Alice Cooper doesn’t really stop. Over the years, he’s amassed a sprawling, exhaustive resume that spans 26 studio albums, 46 singles, 10 live albums, 21 compilation albums, 12 video releases, and even an audiobook. That’s all without including his outside gigs and side projects like the infamous Hollywood Vampires.
Well, that discography will only expand in the near future as he’s working on a new studio album, and while that hasn’t exactly been exciting news in the past, there’s reason to believe his latest will turn some heads. If only because he’s working with his former (and surviving) bandmates of the Alice Cooper Band.
“I wrote three or four songs with Neil Smith and Mike Bruce,” Cooper told The Weekender. “And so we worked together in Phoenix for about two weeks just writing songs and demoing songs. And you never know which ones are going to make the album, but I said let’s do that.”
“Dennis Dunaway wrote two or three things,” he added. “We haven’t seen those yet, but I know Dennis has always written great stuff. It’s fun to go back and work with guys you haven’t worked with in awhile. It’s not trying to recapture your youth. It’s trying to recapture a sound. And it’s a very elusive sound.”
That sound, he argues, will be akin to the band’s fourth studio album, 1971’s Killer. Granted, he’s no longer the 20-something rocker he was back then, but that’s hardly news to him, as he admits: “You can never go back and totally recapture it, but you can certainly look at the elements that made that album work the way it did.”
Sadly, lead guitarist Glen Buxton passed away in 1997 from pneumonia, so it’s not exactly a full reunion. However, this is a nice blast from the past for fans of Cooper’s salad days, which … let’s be honest … have always been his best. In addition to Killer, 1971’s Love It to Death and 1972’s School’s Out are must-own records for any rock ‘n’ roll fan.
– Consequence of Sound
