Gene Simmons recently once asked Ace Frehley to play a guitar solo exactly like Eddie Van Halen on a KISS track and it’s safe to say that didn’t go over well with Ace.
Below is an excerpt from a recent article written for Ultimate-Guitar by Greg Prato:
Producer Ted Templeman is often credited with discovering Van Halen and helping them sign a deal with Warner Bros. Records in 1977. However, Gene Simmons had an earlier close-call with the band, when he unsuccessfully tried to get KISS’ manager at the time, Bill Aucoin, to take on Van Halen as a client.
During a recent interview with Artists On Record Starring ADIKA LIVE!, Simmons recalled taking Van Halen into the studio sometime in 1976 to demo some tunes, which Kiss’ Demon financed and produced himself.
And one of the songs, “House of Pain,” he prefers over the version that eventually appeared on the 1984 LP.
“It’s one of the 15 songs that never wound up on the [debut] record. And it kills. It’s almost completely live in the studio, and it’s just a steamroller. Unbelievable.”
He also recalled having the Van Halen brothers demo a few originals he was working on at the time.
“I did demos with Alex and Eddie Van Halen, actually. You can Google and shmoogle it. And the guitar solo in ‘Christine Sixteen,’ note for the note, I had Ace [Frehley] learn that solo. And he was furious. ‘I want to write my own solo!’ ‘Yeah, but it’s not as good. Eddie’s got a better one.’ And to this day, those notes, that was Eddie’s note-for-note solo.”