Rock music is full of licks, riffs and songs that writers and musicians borrowed or stole outright from others. The Beach Boys’ “Surfin’ USA” is a copy of Chuck Berry's “Sweet Little Sixteen,” George Harrison's “My Sweet Lord” closely follows the chord pattern from the Chiffons’ “He's So Fine,” and Neil Young admitted to taking the melody from the Rolling Stones’ ”Lady Jane” for his own appropriately titled “Borrowed Tune.”
You can add Ace Frehley to that list. According to Gene Simmons, Ace was so enamored of a Robbie Krieger electric guitar solo that he lifted in virtually note for note for “She,” a track from the 1975 Kiss album, Dressed to Kill. The Krieger solo comes from the Doors’ “Five to One,” from their 1968 album, Waiting for the Sun.
Simmons made the revelation on The Magnificent Others With Billy Corgan podcast. The former Kiss bass guitar player recalled how Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready told him Ace Frehley’s guitar work had been a big inspiration to him. Specifically, McCready cited “She” as one of the first guitar solos he learned and said it had served as the inspiration for Pearl Jam’s hit “Alive.”
“I said, ‘Mike, I don’t know how to tell you this, but that’s a note-for-note guitar solo from the Doors,” Simmons explained. “Ace liked it so much, he just reproduced it. He goes, ‘No!’”
Simmons went on to point out that there was nothing nefarious or unusual about Frehley’s appropriation of Krieger’s solo.
“My point is, it’s always very appreciative when somebody says, ‘Loved your stuff,’ ” Simmons says. “Everybody’s got bits and pieces of stuff. Listen to Zeppelin songs, you’ll hear lots of blues, very recognizable, blues songs.”
Indeed, even Led Zeppelin have been accused of plagiarism, as when they took words from Willie Dixon’s “You Need Love” for their own 1969 hit “Whole Lotta Love.” Guitarist Jimmy Page and singer Robert Plant were famously sued in 2014 by the estate of Spirit guitarist Randy California, which claimed the famous arpeggiated guitar lines to the Led Zeppelin track “Stairway to Heaven” were inspired by California’s own song “Taurus.”
Remarkably, “Alive” was not among the tracks McCready selected when Guitar Player asked him to name the five songs that best define his career. But the guitarist has spoken at length about his Kiss obsession, which began when he was a youngster in school.
“I remember being on a school bus in sixth grade in 1976, with my friend Rick Friel, who eventually played in my high school band Shadow,” McCready told Rolling Stone in 2014. “He had a lunchbox that had Kiss on it. ‘What is that?’ Then he played me some music and I was hooked immediately.”
McCready spoke further about his Kiss love with Chris Schiflett’s Shred With Shifty podcast, “I obsessed on it,” McCready said. “It was exciting, and then that turned me on to all sorts of other music. I just wanted to emulate that stuff.”
Despite taking inspiration from Frehley for his “Alive” solo, McCready told Shiflett,” I don't do the solo the same live all the time.”
Ace Frehley recently told Guitar Player about his top five Kiss tracks, and spoke with us about the group's infamous 1979 interview with Tom Snyder that upset Simmons when Frehley stole the spotlight with his jokes and incessant laughter. “I was nervous as hell,” Frehley said about the interview. “I think I drank half a pint of vodka, and then I did some blow to wake up.”
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