KISS guitarist Ace Frehley was riding high on optimism earlier this year … thanks to a psychic who swore he’d be shredding till he hit the big 1-0-0.

Back in March this year, Ace was all smiles talking about his comeback following a nasty arm injury … in an interview with New Jersey newspaper The Aquarian, he said, “I just spoke to a psychic. She goes, ‘Ace, you’re going to live to be a hundred.’ So I said, ‘No problem!'”

In the interview, Ace also gave props to his family tree … bragging about the great genes that kept his dad going to 96, his mom to 86, and his sister to 99 … so he was clearly thrilled to be following suit.

Of course, the psychic’s prediction didn’t pan out … Ace died Thursday after being hospitalized with a brain bleed and placed on life support … his family ultimately made the heartbreaking call to remove his ventilator.

We broke the story… Ace suffered the bleed following a bad fall in the studio a couple of weeks back.

He now holds a bittersweet place in rock history as the first original member of KISS to pass.

Ace was 74.