Former KISS guitarist Ace Frehley can confirm, Rush was a lot of fun to hang out with.

Kiss and Rush toured together in the mid-'70s. The treks were some of the most consequential of Rush's early career and forged lasting overlap between the two bands' immense fan bases.

While the members of Rush are best known for their virtuosic musicianship, offstage the three principle members — Neil Peart, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson — were notorious jokers who would go out of their way for a laugh, especially Lifeson.

As one of Kiss's chief partiers, Frehley has fond memories of one of Lifeson's greatest bits — one that was somehow not amusing to Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley.

"Invariably, after a certain amount of beers were consumed, Alex would take a bag and draw up a crazy face on it and put it over his head, and he smoked a joint through the eye because he poked holes first so that he could see," Frehley told Talkin' Rock with Meltdown.

"And he just had us all rolling around on the floor, and I got a picture of it inside my book, No Regrets."

Space Ace wouldn't say why Simmons and Stanley were so averse to 'The Bag,' but they had lots of differences in opinion.

"Paul and Gene, those guys never partied," Frehley added. "They missed out on so much."

Lifeson addressed his character work in Rush's 2016 Time Stand Still documentary.

"It was just a face drawn on a big laundry bag...I would make two holes for eyes and draw a stupid face on it and wear sweat pants and stick my arms through the sweat pants so only my hands came out at the knee and have the bag on. ...'The Bag' was always drunk and really smart and knew everything and...made a lot of, you know, suggestions to people and running commentary for a couple hours."

Lee added that 'The Bag' "usually appeared in Ace Frehley's room. Almost always in Ace Frehley's room. 'The Bag' would come over and entertain Ace."

"Gene was very, very upset with 'The Bag," Lifeson recalled. "And that made Ace even happier."

Photo: Getty Images

Podcasts

Q102 Podcasts

iHeartRadio Popular Podcasts