Alice Cooper titled his latest album Paranormal because for him, the word is a way of life. “My whole career has been paranormal,” the shock rocker tells Rolling Stone. “So why stop there?”

The LP itself is relatively straightforward, though, at least by Cooper’s unapologetically maximalist standards. It contains 10 new songs, which play out like macabre vignettes about people suffering different degrees of mental illness – the paranoid, someone obsessed with rats, a witness to the apocalypse – all set to catchy melodies that run from hard rocking to the macabre and eerie.

Continue reading here for Cooper’s thoughts on his new album, meeting his music idols and more.

Photo Credit: Jr.Gonzales/Tord Litleskare/Avalon/ZUMA Press