{"id":4290,"date":"2011-11-13T21:54:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-14T04:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=4290"},"modified":"2011-11-13T21:55:29","modified_gmt":"2011-11-14T04:55:29","slug":"alice-cooper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/11\/alice-cooper\/","title":{"rendered":"ALICE COOPER"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/h2>\n

ALICE COOPER
\n<\/strong>America\u2019s favorite shock rocker dreams up an all-new nightmare<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It\u2019s Alice Cooper\u2019s party, and he\u2019ll invite whomever he likes. \u201cAnytime someone tells me I shouldn\u2019t have a particular artist on an album, I take that as a challenge,\u201d declares Alice Cooper. \u201cI think, \u2018I\u2019ll take that person and create a situation where you see a different side of them.\u2019\u201d That attitude led the legendary shock-rocker to recruit such unlikely guests as pop star Ke$ha, country legend Vince Gill, Drive-By Truckers\u2019 Patterson Hood and young guitar phenom Orianthi (now a member of Cooper\u2019s touring band) to perform on the new sequel to his spooky 1975 concept classic\u00a0Welcome to My Nightmare<\/em>.<\/p>\n

There are also familiar faces on Welcome 2 My Nightmare<\/em>, most notably the surviving members of Cooper\u2019s original band from the late \u201960s and early \u201970s: guitarist Michael Bruce, bass player Dennis Dunaway and drummer Neal Smith. Cooper reunited with the group at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in March. \u201cIt was like we had never missed a day,\u201d says Cooper, who tapped original Nightmare<\/em> producer Bob Ezrin to helm the new project. There\u2019s even a \u201970s-vintage tune from the Cooper vault, \u201cSomething to Remember Me By,\u201d co-written by former guitarist and\u00a0writing partner Dick Wagner.<\/p>\n

Welcome 2<\/em> covers a wide range of styles as it tells the tale of a man journeying through a vision of hell that may or may not be real (complete with Ke$ha playing the devil). \u201cIt goes in many different directions, just like the original Nightmare<\/em>,\u201d says Cooper, 63. We caught up with him during rehearsals in Los Angeles to discuss this unexpected union of his past and present.<\/p>\n

What triggered a Nightmare<\/em> sequel?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I knew early on I\u2019d work again with Bob. And we were fortunate to be in a situation where there was no one breathing down our necks, saying this or that type of album\u00a0has to be done. I told him, \u201cIf we\u2019re\u00a0going to work together again, let\u2019s do something really special.\u201d It occurred to us it was the 35th anniversary of Welcome to My Nightmare<\/em>. We started thinking\u00a0about the things that would constitute\u00a0nightmares for Alice in today\u2019s world. Disco was something that sprang to mind right away.<\/p>\n

Didn\u2019t you once do a disco song?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That was \u201c(No More) Love at Your Convenience,\u201d from the Lace and Whiskey<\/em> album [1977]. That song was too<\/em> good\u2014it wound up being a song people actually liked. I hated it. I thought, \u201cNo, no, no, you don\u2019t want to like that!\u201d That song wasn\u2019t defined strongly enough as a satire, but this new song, \u201cDisco Bloodbath Boogie Fever,\u201d certainly is. Lyrically it destroys\u00a0the concept of disco.<\/p>\n

How was working with Bob again?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We pushed one another. I would say things like, \u201cBob, I need you to come up with a keyboard part that\u2019s similar to the piano on \u2018Steven,\u2019 from the first Nightmare<\/em> album.\u201d I also pushed him to do \u201cThe Underture,\u201d the track that concludes the album. It\u2019s a bit like \u201cGrand Finale,\u201d from the School\u2019s Out<\/em> album [1972]. He worked really hard on that one. Bob also directed my singing in the studio. He\u2019d say something like, \u201cI don\u2019t want the stage voice, I want the clear voice.\u201d Or, \u201cI want the \u2018pop singer\u2019 Alice on this one.\u201d \u201cI want the garage-rock singer.\u201d It\u2019s like changing guitars.<\/p>\n

Why Ke$ha as the devil?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My thinking was, if the devil were to show up in an Alice nightmare today, it wouldn\u2019t be in the form of Vincent Price or Christopher Lee. It would be a diva, a figure who\u2019s the exact opposite of Alice. Ke$ha loved playing the devil. The most disturbing lyrics in \u201cWhat Baby Wants\u201d are hers. That stuff about bathing in your blood is all her doing. She understands that people see her as a dance diva, yet she told me she wants to be the female Robert Plant. I told her she needed to put a good band behind her and start writing rock songs.<\/p>\n

And the original band is back.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That was decided right after the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. Bob was at the ceremony, and I suggested to him that we invite them to play on the album. He said we should take it a step further and get them to actually write songs. It was a situation where we tried to have each of them play on the songs they wrote with us. They play every instrument on \u201cWhen Hell Comes Home\u201d on the new album. You can hear that great \u201970s sound at the conclusion of that song. It\u2019s built into their DNA. It tied up some loose ends for me. Getting them on the album was a cool thing, and of course it\u2019s great for the fans. What\u2019s your relationship like now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We were high school classmates before the band was even conceived, so these are my childhood friends. Even when the band broke up there were never any lawsuits or nasty phone calls, anything like that. Everyone was wishing one another well\u2014and at the same time, we all knew there would be moments when we would get back together. I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll do more things together in the future.<\/p>\n

Why do the Dick Wagner song?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dick and I wrote \u201cSomething to Remember Me By\u201d in 1975 around the time of\u00a0the original Nightmare<\/em> sessions. With each subsequent album I tried to include that song, but it never fit properly. For\u00a0this album I rang up Dick and asked if\u00a0he still had the tape. First thing Bob\u00a0said after he heard it was, \u201cWhen was this written?\u201d He felt it was exactly in the vein of \u201cYou and Me\u201d and \u201cI Never Cry,\u201d and that it fit perfectly the vibe of those mid-\u201970s ballads. It\u00a0turned out really well.<\/p>\n

What will Orianthi bring to <\/strong>the shows?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I felt it would be interesting and a bit of an oddity to have a girl in the band. But she doesn\u2019t play guitar like a\u00a0girl. She\u2019s a premier lead guitarist, and\u00a0she can really shred. A song like \u201cHalo of Flies,\u201d\u00a0from the Killer<\/em> album [1971], will be an interesting challenge for her, because it\u2019s\u00a0a bit of a prog-rock song. She\u2019ll fly right through \u201cUnder My Wheels\u201d and all the\u00a0other riff-rock stuff.<\/p>\n

Might you play the Nightmare<\/em> albums back to back?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If I have my druthers we may go into a theater in Chicago or Pittsburgh or somewhere and do that for a couple of weeks. The first act would be Welcome to My Nightmare<\/em>, followed by an intermission, and then the second show would be this album, Welcome 2 My Nightmare<\/em>. Both albums in their entirety, accompanied by the right special effects for each of them. The music is all there. It\u2019s written just like a play.<\/p>\n

Is it hard to get out of character?<\/strong><\/p>\n

To try to live that lifestyle would have been a lie. I thought it was much more interesting that there were two of us. Alice has a life of his own that exists only onstage, and I let him have the run of the stage. But my other life is my own, and it has more aspects: I play golf, I write, I\u2019m a husband and father. I\u2019m many things besides Alice.<\/p>\n

\u2013Russell Hall<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018If someone says I shouldn\u2019t work with a particular artist, I take that as a challenge.\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\n<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ALICE COOPER America\u2019s favorite shock rocker dreams up an all-new nightmare It\u2019s Alice Cooper\u2019s party, and he\u2019ll invite whomever he likes. \u201cAnytime someone tells me I shouldn\u2019t have a particular artist on an album, I take that as a challenge,\u201d declares Alice Cooper. \u201cI think, \u2018I\u2019ll take that person and create a situation where you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[2809,970,2615],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4290"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4290"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4295,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4290\/revisions\/4295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}