The rock heroes of Steve Brown’s youth now trust their music in his hands.

Brown first found fame in the early ‘90s as the singer, songwriter and backing vocalist with Trixter, a band he started in a Paramus, New Jersey garage at age 12. The music video for Trixter’s effervescent debut single “Give It To Me Good” shot to number one on the “Dial MTV” countdown. So did the video for their second single, “One in a Million.” Their third single, “Surrender,” did too.

Way before that, Brown was a little kid obsessed with theatrical hard-rockers Kiss. He first began learning Kiss songs like “Calling Dr. Love” at age 8.

Now, 45 years later, he’s the producer of original Kiss lead guitarist Ace Frehley’s new solo album, “10,000 Volts.”

Out February 23, “10,000 Volts” is preceded by its slamming title track, which has been streamed more than 800,000 times on YouTube, and buzz this is Frehley’s best work since his iconic 1978 self-titled album, charged with rock classics like “New York Groove” and “Rip It Out,” back when all four Kiss members released solo albums on the same day.

“Every song is fantastic,” Brown says of the new Frehley LP during our recent video call. “There are no throwaways. I listened to the last couple records he’s made over the last 20 years, and there are one or two brilliant moments filled with a lot of mediocre stuff. When Ace and I got together, it was magic from day one.”

Brown and Frehley recorded the “10,000 Volts” album at Brown’s New Jersey home studio. In addition to producing and engineering, Brown also cowrote, played second guitar and sang backing vocals on the tracks. The first song Frehley worked on together was “Walkin’ on the Moon,” which will be second single from “10,000 Volts.”

The 11-song album clocks in at a svelte 43 minutes. It’s all catchy, concise hard-rock. Frehley was adamant they keep each track to around three-minutes-and-30-seconds or so.

“We were very good at cutting out the fat, very good at editing,” Brown says. That said, he adds, “there was some definitely some wars there where I was like, ‘Oh man, I can’t cut that part out. Listen to this vocal part. Listen to this guitar, you know, riff that you did.’ And he was like, ‘No, man, let’s cut it down.’ And 98 percent of the time he was right.”

Trust was an essential part of making the “10,000 Volts” album. While Frehley was cutting guitar solos, Brown would often whisper suggestions into his ear, often referencing Frehley’s iconic, signable solos on classic Kiss songs like “Shock Me” and “100,000 Years.”

At first Frehley would be reticent. He’d say tapping into his roots was boring. But a few moments later, he’d come up with licks that conjured his old magic.

Brown says with Kiss, “Ace was so unique because he took his influences, like [Jimi] Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, but took it to a composition level that those guys didn’t really do as far as what I remember. He would have one or two great parts that were like a vocal melody. And still to this day, I think some of his solos from’ 70s Kiss are some of the greatest rock guitar solos ever composed.”

Still, “There were bumps and bruises along the way,” Brown says. “You know, Ace is a rock legend, hall of famer, and sometimes he’d get a little testy with me. And I’d be like, ‘Hey bro, you don’t need to be like that.’ And likewise with me, because we would fight on things. It’s no secret, he’s self admittedly lazy. But I would go, ‘Well, that’s all well and good, but you’re not going to be lazy with me.’

“But at the end, it was always about making the greatest record we could make — and that’s what we did. This record is also his best guitar playing he’s done in a long time. These solos are constructed, just like he did in the ‘70s. Ace and I had so much fun making this record and I’m busting at the seams for people to hear it.”

For the “10,000 Volts” album, Brown would take the best bits from different Frehley guitar takes and comp them together to form one apex solo. It’s a classic studio technique. But Frehley would then insist on playing a new version of the comped solo straight all the way through, giving the parts the electricity of a live performance.

Other contributors to “10,000 Volts” included drummer Anton Fig, who played on Frehley’s ‘78 debut solo album and is also known for his drumming in David Letterman’s longtime TV show house band.

In addition to making the album, Brown is lending a hand with the cover art and music videos. He got Frehley connected with a new booking agent, too.

“How cool is it that a guy at 72-years-old is having this great resurgence?” Brown says. “He’s got a newfound energy. And I look at it like this, it’s never too late. Looking at The Rolling Stones. They just made their best record in years with [2023 Stones album] ‘Hackney Diamonds.’ I told Ace, ‘72 is the new 50.’”

At age 53, Brown remains fit, raven-haired and a human lightning-bolt of energy. He and Frehley had known each other for around 30 years. They’d played gigs together. For the new album, they reconnected through Frehley’s fiancée, Lara Cove, a longtime friend of Brown’s band Trixter. Frehley’s production manager also used to work for Trixter.

Brown was unphased in working with his hero Frehley, because Brown has been around rock royalty most of his life. Trixter’s self-titled ‘90 debut album, which featured a cover designed by influential “Batman” comic book artist Neal Adams, went gold and pieced the top 30.

Trixter’s stripped-down sound and look bridged the gap between fun ‘80s hard-rock and grunge’s dressed-down appeal. The “Give It To Me Good” video was directed by Paul Rachman, who’d go on to direct iconic clips like Alice in Chain’s “Man in the Box” and Temple of the Dog’s “Hunger Strike.” The dudes in Trixter were friends with and gigged with the Alice in Chains dudes.

The band’s follow-up album, 1992′s “Hear!”, found Trixter stretching their sound with the help of Rush producer James Barton and a million-dollar budget. “We jumped lightyears ahead,” Brown recalls. By then, “I didn’t want to be a superstar guitar player. I wanted to be [super-producer] Mutt Lange. I wanted to be [first-call cowriter] Desmond Child.”

Brown developed a friendship with another lifelong hero, guitar wizard Eddie Van Halen. He has fond memories of hanging out with Van Halen at the Malibu home Eddie shared with actress Valerie Bettinelli, Eddie’s then-wife, and playing volleyball, drinking Beck’s beers and smoking cigs.

“I don’t smoke,” Brown says. “But when you were with Ed back then, you smoked a cigarette. First off, I can’t believe that I’m sitting here. I just played volleyball with Eddie and Val. Wolf [Van Halen, Eddie and Valerie’s son, later a rock star in his own right] was a baby in diapers. Ed has a visor on backwards, and he leans over to me and he goes, ‘What’s goin’ on with your [new] record?’ The coolest dude in the world is giving me advice.”

He adds that Van Halen, who died in 2020, “was no different than you and I, besides the fact that he was the greatest guitar player in the world. We didn’t bond over guitar playing, we bonded over jokes. It was a real wake up to just be a human being, just be yourself and be honest. And that’s who he was.”

Alas, by 1992 the music biz was neck-deep in mopey alternative-rock sounds. But Brown remains rightly proud of Trixter’s “Hear!” LP. Anyone who discounts Trixter as a throwaway band should give tracks like the bluesy “Runaway Train” and poignant ballad “As The Candle Burns” a spin.

On the upside, Trixter landed the opening slot for Kiss’ 1992 North American tour. On their first album cycle, the band had previously hit the road with the likes of Scorpions, Stryper, Warrant and Don Dokken. All great tours. But landing a Kiss tour was on another level.

“I’ll never forget,” Brown says, “getting a call from our manager saying, ‘Hey guys, I have great news for you. You’re going to be going out on tour with Kiss, it was like it was everything that we had ever worked for in our lives. It was a total dream come true.”

After a third LP — “Undercovers,” a 1994 set of covers of acts ranging from Elvis Costello to AC/DC to Beastie Boys – Trixter went on hiatus. The band’s classic lineup, also boasting singer Pete Loran, bassist P.J. Farley and drummer Mark “Gus” Scott, reunited in 2008 for touring and the concert release “Alive in Japan.”

Brown also made music for TV shows. We worked with the likes of ex-Styx singer Dennis DeYoung and former Rainbow frontman Joe Lynn Turner, too.

In 2013, Def Leppard, another of Brown’s touchstones, enlisted Brown as an on-call guitarist after Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell was diagnosed with cancer. The opportunity stemmed from Brown’s friendship with Def Lep guitarist Phil Collen.

Brown’s significant vocal skills – he’d been Trixter’s version of Bon Jovi guitarist/singer Richie Sambora – helped him get the Leppard gig just as much as his guitar prowess. He’d also seen every Def Leppard tour from mega-seller “Hysteria” on.

For the Leppard gig, which Brown detailed in my 2021 SPIN magazine story on fill-in musicians, crammed with a hard-drive containing live versions of every song in Def Leppard’s set. “For so long, I couldn’t tell anybody,” Brown told me in 2021.

His first show with Def Leppard finally came in 2014 for a concert at London’s Wembley Stadium. Brown’s friend Eddie Van Halen loaned him one of his personal guitars for that show.

After Trixter had been oft-dismissed by music snobs, Brown experienced overdue validation in his Def Leppard gig. “It was kind of like, you finally got your due for all your work,” he told me in in 2021.

Since then, Brown has gone on to play around 15 shows with Def Leppard, filling in for Campbell and later Collen. The highlight for him was playing Collen’s solo on Leppard’s signature hit “Photograph” while walking down the onstage catwalk at Pennsylvania’s Hersey Park Stadium. The band put him up in the same ritzy hotels they stayed at, and he shared a dressing room with them too.

Flash forward to summer 2023. After playing Van Halen’s EVH brand gear for years, Brown released his own signature brand of guitars, SBS Guitars through online guitar parts retailer Guitar Fetish, who previously collaborated with David Bowie guitarist Earl Slick.

At around $380, SBS guitars are an insane value. The “super Strat” style instruments have been praised for their tone and playability. The look’s there too, with vibrant colors and patinaed textures.

“We like to say these guitars were left in a warehouse from 1986 and they sometimes somehow survived,” Brown says. “I would never put my name on something that I didn’t believe in wholeheartedly. And these guitars are as good as anything that’s out there. And they’re basically at a third of the price because they’re mail-order only.”

Currently, Brown is on the road fronting his Trixter Acoustic trio on guitar and lead vocals. Farley, who Brown first met at legendary Brooklyn rock club L’ Amour when Farley was a 14-year-old with frosted-blond locks, is on bass. Ben Hands is on drums/percussion.

In addition to playing Trixter tunes, between songs Brown and Farley tell stories from their multi-decade journey in rock. Last year, they did more than 40 dates, including shows in Guam.

The au naturale format is a natural fit for Brown’s music. He wrote all his Trixter songs on acoustic guitar. “I learned very early on,” he says, “that if you can play a song with acoustic guitar and a vocal and it still sounds cool and people still get off on it, it’s a great song.”

This year, Brown’s Trixter Acoustic trio has a tour stretching from Alabama and Florida to Illinois and Minnesota to legendary Los Angeles venue Whisky a Go Go. Complete list of tour dates at trixterrocks.com.

“It’s mind blowing to me,” Brown says, “this little kid from Paramus New Jersey, who’s living this rock and roll fantasy year after year. Last summer, PJ and I we had to rent a car from Newark, New Jersey and drive 11 hours to Indiana to play an acoustic gig. And I remember just looking at him, I go, ‘Dude, I wouldn’t trade it for the world because this is what we do.’

“I have all my different things going on, and some cool stuff that’s going to be happening in the next year or two years that I can’t even talk about. But we’re musicians, that’s what we do. And you know, the Van Halen brothers [Eddie and drummer Alex Van Halen, who Brown is also friends with], they always instilled in me that if they didn’t hit it big, they would still be playing music. And at the end of the day, that’s the sign of a true musician.”

Trixter Acoustic plays Rocket Republic Brewing in Huntsville, Alabama on January 12. Doors are at 7 p.m. and music starts at 8. Tickets start at $30. More info on the show’s Facebook event page.

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