The surviving members of Alice Cooper have come together to record their first new album in 51 years.
Cooper shared the news during a Billboard interview published Monday, revealing he had reunited with guitarist Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway, and drummer Neal Smith to record The Revenge Of Alice Cooper, slated for release on July 25, with a feature on two songs by guitarist Glen Buxton, who died in 1997 at 49 years old.
“It was very much like this was our next album after (1973’s) Muscle of Love, just like, ‘OK, this is the next album.’ Isn’t that funny after 50 years? All of a sudden it just falls into place,” Cooper told the publication.
The album will span 14 tracks and is dedicated “to our brother Glen Buxton.” The band dug up a riff from an old demo tape made by Dunaway and Buxton for the new LP’s “What Happened to You,” while the limited-edition box set will include “Return of the Spiders 2025,” a bonus remix of a track from the group’s second album, 1970’s Easy Action.
Producer Bob Ezrin — who worked with the group on 1971’s Love it to Death, School’s Out in 1972, and chart-topper Billion Dollar Babies the following year — echoed Cooper’s sentiments and said almost nothing has changed since collaborating with the band in the Seventies. “None of them has changed much as a person,” Ezrin told Billboard. “When we all get together and I watch the interplay between them, it’s like they just walked out of high school and were hanging out in the local cafe. They just revert to type. They revert to who they were as kids when the first got together… and make music together like they did 50-some years ago.”
The new album’s first single, “Black Mamba,” releases April 22 and features Robby Krieger of the Doors.
Meanwhile, Cooper is getting ready for a legendary co-headlining tour with Judas Priest across 22 North American cities in the fall. Although an Alice Cooper reunion tour has yet to be confirmed, the singer said that while a “full-out tour” would be “very hard,” he could see them playing small sets in Detroit, New York, Los Angeles, and London. “We always leave those things open, and if it looks feasible then we do it,” he said.
All four surviving members last played for the band’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2011. When reacting to the news, Cooper told Rolling Stone the year prior, “I was elated and I called the original band guys immediately, and said, ‘Well, remember when we started in high school?’ [Laughs] ‘Here we are. Only took 45 years.’”
