(Credits: Far Out / Tilly Antoine)
Mon 20 October 2025 22:30, UK
As much as Kiss were titans of the hard rock and heavy metal scene in the 1970s and ‘80s, they still found time to offer their support out to the lesser-known and slightly overlooked bands of the era who they believed ought to get a lot more recognition.
Given how he established himself as one of the most technically adept guitarists and perhaps the most vital element of the band’s gargantuan sound, Ace Frehley certainly knew what made his guitar stand out in a song. At the same time, he was also acutely aware of what made other guitarists so formidable, and there was one player who he established a connection with later on in his career that he’d long been an admirer of, despite him never quite living up to the potential that he seemingly had.
Very few look back on the work of the New York hard rock outfit Mountain as being gamechanging, although some of their earlier records such as Climbing and Nantucket Sleighride are often regarded as cult classics that just unfortunately slipped too far under the radar at the time of their release. Frehley noted that their leader, Leslie West, was a huge part of this, and that his guitar work was almost beyond compare when placed against the other guitar heroes of the same era.
In a 2020 interview with SongFacts, Frehley listed some of his favourite guitar solos of all time, and listed Mountain’s ‘Never In My Life’ as one that he could listen to time and time again without ever getting tired of it. Taken from Climbing, the first album released under the band’s name rather than as a solo record under West’s name, it was arguably the song that helped Mountain establish something of a small following.
“I was always a big Mountain fan,” Frehley argued, stating how he went on to solidify this love for the band through his relationship with West. “Later on in life, I became friends with Leslie West because we met on the road and he invited me to his house for dinner. He was always a guitar player that impressed me, because he never played really super-fast solos. He always did melodic, bluesy guitar solos, but he knew where to place the notes. He was a master at that.”
He continued: “I saw Mountain perform a couple of times. I also became friends with their bass player, Felix Pappalardi – he came to a couple of Kiss shows and came backstage with his wife. But Leslie always impressed me as one of my favorite blues guitar players. I love that guitar riff. It was an obvious choice for me.”
‘Never In My Life’ certainly does have an electrifying guitar solo, one that is played with such fury and aggression, and the riffs and howls that West delivers over the course of the track are also indicative of just how overlooked the band are. There’s seemingly very little that they weren’t capable of delivering at the same level as their peers, they were just unfortunate to have not made it to those same soaring heights.
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