasn’t good. But still when you get the word that somebody like that … And even beyond like me being his band, he’s such a giant influence. What an impact he had.” After news of Frehley’s passing broke, famous guitar heroes like Slash and Tom Morello posted tributes to Frehley, their guitar hero, on social media. Shouse was among the thousands if not millions of musicians who drew inspiration from Frehley in their youth and throughout their lives. “Ace taught me how to play lead guitar,” says Shouse, who grew up in Decatur. “I had already been taking lessons for a couple years, and then, you know, I’m learning the scales and nothing I’m playing sounds anything remotely like Eddie Van Halen, which is what I’m trying to do in high school. ”And nothing clicked until I heard Ace. Until I heard ‘Alive!’ [Kiss’ 1975 live double-album] and the solo from ‘Deuce’ started and it was like, that sounds really familiar. And then a couple more [songs] went by, and I went to the guitar and it’s like, oh, he’s playing these scales, you know. And then finally, for the first time, I realized how to make music from those. So his influence on me is immeasurable.” Since 2019, Shouse has been a full-time member, on guitar, of Accept, the German heavy-metal band of “Balls to the Wall” fame. The loss of his hero and former bandmate Frehley stung even more because Shouse’s dad had passed just weeks prior. “And then this hits,” he says. “So then not only am I feeling the loss of Ace, but the feelings from my dad come back in. My mom’s still living, so when you lose a parent like that, there’s no time to grieve. “Luckily, Dad had everything planned and left detailed instructions of what to do. But there’s still so much work that you have to do, the funeral and then had to get Mom taken care of and all these things. My head’s been spinning with family business for the past like six weeks.” Thankfully, Shouse has some great stuff going on in his life to balance the grief. He recently celebrated four years of sobriety. With Accept, he has a North American tour with Queensrÿche, ‘80s metal’s smartest band, known for hits like “Silent Lucidity” and “I Don’t Believe In Love.” After decades spent backing stars like Frehley as well as fellow Kiss giant Gene Simmons, ex-Mötley Crüe frontman John Corabi and country hit-maker Rodney Atkins, Shouse will soon release his first solo EP. Titled “Side 1”, the record finds Shouse morphing sideman to frontman. And he wear is well. On “Side 1,” Shouse handles all lead vocals and most backing vox, and all guitars and bass. The five-song EP opens with “Run Away From You” and “The Naked Empress,” a one-two punch of Stonesy swagger and sticky power-pop. “It Gets Better” hints at Shouse’s Beatles jones mixed with country-rock sway. On “Won’t Let Go Again” and closer “Time Bomb,” he echoes light and shade of classic Led Zeppelin and Heart without aping those legendary bands. Shouse says, “My entire music career has been me playing covers – now, I may be playing those songs with the guy or people who wrote them and sang them, but to me they’re still covers. So I had no idea what I sounded like. So for my 50th [birthday] this year, it’s like I’m going to make a record, and I don’t even care if it gets released. I just want to make the record, and to see what I sounded like.” Shouse’s lead vocals on his debut EP, set for an early 2026 release, are tuneful with a pinch of snarl. Think, Cheap Trick’s Robin Zander meets Oasis’ Liam Gallagher. “Side 1” is being issued via Wild Kingdom/Sound Pollution Records and will be available on vinyl, CD and streaming. He’ll support the EP with a tour of Sweden “with an amazing Swedish band. So yeah, this is farther than I ever thought I would get with it.” Away from the stage, Shouse, an Alabama native, is also co-founder and co-owner of Swedish non-alcoholic beer company, Rock N Röll. He’s also been prepping a reunion album with his ‘90s Decatur band The Whitey Herzogs. They’ve been cutting track at Decatur studio Clearwave with Jeremy Stephens, who’s worked with acts ranging from Southern rock great Gregg Allman to indie-soul upstart Lamont Landers, recording. Norwood Fisher, of Los Angeles funk-punks Fishbone, guests on bass. Asked to describe the Whitey Herzogs’ sound, Shouse says, “I think the way I describe it is if Biz Markie rapped for Steely Dan. I love it. In the best way, we were all over the map with that stuff. We would go in there with like a crushing metal riff for two bars and then go into this Joni Mitchell type chord progression.” It was through Gene Simmons, whose solo touring band Shouse played guitar in for two years, that he ended up in Frehley’s band, too. Simmons and Frehley booked a tour of Australia and Japan, and Ace asked Simmons if he could use Gene’s backing band. Shouse played his first show with Frehley without a single rehearsal, just a soundcheck. In Shouse’s opinion, Kiss -- known for their iconic stage makeup, costumes and theatrics as much as their rock anthems -- is second only to the Beatles as most influential band ever. “I was born in 1975,” Shouse says, “so I was young for this, but if you were a kid in ’75, ’76, ’77, you may not have even given music a first thought, let alone a second thought. But when you see a Kiss album cover, you may be into horror movies, you may be into comic books, you may be just a kid that thinks that looks cool. “And then that’s what gets you into music and then that’s what gets you into playing guitar. Because Ace is shooting rockets out of his guitar. They were decades ahead of their time with packaging and marketing. They were the right band to combine all of those things, they did it at genius level and it was just so perfectly timed. And Ace spawned countless guitar players. It was very digestible.” Shouse says Frehley’s superpower as a lead guitarist was his mix of hot tone, fiery spirit and song-within-a-song phrasing. “It was very lyrical. He let the guitar breathe and played like a lead singer. When you do a Kiss cover, you do not jam the solo. No. You learn the lead because it’s as important as the lead vocal.” Frehley’s sense of humor and loosey-goosy way – his Kiss alter ego was the Spaceman, an extraterrestrial from the fiction planet Jendell – are also famous. Particularly his unmistakable Brooklyn accent and unforgettable cackle. Shouse has a road case full of Ace-being-Ace stories. And this is one of his favorites. “We were in Japan, and we weren’t officially his band yet. Instead of flying Ace’s band that he had at the time, in lieu of flying them there and paying for flights and paying for hotels, it made sense to use us [for the Australia and Japan shows with Simmons.] . And Gene goes, if it’s OK with them, it’s OK with me. And it was OK with us -- this is gonna be great. “And so from Australia, we went to Japan, but that was just with Ace. And so we did eight shows in four days. And at the end of the Tokyo shows, we’re [Frehley’s touring musicians] getting in the cars at the hotel, and Ace is in his car up there. And he goes, ‘Alright, fellas, see you on the cruise.’ Because we were doing the Kiss Kruise with him too. And Christopher Williams, who was on drums for that run goes, ‘No, Ace, we’re going to Osaka. We’ll see you in Osaka tomorrow.’ And Ace goes, ‘Ah, we’ll figure it out.’” Like many musicians who were formerly in huge bands together, Frehley and Simmons have occasionally sparred in the press. But Shouse says those two, who along with singer/guitarist Paul Stanley and Peter Criss comprise Kiss’ original lineup, got along well on their Australia tour. “Gene had a really deep love for Ace,” Shouse says. “They used to room together [in Kiss’ early days] when they were touring.” Beside his electrifying guitar solos, Frehley was also a key contributor as a songwriter, he penned essentials like “Cold Gin” and “Shock Me,” and designed the band’s bold logo, with the two Ss in lightning bolt form. As an in demand sideman for the likes of Frehley, Simmons, etc., Shouse’s busy schedule has resulted in him having to pass on at least one gig he would’ve loved to do. He was set to do a run of shows with Kix, the Maryland hard-rockers known for songs like “Cold Blood” and 1988 power-ballad smash “Don’t Close Your Eyes.” Shouse says of Kix, “They’re such a great band. And when you meet them as people, you like them even more. And I was so excited to get to play with [Kix guitarist] Brian [‘Damage’ Forsythe]. Ronnie [Youngkins, Kix guitarist] was gonna miss some shows. And then that is right when the Gene shows started. We had just done the first one and promoters were just hitting us up, it just blew up and it was like, no, I can’t do it anymore.” Making Shouse’s experiences with Frehley and Simmons even more special, he shared them with friends Jeremy Asbock and Ryan Cook, who were also musicians in the Kiss legends’ touring bands. Previously, Shouse, Asbock and Cook had founded and hosted cohosted Thee Residency, a recurring Nashville jam night that’s featured the likes of shock-rocker Alice Cooper, Cheap Trick’s Robin Zander, Halestorm singer Lzzy Hale and Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover. “It’s really tight,” Shouse says of his bond with Asbock and Cook. “And we really leaned on each other recently. With losing Ace and losing such a big part of our lives -- and the reason that we three are friends is Kiss. We’ve been in touch a lot, and they came up for my father’s funeral. We’re always there for each other.” In addition to touring with Frehley, they also appeared on a redo of Kiss song “She” for Frehley’s 2020 album “Origins, Vol. 2.” In the days of Frehley passed, Shouse says, “I had kind of forgotten that we played on an Ace record. I just wasn’t thinking about it. And then it hit.” Shouse pulled up that version of “She” on YouTube and texted it to Asbock, Cook, and Paul Simmons, drummer on that track. “It was just like we got to do that. We got to play with Ace on an Ace album and got to play and sing on that song with him. How cool is that?”
