For the past five decades, Alice Cooper has flourished as a solo act with his villainous shock rocker persona. Of course, it was the classic band lineup that originally paved the way for that success with a string of memorable hits on albums like Love It To Death and School's Out. And that fire has been rekindled — upon recently reuniting with his eponymous group, they've picked up right where they left off.
"We accidentally made a 1975 album," Cooper quips, referring to the group's new LP, The Revenge of Alice Cooper.
Released on July 25, the album is a vibrant classic rock set that, as Cooper suggests, feels like a natural continuation from their last studio release together, 1973's Muscle Of Love. Their signature vibes emanate across tracks like the spooky "Black Mamba," rambunctious "Wild Ones," and the multifaceted epic "Blood On The Sun" that recalls their longer, more adventurous tracks nestled in with the hits.
Notably, all four of Cooper's fellow original members came back for The Revenge of Alice Cooper: rhythm guitarist Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway, drummer Neal Smith, and even late guitarist Glen Buxton, whose preserved riffs are featured on "What Happened To You." Meanwhile, newcomers Gyasi Heus and Rick Tedesco laid down lead guitar parts that fit in fluidly with Alice Cooper's trademark sound. There's a chemistry across their eighth studio album that suggests that the band's future may not stop after this reunion release.
In fact, Cooper anticipates that another is likely, and the group is contemplating live shows in the not-so-distant future. For now, the singer has a slew of his own tour dates through Oct. 26.
Below, the four-time GRAMMY nominee details his band's exciting resurrection, reflects on his kinship with Ozzy Osbourne, and shares some of his favorite rock 'n' roll stories — all told in his inimitable fashion.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Listening to The Revenge Of Alice Cooper feels fresh yet vintage.
We especially wanted it to be live in the studio. I didn't want it to be layered. I didn't want it to be produced like School's Out or Billion Dollar Babies. Those were very produced albums, months and months of production, and that's what the style was then.
These guys still play great live. So I said, "Let's do this album. Let's write the songs. Let's do them live in the studio." That's really why the album's got a certain life to it that other albums don't have. It feels to me like certain albums are contrived, whereas this album just feels improvised a lot.
It has the diversity and eclecticism that drove the band back in the days, and that you could get away with on a major label in the '70s. One of my favorite tracks on the album is "Blood On The Sun," and that's one with a less conventional song structure like older Alice Cooper songs that didn't follow strict verse-chorus trade-offs.
That is one of the funniest things about this album. I usually do all the lyrics, [but] Dennis came in with this song. It sounds prolific and very important and very artistic. And Dennis says every one of the lyrics is a movie title.
It ends up sounding like an anti-war song, but it's really a series of movie titles that the listener invents his own scenario of what it's about. I was really taken aback. I went, "That is funny, Dennis, because it really sounds like you were tortured writing this song." He goes, "No, no, no, it's just movie titles."
Things have changed a lot in 50 years. You've become a father figure and mentor to many musicians who have performed with your solo band. You're older than them. You've been through it all. You got sober. You have all these crazy stories. But here, you reunited with your peers. What was that dynamic shift like for this album?
You know, it felt so natural. It was unbelievable. When we think about all the time we spent from high school to 1974, just playing together — I knew exactly how Neil played, I knew how Dennis played, I knew how Glen Buxton played, and how Mike played. We got in the studio 50 years later, and they played exactly the same way.
When I sing with my live band and with my [solo] records, [Bob] Ezrin and I use my voice as an instrument. "This song, you need to be more punk." "You need to be prettier here." "You need to be more sarcastic here." In that band, I just had one vocal sound. It's so funny, when I play with the original band, I sound differently than I do on my other albums. It's not anything that is contrived. I naturally sing differently with them.
Could you explain what "What A Syd" references?
I was giving you a total description of Glen Buxton. He had long, blonde hair, probably a stolen guitar, drugs, alcohol. He was exactly who he was. There was no pretension about who Glen was. When all of us stopped doing all that, he couldn't because that was him. He just kept going and died at 49. I guarantee there was a bottle of scotch around somewhere, and some illegal drugs and a switchblade. That was just him. He was half W.C. Fields and half Bowery Boy.
You've mentioned that some of Glen's most cherished moments were when he was jamming with [original Pink Floyd frontman] Syd Barrett back in the day. "What A Syd" offers a cautionary tale about excess that could certainly relate to his downfall from drugs.
Syd Barrett was so brilliant. There were two Pink Floyds. There was Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd, and then Dave Gilmour's Pink Floyd. Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd was so much more inventive, I think. Not to take away from anything that Pink Floyd became later because they just evolved to that. But when you listen to Saucerful Of Secrets and Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, there's a lot of insanity and absurdity going on there, but really interesting, you know? Ultimately, a lot more interesting.
When we played with Pink Floyd, before anybody had ever heard of Pink Floyd, in the Cheetah Club [in Los Angeles], they ran out of money and ended up moving in with us. We were all in the same house. I'd wake up at 7 in the morning, walk in the kitchen, and there was Syd Barrett staring at a box of corn flakes. And apparently they were dancing and they were singing because he would look at me and point to the cornflakes and just start laughing. I'd go in the other room and [think], How do you get that high? Nobody's that high.
But Syd and Glen were like twins. They'd go into a room with two Echoplexes and just play sounds back and forth to each other. That was Glen, that was the kind of guitar player he was. There were two entirely different Pink Floyds, and in all reality, there were two entirely different Alice Coopers.
The original Alice Cooper, my character, was the whipping boy for society. He was getting hung, and everybody hated Alice Cooper, especially parents. Kids loved me because the parents hated me and society hated me.
When I got sober, I couldn't play that character anymore, so Alice [became] a totally condescending villain. Like [an] Alan Rickman [character] — everybody bothers him, and he's so much better than everybody. That character is fun to play.
"What Happened To You" is built around an unused Glen Buxton riff which Dennis kept on cassette from back in the day. How did that riff speak to you guys?
Oh, it was great. It was just a riff that you could work on. This song is about a guy that's in a small town and his girlfriend suddenly starts going out with this other guy. She becomes sophisticated, and all of the things that she wasn't now she is. She's now Madonna. He's going, What happened to you? And it just fit. It was the kind of song we would have written around that riff.
Two classic Alice Cooper band songs have been used in "The Simpsons," "School's Out" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy." You came up with the story idea for "The Legend of Batterface" for the annual Treehouse of Horror comic where you faced death by donut. Then there's your solo B-side, "Can't Sleep, Clowns Will Eat Me." You have this big connection to "The Simpsons," but I don't think you've ever been on the show, or any of Matt Groening's shows, have you?
No, no. Musically, we were.
Did you ever want to be on the show?
Oh yeah, absolutely. When "The Simpsons" came out, they were totally unique. It was really, really funny. I really admired what they were doing. I showed up on "Family Guy." They used my music a lot. Groening and those guys did an Alice character, and so did "Family Guy." I thought "Family Guy" was probably more pointed, but I couldn't say [it was] more clever. They were both really very clever.
My favorite thing in the world was being on "The Muppet Show." When they called me to be on "The Muppets," I went, Oh man, I spent all this time making Alice Cooper the new monster. This is just going to water it down.
I loved the show — it was a very funny show, very clever. I asked them, "Who's done the show recently?" They said, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price, and I went, "I'm in!" If those guys can do "The Muppets" ... I haven't earned the pedigree that those guys have, so I will definitely do it.
That ended up being the reference point to an entire generation, me doing "The Muppet Show." It's amazing, to this day people go, "I discovered you on 'The Muppet Show,' and after that I went and got all your albums."
What do you think surprised fans more, that you did "The Muppets" or that you played piano and sang with Mae West in Sextette?
That was another thing. How do you say no to that — Keith Moon is going to be in it, and Ringo [Starr] and [future James Bond] Timothy Dalton. I had no idea how awful this movie was going to be, but it almost turns the corner and becomes so camp that it becomes really good, you know?
After I got done with my scene with [Mae], she goes, "Why don't you come on back to my trailer?" And I said, "Well, because you're 86 years old, and I'm not sure if you're a woman." [Laughs.] And she goes, "Oh, I'm all woman."
I told this to the guys at lunch, and Timothy Dalton says, "She came on to me too." And Ringo says, "She came on to me too." Everybody said that. It got around to Keith Moon, and he just started whistling and looking in the wrong direction. We all went, "No way, no way!" And he goes, "Well, how many chances are you going to get to be with..." So he actually slept with her.
You and the late Ozzy Osbourne were both demonized by certain people, although Ozzy seemed more like a tortured soul than you did. Fans are starting to think more about mortality now that he's gone. We can't imagine certain people not being here anymore.
Yeah, you're right. I say the same thing with John Lennon. When certain people go, you just go, What? That's impossible. George Harrison can't be dead. They're so legendary in our minds that it's just very hard to let them go.
I think everybody knew that Ozzy had an expiration date on him just because he beat himself up so badly throughout the years. He was such a sweet guy and such a nice guy, and our images worked.
We wanted to be the next Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, and that's who we were. We were this generation's monsters, but Ozzy was nothing like that in real life. I'm nothing like that. Vincent Price was nothing like that. Vincent Price was one of the funniest, nicest human beings on the planet.
I love playing Alice. I really look forward to playing him every day because he's nothing like me. That's what I really enjoy. I think it's the same thing with Ozzy. Ozzy would get on stage and he would be Ozzy, but he was nothing like Ozzy.
The weirdest connection that Ozzy and I have is that both of us said exactly the same thing about our backgrounds. We were both so affected by the Beatles. If you listen to Ozzy records, all of them have melody lines. Same with mine. We don't do songs that don't have melody lines. And that was because of the Beatles — we wanted to write songs that you could remember. The way you do that is to write a melody that you can remember.