Ace Frehley revealed his favorite replacement Kiss guitarist in a new interview.

"Of all the guitar players that have taken my place in Kiss, Bruce [Kulick] by far blows them all away, as far as I'm concerned," the musician told That Jamieson Show (via Blabbermouth). "He's definitely the best guitar player."

The Kiss co-founder also compared Kulick, a band member from 1984 to 1996, to current guitarist Tommy Thayer, who officially joined the group in 2002.

"When Tommy gets up there and does my solos, he tries to play 'em note for note, but he doesn't have the swagger or the attitude," Frehley said. "Bruce used to play my solos, but he'd kind of make 'em his own, and he'd switch notes a little, and he had some originality. Tommy is just going through the motions. Bruce, by far, blows Tommy off the stage. It is what it is."

Frehley — who released a covers LP, Origins, Vol. 2, in September — has previously criticized Thayer in the press. In 2014, he told The Village Voice, "I could sense [Thayer] always wanted to be me — he used to be in a Kiss cover band.

"He didn't do anything; he was hired by Paul [Stanley] and Gene [Simmons] to put on my makeup and costume and play my guitar solos — a business deal. Look, if he wouldn't have done it, they would have hired somebody else. I walked out on the band; I quit. What they really should have done is, if they wanted to dress up a guy to play lead guitar, they should have come up with different makeup like they did with [other Kiss replacement members] Eric Carr and Vinnie Vincent. That's what the fans are upset about."

Thayer responded to that comment the following year by telling Newcastle Herald, "I don't want to get into a back and forth, but I'm sure you can kind of assess what you think when you hear all that."

 

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