Watch Alice Cooper talk working with Paul McCartney on a tribute Album to ‘Dead, drunk friends’

Cooper opens up about album he's recorded with guests including Johnny Depp and Dave Grohl


Alice Cooper has discussed the album he has made with guests including Dave Grohl and Paul McCartney.

Cooper has recruited some of his most famous friends and recorded an album under the name Hollywood Vampires. Cooper has confirmed that the record features Paul McCartney, Dave Grohl, Johnny Depp and more.

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Cooper will pay tribute to the social group he used to drink with in the ’70s on the album, which included John Lennon, Keith Moon, Harry Nilsson and Ringo Star on the record.

Speaking to NME about the album, Cooper explained how the concept for the album and the Hollywood Vampires came about.

“We decided to put the band together and, you know, 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 Hundred 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 kind of 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 McCartney, 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.”

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Cooper’s live antics are legendary and earlier this year, he joined Foo Fighters at a surprise show marking frontman Dave Grohl’s 46th birthday.

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