Alice Cooper has announced a new album featuring a host of special A-list guests, including Paul McCartney, Zak Starkey, Abe Laboriel Jr, Dave Grohl and Johnny Depp.
'Hollywood Vampires' was devised by Cooper and actor Johnny Depp, who recruited the likes of Slash, Brian Johnson and Perry Farrell to cover songs by "their dead friends and heroes".
The album also features Joe Walsh, Robbie Krieger, Zak Starkey and Kip Winger and includes renditions of songs by John Lennon, The Doors, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, T Rex and Small Faces. The track 'The Last Vampire' also features narration from Dracula actor Sir Christopher Lee, who passed away in June.
Alice Cooper explained how the concept for 'Hollywood Vampires' came about.
"We decided to put the band together and kind of celebrate all of our dead, drunk friends. You know, all of our big brothers died at 27 years old. Jim Morrison, we toured with The Doors, and Jimi Hendrix was one of our best friends, and we drank with these guys, and Johnny Depp and I were doing that movie Dark Shadows, and we decided that one night we were gonna go to the 100 Club and just be a bar band. No glitz, no glam. Somebody yells out [The Rolling Stones'] ‘Brown Sugar’. Yeah we’ll play that. [Jane's Addiction's] ‘Been Caught Stealing’. Sure, we know that. Just to kind of have fun with it," he said.
"At that time we just had so much fun playing covers that we said, why don’t we do an album that celebrates all of our dead, drunk friends? We started naming them; John Lennon, Keith Moon from The Who, you know, Harry Nilsson, T Rex, and the list was so impressive and we could pick out songs and we ended up making the album. So it’s not an Alice Cooper album, it’s a Hollywood Vampires album."
"We decided to put the band together and kind of celebrate all of our dead, drunk friends. You know, all of our big brothers died at 27 years old. Jim Morrison, we toured with The Doors, and Jimi Hendrix was one of our best friends, and we drank with these guys, and Johnny Depp and I were doing that movie Dark Shadows, and we decided that one night we were gonna go to the 100 Club and just be a bar band. No glitz, no glam. Somebody yells out [The Rolling Stones'] ‘Brown Sugar’. Yeah we’ll play that. [Jane's Addiction's] ‘Been Caught Stealing’. Sure, we know that. Just to kind of have fun with it," he said.
"At that time we just had so much fun playing covers that we said, why don’t we do an album that celebrates all of our dead, drunk friends? We started naming them; John Lennon, Keith Moon from The Who, you know, Harry Nilsson, T Rex, and the list was so impressive and we could pick out songs and we ended up making the album. So it’s not an Alice Cooper album, it’s a Hollywood Vampires album."
On the subject of Paul, Cooper
admits that it was hard to keep cool in the studio, but that the
down-to-earth McCartney helped keep things normal.
"Paul’s a rocker man, you know. If he wasn’t in his band, he would be in a pub somewhere playing with a bunch of guys," Cooper states. "He just loves to play. You’ll look back and you’ll go ‘Jesus, that guy’s a Beatle’, he wasn’t a Beatle, he was the Beatle, you know, and wrote more songs than anybody, and never has gone back on what he believes, on what he does. You know, he’s just one of the guys. He was just one of the guys in the band. So now when I see him I go, ‘Vampire’. He goes, ‘I’m a Vampire’. But John was a Vampire. John Lennon was one of our nightly guys. He was there every night."
See a trailer and tracklist below. 'Hollywood Vampires' will be released on September 11.
"Paul’s a rocker man, you know. If he wasn’t in his band, he would be in a pub somewhere playing with a bunch of guys," Cooper states. "He just loves to play. You’ll look back and you’ll go ‘Jesus, that guy’s a Beatle’, he wasn’t a Beatle, he was the Beatle, you know, and wrote more songs than anybody, and never has gone back on what he believes, on what he does. You know, he’s just one of the guys. He was just one of the guys in the band. So now when I see him I go, ‘Vampire’. He goes, ‘I’m a Vampire’. But John was a Vampire. John Lennon was one of our nightly guys. He was there every night."
See a trailer and tracklist below. 'Hollywood Vampires' will be released on September 11.
'The Last Vampire'
'Raise The Dead'
'My Generation'
'Whole Lotta Love'
'I Got A Line'
'Five to One/Break On Through'
'One/Jump Into The Fire'
'Come And Get It'
'Jeepster'
'Cold Turkey'
'Manic Depression'
'Itchycoo Park'
'School’s Out/Another Brick in The Wall Pt 2'
'Dead Drunk Friends'
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