There’s no ‘off’ switch on Alice Cooper. Even as the legendary shock-rock icon, Hollywood Vampire and consummate master of the macabre attended his recent 75th birthday party – hosted by Poison songwriter Desmond Child in Nashville – his mind kept wandering to the minutiae of his next tour. “I’m the Ziegfeld of rock,” he says. “It’s all about the show. All I can think is: ‘Will that thing work in the second song?’” Prior to hitting the road with fellow Vampires Joe Perry, Johnny Depp and Tommy Henriksen, Alice is busy recording a pair of albums with producer Bob Ezrin and preparing his next all-important stage extravaganza. “Preparing an entirely new production is the calm before the storm… The fun part.”
Fifty years on from the release of Billion Dollar Babies, are there plans to expand the album to an even greater extent than its 2001 Deluxe Edition?
Oh yeah. We’re putting a billion dollars into it. Actually? We’re not… I rarely have anything to do with reissues. We have approval, but when they’re planning to put my baby shoes in the box and things like that, I just go: “Okay, I don’t care. Go ahead.” As much as I love the history of the original band, I don’t sit around thinking about it; I’m all about what’s next.
You had just turned twenty-five when the album was released. Could you have imagined that you’d still be a professional decapitee at seventy-five?
Denne historien er fra June 2023-utgaven av Classic Rock.
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Denne historien er fra June 2023-utgaven av Classic Rock.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Joan Armatrading
The singer-songwriter on her new album, inspirations, being a 'band', what her key was about, meeting Nelson Mandela...
Meat Loaf: I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)
It was the power ballad to end all power ballads, and 30 years later people still ponder what the it’ is that the singer wouldn't do.
Kris Kristofferson: June 22, 1936 - September 28, 2024
Kris Kristofferson, the iconic, Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and actor who played a key role in advancing a strand of country music into a more raw and confessional direction now recognised as outlaw country, has died peacefully at his home in Maui, surrounded by family. He was 88 years old.
"I have come a very long way in the last two-and-a-bit years"
Back from the brink: the Thunder vocalist who survived major medical trauma returns.
EVER MEET LEMMY?
He's heard Lemmy's unreleased solo album, had dinner with Chris Holmes, told Paul McCartney to get a round in, been told gangster Reggie Kray wanted to have a word with him... He is Dogs D'Amour frontman Tyla 7 Pallas, and these are some of his stories.
"LET'S NOT FORGET ABOUT HAVING FUN"
With their ninth studio album In Murmuration, Finnish rockers Von Hertzen Brothers have replaced their erstwhile prog epics for a more honest approach to songwriting reflecting their personal lives.
IN THE BEGINNING
With previously unseen photographs from their early days as featured in the new Queen | Collector's Edition, Sir Brian May talks us through sights of the band in the early seventies.
BASS-IC INSTINCT
Plucked from obscurity in 1975 to be in David Bowie's band, then unceremoniously out of the picture five years later, bassist George Murray looks back on his time with the Thin White Duke.
High Rollers
When Ronnie Wood, the Stones and some A-list mates holed up at his house to help with his solo album, it sparked a days-long party, a Rolling Stones hit and the last album by arguably their finest line-up.
THE NAME OF THE GAM
When ABBA-mad Opeth leader Mikael Akerfeldt met one of their singers, he lost it”. She didn’t sing on their new concept album, but some other, perhaps unlikely, big names did.
