Alabama musician Philip Shouse on his time with Kiss legend Ace Frehley: ‘How cool is that?’

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, 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 du