Original members of Alice Cooper, guitarist Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway and drummer Neal Smith have been churning out song after song after the band’s initial reunion album Welcome 2 My Nightmare in 2011, followed by the subsequent releases of Paranormal in 2017 and last year’s Detroit Stories. The members have been practicing and writing with singer Alice Cooper ever since Welcome 2 My Nightmare, and according to a statement made by Cooper to UCR at last weekend’s Motor City Comic Con in Detroit, the Alice Cooper band is “working pretty close right now” with more than twelve songs already in production for future projects (Ultimate Classic).
Despite this teaser of Alice Cooper’s future discography, Cooper cannot say when any of these songs will be made available to the public. When asked about a potential release date, he discussed the fluidity and creative freedom necessary when working with the band’s manager Bob Ezrin:
We never know when that stuff’s gonna come out if it’s going to make the next album or an album after that — it’s sort of like putting songs in a bank…if I have time off I’ll get a call from Bob [Ezrin]: ‘I’ve got an idea for something,’ and we just start writing. It’s a continuing process. They kind of take on their own life, these things do.”
During the same public Q&A during which this question was answered, Cooper went on to describe the band’s relationship in explicit details, disaffirming rumors that the group’s split in 1974 was acrimonious, claiming that the band working together has “just been a natural thing” for the members that had once just quietly dissipated after they could no longer achieve the same level of success that their previous records were able to yield. Cooper went on to explain that “Our band didn’t get divorced, we got separated. We hit an area after Billion Dollar Babies and School’s Out, those were giant records. We did Muscle of Love – that didn’t quite get there. It was Top 10, but it wasn’t up there like we wanted it to be… and I felt that the band was disjointed. I thought that maybe we hit our peak.” The band members eventually slowly went their separate ways after the success of Alice Cooper’s solo album Welcome to My Nightmare, with the record gaining Top 5 Platinum status in 1975. Despite this, the band retained their friendship throughout the years, with Cooper saying, “But we always did stay in touch with each other…there was no bad blood between us, anybody in the band. They were my best friends.”
Alice Cooper has announced the Christmas Pudding 2022 Lineup.
Alice Cooper will also join Josh Homme, Matt Sorum, and others to play at the Rock the Plaza All-Star Concert on November 11, 2022, at 8:00 p.m.
Photo Credit: Kalyn Oyer
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