Founding lead guitarist of the rock band Kiss

In his alter ego as the Spaceman, he helped the group become a pop phenomenon.

- MIKAEL WOOD POP MUSIC CRITIC

Ace Frehley, left, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons prepare to take the stage for a Kiss concert at Madison Square Garden in New York in 1979. Frehley played with the theatrical band from 1973 to 1982 and again from 1996 to 2002. He also enjoyed a solo hit with a cover of "New York Groove."

(Bettmann Archive via Getty Image)

Ace Frehley, who played lead guitar as a founding member of the face-painted, blood-spewing, fire-breathing hard-rock band Kiss, died Thursday in Morristown, N.J. He was 74.

His death was announced by his family, which said he’d recently suffered a fall. “In his last moments, we were fortunate enough to have been able to surround him with loving, caring, peaceful words, thoughts, prayers and intentions as he left this earth,” the family said ina statement.

In his alter ego as the Spaceman, Frehley played with the originalincarnation of Kiss for less than a decade, from 1973 — when he formed the group in New York with Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons and Peter Criss — until 1982, when he quit not long after Criss left.

Yet he was instrumental to the creation of the band’s stomping and glittery sound as heard in songs like “Detroit Rock City,” “Rock and Roll All Nite,” “Strutter” and “I Was Made for Lovin’ You.”