Ace Frehley Shares Animated “Mission to Mars” Video

Ace Frehley has shared the music video for "Mission to Mars," animated by artist Christopher Fequiere.

“Mission to Mars” comes off Frehley’s recent album, Spaceman.

Regarding the writing process behind Spaceman, Frehley told Guitar World, “One of the things that started the creative process happening this time was actually when Gene [Simmons] came down to my house and we wrote the two songs for the album. One of them, ‘Without You I’m Nothing,’ opens the record. And the other is the song ‘Your Wish Is My Command.’ ”

As for how former band mates hooked up, Frehley recalled, “I called him up and said, ‘You wanna write a couple of songs with me?’ And he said, ‘Sure.’ Everybody thinks there’s this mysterious thing you gotta do to get two Kiss guys together, you know? But we all have the other’s cell phone numbers and we just call each other! The same thing happened when I asked Paul [Stanley] to do the video and sing ‘Fire and Water’ on [2016’s] Origins, Vol. 1. It just happened. It was, ‘Yeah, I’d love to do it!’ Okay, great. Let’s do it.”

Regarding the gear he used on Spaceman, Frehley said:

“I’ll usually record the basic track with a Les Paul — I’ve been using a lot of the ’59 reissues that Gibson gave me. The aged ones sound great — just like an original ’59. And then I double that with a Strat or a Tele. And a lot of the songs have an acoustic on the track as well. They’re just buried down in the mix.”

He continued, “I use different heads — Marshalls, Fenders — and different mic configurations. And I always put a [Shure SM]57 in front of the speaker and then I’ll blend in a second mic. Actually, Blue Microphones makes an inexpensive condenser mic that’s orange [the Blue Spark], and I blended that with the 57. I used that configuration a lot on the record.”

Frehley is currently out on a short U.S. tour. See below for the full itinerary.