alice cooper
New ALICE COOPER Guitarist NITA STRAUSS Says She Received ‘Unofficial’ Offer To Pose For PLAYBOY
Jay Nanda of San Antonio Metal Music Examiner conducted an interview with THE IRON MAIDENS guitarist Nita Strauss, who recently joined Alice Cooper's touring band. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
San Antonio Metal Music Examiner: How much of an influence was [Alice Cooper] on you growing up, musically?
Nita: Alice Cooper, I think, transcends anybody's influence. The cool thing about him is that, even today, there's not that many artists from that generation that are still so relevant and touring so much. Alice now tours with IRON MAIDEN and MARILYN MANSON and ROB ZOMBIE. He's touring with these artists that are a little bit newer. And definitely, also, Steve Hunter was, of course, a huge influence on me as a guitarist as well. I think their influences are more far-reaching than any of us really know.
San Antonio Metal Music Examiner: Having been in all-female bands THE IRON MAIDENS and with the revamped FEMME FATALE, your talent speaks for itself. But do you find yourself sometimes battling within some circles of the music industry to get people to focus on your guitar playing and musicianship. Or is it a case of, "Hey, the sex appeal doesn't hurt the cause"?
Nita: I think it's always going to be a give-and-take with the image thing. I had an interesting conversation yesterday about dressing to avoid people talking about your image and only focus on the guitar playing versus dressing to use your image as an asset. And I don't really see myself as doing either/or. Because first of all, I'm not going to dress myself; other people dress… [laughs] I'm a total tomboy at heart. If I don't have to be on stage or doing anything that day, I'm always in band t-shirt and yoga pants and sneakers. But at the end of the day, I'm a girl. I'm from Santa Monica. I'm going to look how I want to look and play how I want to play, and if people don't like it, then they don't like it. The awesome thing about this great country of America that we live in is that they're absolutely free to not like it. But I like it. If I go on stage and I think I look cool and I think I'm playing well, that's what it's all about, I think.
San Antonio Metal Music Examiner: You recently did an interview for Playboy Radio, so I'd be remiss if I didn't ask — did they offer you a pictorial?
Nita: They joked about it a lot. They didn't put an official offer on the table. But they definitely threw it out there. My joking response was, "Maybe with a strategically placed guitar." [laughs] I don't think it's actually in the future, but it's fun to joke about.
San Antonio Metal Music Examiner: Well, if you did something like that — with a strategically placed guitar — that wouldn't be too different from the Revolver [magazine] "Hottest Chicks" type of thing, would it?
Nita: Yeah. You know, for photos, we talk about the word "objectify." And, you know, it's subjective. If you want to look at the photos in Revolver and think, "This girl's trying to get attention because she looks the way she does," then that's fine. I'm still going to do my same practice regimen, and I'm still going to get on stage and do all my guitar set-ups and swap out my own pickups. I'm still going to do all that stuff too. People are always going to talk.
Read the entire interview at San Antonio Metal Music Examiner.
ALICE COOPER Says His Covers Album Will Not See Light Of Day Until 2015
Michael Christopher of Vanyaland recently conducted an interview with legendary rocker Alice Cooper. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
Vanyaland: Let's talk about the film. There have been so many run-of-the-mill documentaries over the years on musicians. What convinced you that "Super Duper Alice Cooper" would be different?
Alice Cooper: [Banger Films] came to us and we saw that they did with "Flight 666" for IRON MAIDEN and they said, "We don't want to do a talking-heads documentary where Elton John talks and then this guy talks; we want to make it linear, we want to make it the story of Alice but graphically, the whole way through. If you're going to do a documentary on Alice Cooper, it's got to be as theatrical as the character." I totally agreed with that and I loved the idea of them cooking up the Jekyll-and-Hyde connection with Alice Cooper and myself, and the fact that I talk about Alice Cooper in the third person — he's a character I play. And it was absolutely the right story; I never knew where Alice ended and the other Alice began; and that was a big gist of the documentary, that gray area. Then the alcohol involved, where does Alice start and where do I end? And it was like that from the very start. It was a really good story, and the drama behind it, the fact that here was a band that wasn't supposed to make it. Everybody hated us except for Frank Zappa and THE DOORS and bands like that. Making it to the top, almost self-destructing and then coming back; so it had a bit of a "Rocky" story to it.
Vanyaland: What sticks out most to me is how raw it is, especially with the uncomfortable parts, but you're on record saying they were some of your favorite topics to talk about.
Alice Cooper: I found the uncomfortable parts the most interesting. When they interviewed Dennis [Dunaway] and Neal [Smith], the original guys from the original band — we couldn't find Mike [Bruce], he's hard to find — the easiest thing to have done was to edit out what they say, so we look good. I said I'd rather hear their opinion of why the band broke up.
Vanyaland: Yet you're all still on good terms.
Alice Cooper: To this day we remain the best of friends. We're sitting together at Tribeca [Film Festival] watching it and all of us were squirming in our seats because everybody had a different version of why we broke up. Then there's the cocaine part, because I always denied any drug use because I thought it was so uncool to for Alice to be into drugs; it was so stereotypical that I wanted to avoid it. But when that part comes up, you have to be honest with it. That was uncomfortable for me, but at the same time it was powerful. The Tom Snyder footage of the skeletal Alice Cooper was really powerful, it was really scary.
Vanyaland: Your next recording project is a covers album [which also includes several new songs written specifically for the project]. Over the years, quite a few artists have covered your songs; CREED, MEGADETH — even Etta James. Are there any that stand out to you, either because of how different the interpretation, or because of how bad it is?
Alice Cooper: Music, to me, is so much just a piece of clay that, "Here's the verse, here's the chorus, here's the lyrics — let's see what you guys do with that." Joan Jett did a great cover of "Be My Lover". Dio did a cover of "Welcome To My Nightmare" and did an amazing version of it. Roger Daltrey did "No More Mr. Nice Guy". Every time somebody does one of your songs, I feel totally complimented that out of all the songs recorded, they would pick those songs — one of my songs — to do. I'm always really interested to hear what their take is on it. I can tell you one of the greatest thrills of my life is I went back to see [Paul] McCartney and his band. I went backstage and they were kind of warming up and I walked into the room and they all went into "Under My Wheels". There's McCartney playing bass on "Under My Wheels" and I went, "Wow." That, to me, is such a compliment the fact that he even knows that song.
Vanyaland: So you doing something similar is your way of complimenting artists and the songs you love.
Alice Cooper: I have never done a covers album. We all started as a covers band — even THE BEATLES. Instead of picking just a bunch of songs, what about doing all my dead drunk friends? All the guys I drank with that died; Jim Morrison and I used to drink, Jimi Hendrix and I used to drink, THE SMALL FACES, T.REX, Harry Nilsson — all those guys were buddies of mine. So I said, let's do an album about the Hollywood Vampires, our drinking club. There are just so many songs that you could go to. [Producer] Bob Ezrin loved the idea and it's pretty much done now, but I don't think it will see the light of day until next year because we've got the MÖTLEY CRÜE tour for 72 shows and we don't have the time to wrap a show around the covers album until next year.
Read the entire interview at Vanyaland.
Ask ALICE COOPER Anything
Eagle Rock Entertainment, in association with Banger Films, has announced the world premiere of "Super Duper Alice Cooper" at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival (TFF), presented by AT&T, where it will screen as part of their Spotlight section. Taking us through his life and career, Alice presents his story in the first ever "doc opera" film — a dizzying blend of documentary archive footage, animation, and rock opera.
"Super Duper Alice Cooper" is the twisted tale of a teenage Dr. Jekyll whose rock 'n' roll Mr. Hyde almost kills him. It is the story of Vincent Furnier, a preacher's son who struck fear into the hearts of parents as Alice Cooper, the ultimate rock star of the bizarre. From the advent of Alice as frontman for a group of Phoenix freaks in the '60s to the hazy decadence of celebrity in the '70s to his triumphant comeback as '80s glam metal godfather, we will watch as Alice and Vincent battle for each other's souls. Alice's story is told not only by the man himself, but through exclusive interviews with members of the original Alice Cooper band, Elton John, Iggy Pop, John Lydon and Dee Snider.
In order to make "Super Duper Alice Cooper" as interactive for his devoted fans as he possibly can, Alice Cooper is putting together a special pre-recorded "Keep Calm & Go Ask Alice" question-and-answer session that will run following each theatrical screening. In order for Alice to give some wild answers, he'll require some burning questions from fans, so he's inviting YOU to ask him anything now via www.SuperDuperAliceCooper.com (click the "Keep Calm & Go Ask Alice" graphic). Once the submission period is closed, Alice will personally handpick select questions and answer them via video, serving as the aforementioned Q&A.
"Super Duper Alice Cooper" is the creation of Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn at Banger Films, producers of "Iron Maiden: Flight 666" (2009 SXSW Audience Choice Winner) and "Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage" (2010 Grammy-nominated and Tribeca Audience Choice Winner), and much-lauded filmmaker Reginald Harkema, winner of the TIFF Special Jury Prize for his film "Monkey Warfare".
The 13th edition of the Tribeca Film Festival will take place from April 16 to April 27 at locations around New York City.
In a 2012 interview with Spinner.com, Dunn stated about the Cooper documentary: "We know Alice through various projects that we've done. We interviewed Alice for 'Headbanger's Journey'. He's also featured pretty prominently in two episodes of [the new groundbreaking documentary series] 'Metal Evolution', both in [the] Shock Rock and Early Metal U.S. [episodes]. He's a pretty fascinating character, who has been through a lot in his life. He's one of those musicians that maybe he hasn't had a hit in a long time, but everyone knows who Alice Cooper is because of his influence on pop culture and the big songs he had in the '70s.
"We're exploring a different stylist approach with this film. It won't be talking heads; it's going to be more of an archival and animated journey through his career.
"He's such a rich visual artist, it makes so much sense to try and do it in a different way.
"I think we're just a little bit sick of doing talking head interviews, to be honest [laughs], after doing 300 of them for 'Metal Evolution'. So it's really the story of Alice's career from the '60s right up to the '80s and everything he went through — the ups and the downs, battles with alcoholism, being raised in a Christian family, rebelling against that but then coming back to faith later in his career, and moving from town to town, and trying to find his place."
Alice Cooper's latest album, "Welcome 2 My Nightmare", sold 18,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 22 on The Billboard 200 chart. Cooper's previous CD, 2008's "Along Came A Spider", opened with just under 10,000 copies to land at No. 53.
Recorded with longtime collaborator Bob Ezrin, who produced the original multi-platinum "Welcome To My Nightmare" album in 1975, "Welcome 2 My Nightmare" picks up right where they left off, with Alice trapped in his own warped mind.
keepcalmandaskalice
MÖTLEY CRÜE’s ‘Final Tour’ To Feature Support From ALICE COOPER
Eddie Trunk — co-host of the VH1 Classic television program "That Metal Show" who has a long-running radio show, "Eddie Trunk Rocks" (formerly "Friday Night Rocks"), on New York's Q104.3 FM — has tweeted what appears to be the official ad for MÖTLEY CRÜE's farewell tour, apparently dubbed "The Final Tour", which will feature support from ALICE COOPER.
MÖTLEY CRÜE is expected to hold a press conference in Los Angeles on January 28 during which they will announce the first details of the farewell tour, which will reportedly kick off in May and last for a couple of years. Later that night, MÖTLEY CRÜE will be the musical guest on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" The band will perform several songs on the show's outdoor stage in front of a standing-room-only crowd.
MÖTLEY CRÜE singer Vince Neil told Billboard.com back in August that the band's final tour would begin during the spring of this year and wrap up sometime in 2015.
"It's just kind of that time," Neil explained. "We'll do one more time and then kinda call it quits. We're going out on top. We don't want to be some band that people are like, 'Oh, they're playing a club now.' We still sell out arenas, have stadium stuff and things like that."
Neil and MÖTLEY CRÜE drummer Tommy Lee previously made comments suggesting that guitarist Mick Mars' health issues were partly to blame for the band's decision to call it quits — something that Mars, who suffers from the spinal disease ankylosing spondilytus, has repeatedly denied.
"Any rumors regarding a farewell tour due to 'my poor health' are BS. I am doing fine, my AS has never kept me from touring and never will," Mars wrote on Twitter in August.
MÖTLEY CRÜE wrapped up its second Las Vegas residency at the Hard Rock Hotel's Joint last October.
ALICE COOPER Completes Work On Covers Album
On September 26, Chad Tyson of the 98.7 The Gater radio station in West Palm Beach, Florida conducted an interview with legendary rocker Alice Cooper. You can now listen to the chat below.
Cooper has just completed work on a covers album featuring songs that were originally written and recorded by THE DOORS, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon and THE WHO, members of the so-called "Hollywood vampires" of the early and mid-'70s. A spring 2014 release is expected.
"We're still adding on certain people; we have a list of people that we want to get and a lot of times it's scheduled," Alice said. "In a situation like this, you have certain friends you want to put on the record and their availability is really what it is… y'know, finding where they are, what they want to play and when they want to play."
Pushed for names of the special guests, Alice replied, "I'm just saying…probably the 'usual suspects.' Put it that way."
"We're really happy, all of us, everyone involved in the covers because it's pretty much what we wanted to do," Cooper told RollingStone.com earlier in the year. "We specified a certain time period and said, 'Let's stay within that. Let's not move it around too much.' We don't want to be doing cover songs from the 80s and 90s when the Hollywood vampires kind of thing was more '73, '74, '75."
Back in March, Cooper said about the upcoming CD: "We do a thing in our show, which is a tribute to Hollywood Vampires, my drinking club. And it was Keith Moon, John Lennon, Harry Nilsson, Micky Dolenz — a very eclectic bunch of drunks. Half of them are dead, so we do four songs in the show in tribute to them. We do 'Break On Through', 'Revolution', 'My Generation' and Jimi Hendrix's 'Foxey Lady'. I just kind of said, 'We've never done a covers album, let's think about that.'"
Asked what some of the wish-list songs are, Cooper said: "I would keep it right to about '73, '74. I don't want to just go anywhere. I want to keep it right in that sort of drunk era, so it's specific. I would say 'Break On Through', that's a really good rock track there. The other ones, think of it — Harry Nilsson, there's a lot of good stuff there that could be rocked out. I think of songs as being clay. Take a song like 'Jump Into the Fire' and take that to a harder level, and that'll work."
ALICE COOPER Says His Current Tour Is ‘Highest-Energy Show’ Fans Will See All Year
Legendary rocker Alice Cooper recently spoke to Highway 81 Revisited about how he plans the setlist and the look for each tour.
"It's so funny because it's almost the hardest thing when you're trying to please all the fans is trying to do something that everyone wants," he said. "Of course we're going to do all the hits, but then I get e-mails going, 'How come you didn't do this?' and, 'How come you didn't do that?' Everybody has their own favorite songs for their deeper cuts. So we're going to do 28 songs. That's one of the hardest parts of doing a show: What songs are we gonna put in? Once you get them in there, the easy part for me is staging it.
" He continued: "This show that you're going to see this time is totally different from the show that you saw last time. That's kind of the fun part for me, putting
ALICE COOPER Says He Is ‘Three-Quarters Of The Way Through’ Covers Album
Legendary rocker Alice Cooper has told Billboard.com that he is "three-quarters of the way through" a covers album featuring songs that were originally written and recorded by THE DOORS, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon and THE WHO, members of the so-called "Hollywood vampires" of the early and mid-'70s. A 2014 release is expected.
"We're really happy, all of us, everyone involved in the covers because it's pretty much what we wanted to do," Cooper said. "We specified a certain time period and said, 'Let's stay within that. Let's not move it around too much.' We don't want to be doing cover songs from the 80s and 90s when the Hollywood vampires kind of thing was more '73, '74, '75."
Back in March, Cooper told RollingStone.com about the upcoming CD: "We do a thing in our show, which is a tribute to Hollywood Vampires, my drinking club," Cooper explained. "And it was Keith Moon, John Lennon,Harry Nilsson, Micky Dolenz — a very eclectic bunch of drunks. Half of them are dead, so we do four songs in the show in tribute to them. We do'Break On Through', 'Revolution', 'My Generation' and Jimi Hendrix's'Foxey Lady'. I just kind of said, 'We've never done a covers album, let's think about that.' So [producer Bob] Ezrin and I are kind of bouncing it around right now."
ALICE COOPER Talks About Upcoming Covers Album, Possible Broadway Musical
Legendary rocker Alice Cooper has told The Oakland Press that he is working on a covers album featuring songs that were originally written and recorded by THE DOORS, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon and THE WHO, members of the so-called "Hollywood vampires" of the early and mid-'70s. A 2014 release is expected.
Back in March, Cooper told RollingStone.com about the upcoming CD: "We do a thing in our show, which is a tribute to Hollywood Vampires, my drinking club," Cooper explained. "And it was Keith Moon, John Lennon,Harry Nilsson, Micky Dolenz — a very eclectic bunch of drunks. Half of them are dead, so we do four songs in the show in tribute to them. We do'Break On Through', 'Revolution', 'My Generation' and Jimi Hendrix's'Foxey Lady'. I just kind of said, 'We've never done a covers album, let's think about that.' So [producer Bob] Ezrin and I are kind of bouncing it around right now."
ALICE COOPER’s ‘Wayne’s World’ Jacket Recovered
Legendary rocker Alice Cooper's official web site has been updated with the following message:
"Around this time last year, the Alice Cooper Archives in ...