THE NIGHTMARE RETURNS: AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
WITH ALICE COOPER
By Jeb Wright
When Alice Cooper decided to write a few songs with
an old friend named Bob Ezrin, he had no idea that it
would end up being a musical episode of This is Your
Life.
The famous producer and the man named Alice soon
conjured up the images of the original Welcome to My
Nightmare album that they co-wrote in the 1970’s
when Alice left his band for a solo career. Soon, the
two men began wondering what Alice’s nightmares would be
like as an older man. The creative juices began flowing,
and before they new it, they had song ideas. It wasn’t
long before the living members of the original band came
to Cooper’s mind and they started writing songs with
them.
By the end of the journey, Cooper and Ezrin, with
help from Dennis Dunaway, Neal Smith, Michael Bruce,
Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, all Coop alumni, has the
sequel to the original album. While most sequels fail
miserably, the premise behind this one, and the time
span between the two, make the album very interesting.
With major label support behind it, and a few bucks for
marketing, the world may actually hear new music from a
classic rock artist.
Welcome 2 My Nightmare is an album that sees
Cooper at the top of his game, once again. Once the evil
Alice is channeled into the normal, golf-loving Alice,
then the games begin. With tantalizing titles that
include “I’ll Bite Your Face Off,” “Disco Blood Bath”
and “Ghouls Gone Wild” one can see the nightmare is in
full swing. The creative visualization used in the
lyrics will make you think you’re in REM sleep, as the
imagery comes out in full 3D color.
In the interview that follows, Cooper discusses the
album in depth. He explains why he choose to record with
a 22 year old diva and how Ezrin, and himself, came up
with the crazy ideas that make the storyline of The
Nightmare so compelling. We also talk about the day
Ezrin first visited Alice Cooper back in the early
1970’s and why, that day, Dennis Dunaway was wearing a
frog head and would only say ‘ribbit.’
Jeb: I have been listening to Welcome 2 My
Nightmare and loving it.
Alice: Bob Ezrin always brings out the worst in me
and I always bring out the worst in him. When we get
together, our creative juices get really done.
Jeb: When did the idea come up to do a sequel?
Alice: Its funny, we weren’t even going to do this;
it wasn’t the original idea. I was just going to write
some songs with Bob. We started talking and it was the
35th anniversary of the album Welcome to
My Nightmare. We started wondering what Alice’s
nightmares would be 35 years later. One thing led to
another and pretty soon we were writing songs. Seventeen
songs later, we had an album. We weren’t there to write
an album and, out of nowhere, we had one. Not only that,
but it was one of the five best albums we’ve ever done.
We were kind of surprised that so many good things came
out of it.
Jeb: How is it different writing for the character
Alice then it is for a normal album?
Alice: When you’re writing for a character, for
somebody other than yourself, then it’s different. I
might write the greatest song that I’ve ever written
and, then, I will realize that Alice would never sing
this. It could be a great song for Guns N Roses, or the
Foo Fighters, but it is not a song that Alice would ever
sing. Being a songwriter, you just write the song and it
comes out the way that it is. If it’s usable, then a lot
of times we can twist the lyrics around enough to make
it sound like Alice, but a lot of times you can’t.
Bob and I would sit there and be very objective about
Alice. We’d talk about him in the third person without
getting personal about it. I would say, “Bob, that whole
second section there is not Alice.” Bob would listen to
it and say, “You know, you’re right. Lets change that.”
If I were writing for Captain Hook then I would be able
to do it because I kind of know how he thinks about
things, but you couldn’t just write anything and have
Captain Hook sing it.
Jeb: Tell me about the song you did with Ke$ha? When
I saw her name on the album I went, “What the hell?”
Alice: I sometimes rebel against my own fans. When my
fans come up to me and go, “You can’t have someone like
her on your record.” Then I go, “I can’t? Why?” If
someone tells me that I can’t have Vince Gill play lead
on a song, then I say, “Why?” If he plays the greatest
guitar solo that you ever heard then who cares?
I met Ke$ha at the Grammys and she never looked, to
me, like a Diva, she looked like a rock singer. I told
her, “Eventually, everyone leaves the Divas. There is no
way you can have a long lasting career as no one ends up
loving the Divas forever. However, everybody loves a
rock band.” It’s true, no one ever says anything bad
about Chrissie Hynde. I am trying to talk her into
getting a real rock band behind her.
When I met her, I had an idea for a song. I needed a
character to play the devil. In the song, she finally
has enough, and its time for Alice to pay her with his
soul. We decided to call it ‘What Baby Wants Baby Gets”
because in the song he tries to say, “Hey, that wasn’t
part of the deal” and she says, “No, no, no, you don’t
understand, what baby wants, baby gets!” For me, it was
a perfect line for her to say. .
Jeb: I have heard she even calls you ‘dad,’ is that
true?
Alice: Yeah, I’m kind of like her dad. She comes in
the studio and she is wearing next to nothing and I’m
like, “Put a sweater on.” I have two daughters and I’m
always telling them that. I’m trying to tell a
22-year-old what to do. Bob Ezrin does the same thing.
Bob and I really are like her two dads. She does respect
us, which is good.
Jeb: What was it like to bring back Dennis Dunaway,
Michael Bruce and Neal Smith back for three songs? This
is the original Alice Cooper Group!
Alice: When we got into the Hall of Fame, we realized
that we were going to have to do some songs. We had a
very strange breakup back in 1974, in the fact that
nobody was angry, nobody took a swing at anybody and
there was no bad blood. Everybody knew that I wanted to
be more theatrical, and that they wanted to go in a
different direction, and that was it. We were always in
touch with each other.
When the Hall of Fame thing came along, then I
thought we should do some songs with Bob Ezrin
producing. The band was just the same as it was in 1974.
I didn’t want to change anything. When the idea for this
album came up, I said to Bob, “Wouldn’t it be great to
get Dennis, Mike and Neal on the album? Lets get them to
write some songs so we can write with them.” We wrote a
song with Neal, we wrote a song with Dennis, and we
wrote a song with Mike, and all three of the songs ended
up on the album. To me, it’s sort of wrapping up all of
the loose ends.
Jeb: Steve Hunter, who was on the original Welcome
to My Nightmare is also on the album.
Alice: So is Dick Wagner. Steve Hunter is now back in
my touring band.
Jeb: When you write a song like “Last Man On Earth”
then you and Ezrin must just be smiling and laughing all
the way.
Alice: Bob and I learned a long time ago that when
you start writing a song, and it starts developing it’s
own personality; you just have to let it be what it is.
You can’t try to force a round peg in a square hole.
Just write the song, see what it ends up being and then
see if it works. You can’t start trying to twist it into
what you want it to be. Bob and I started writing this
song, “Last Man On Earth” and it ended up being a Tom
Waits song – I sing it somewhere between Tom Waits and
Jimmy Durante. When I saw Tom at the Hall of Fame I
said, “Tom, this is going to sound weird, but I’ve
always been a big fan of yours. I have written a new
song that, coincidently, is a tip of the hat to you.
When you hear it, you will know which song I am talking
about.” That song really ended up coming out well and it
really fit the story line well. It reminds of that old
Twilight Zone with Burgess Meredith where he ends up in
the basement because of an atomic explosion. When he
finally goes upstairs, he’s now got all of the books in
the world but he then breaks his glasses and now he
can’t read them. That was kind of this idea. Alice is
the last man on earth. He can stink, he can swear and he
can do anything he wants to do because there is no one
there to tell him ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
Jeb: The original Welcome to My Nightmare had
an incredible stage show that is now very famous. What
are we going to see with 2?
Alice: I am currently on tour now. The album is going
to come out right in the middle of this tour. We’re
going to add some of the songs in but I think it will be
the tour after this when we’re going to go all out for
the Nightmare Returns tour. It will probably be
as theatrical as the first one.
Jeb: Last one: I am friends with Dennis Dunaway. He
once told me that the first day that Bob Ezrin came over
to meet the band, for some reason, he decided to be a
frog that day and was wearing a frog head. As luck would
have it, he answered the door and just said, “ribbit” to
Ezrin. Did you know that? Do you ever feel lucky that
Bob went ahead and came inside instead of running away?
Alice: It didn’t surprise me at all to walk
downstairs and find Dennis in a frog outfit. When that
sort of thing happened you would just walk by him and
go, “Oh, hi Dennis.” It never occurred to any of the
rest of us that such a thing would ever be odd to anyone
else. If you knew Dennis then you were used to that sort
of thing. It must have been a bit of a shock to Bob.
Imagine just walking in and finding a frog. And then he
would discover that everyone else in the band had very
distinct personalities. Luckily, we all worked well as a
unit. .
