Steel Notes Magazine Spring 2017 | Page 24

Steel Notes Magazine
Spring 2017
Alexxis : [ Laughter ] Yeah , really ! Oh another thing I wanted to ask you is when I saw you last time with Michael at Chiller you had outfits from the shows and bass guitars on display in all the cases . Now do you have them on display somewhere else ?
Dennis : I ’ m working on doing some displays because the 50th Anniversary of certain landmarks , you know when we became Alice Cooper and different releases is coming up , so I ’ m talking to different Museums about having them call it ‘ Dr . Dreary Snakes Museum of Alice Cooper Artifacts ’ But it ’ s got everything as you saw it . It ’ s even got my track shoes and leather sweater .
Alexxis : Right , and didn ’ t you have some guitars or bass ’ there too ?
Dennis : Yeah , guitars and bass ’ even though some of them are in the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix , Arizona those Museums and The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has my green bass that we talked about earlier , the Gibson bass , the frog bass . By the way Cindy ’ s the one that named it the frog bass because she used to say when I smiled I looked like a frog . [ Laughter ]
Alexxis : Really ? hahahah
Dennis : [ Laughter ] And that ’ s also the story of the very first night Bob Ezrin showed up at the Pontiac Firm to start working with us on the ‘ Love It To Death ’ Album . He had come in from the airport and we had so many people coming through that house it was like we didn ’ t quite realize he was new to arrive and I had dressed up like a frog with this big green frog mask , which you probably saw in The Snakes Museum , I still have that .
Alexxis : Oh yes I remember it .
Dennis : I was only going to say ribbit until Cindy kissed me and then I would turn into her Prince , you know .
Alexxis : Awwww .
Dennis : I was trying to make a boring night more interesting . So Bob Ezrin showed up and the living room is kind of dark and all he sees is me , a big giant frog . And he says “ Oh , hello Mr . Frog ” and I go “ Ribbit ” [ Laughter ]
Dennis : So well not to that extent but Alice is like that . I mean I would be working and working and working and Michael would be working and everybody ’ s diligently trying to come up with great songs and putting things together and Alice would watch tv and then he would walk in and spurt out a couple ideas that were just as good as ours ! [ Laughter ] So it ’ s fun to work with Alice because he ' s very musical . I mean when you watch him onstage whenever there ’ s a cue , he cues it . He knows the music inside and out . So it ’ s fun to work with him because it ’ s not like ok we ’ ll write the songs and then the singer can write some lyrics and then sing along with us , he ’ s right in there . He ' s the guiding part of it and with Bob Ezrin ’ s involvement , which Bob is working on this . There is a concise approach . You know , it starts out with winging it and the thing I like about it is it ’ s still a lot of humor going on . We ’ ve always had that you know , it ’ s not that we don ’ t take things seriously but having the humor , ongoing humor , helps keep things from getting tense in the studio . You know , it can get tense when recording a track with everybody and you don ’ t want to mess up and the clock ’ s ticking away and you know you have limited time and the dollars are ticking away and sometimes it can get very tense especially if you ’ re working when you ’ ve had a late night or two . So yeah , we ’ ve always had humor to kind of keep everything from getting tense and it ’ s still like that . So if we ’ re in the studio and Neal has an idea , we ’ ll try it . If I have an idea , we ’ ll try it you know . So Bob Ezrin is still very open to that and it kind of picks up right where we left off even though the missing ingredient is Glen Buxton .
Alexxis : Yes Glen ’ s involvement is missed .
Dennis : That rebellious attitude was a big part of The Alice Cooper Group even though his name isn ’ t on a lot of songs as a songwriter he had a lot to do with the attitude . I mean that attitude showed in everything that we did you know that was the essence of the group . So like I say he ’ s still in our hearts so he ’ s still there .
Alexxis : I ’ m sure he is always there in spirit and always will be !
Thank you Dennis for taking us with you on your journey in the Alice Cooper Group !
Alexxis : [ Laughter ]
Dennis : So frogs and the color green are kind of in my DNA I guess . Now moving forward you know how working on music with Alice is , he ' s a natural . You know that movie Amadeus ? The guys complaining that he has spent his whole life passionately caring about writing great symphonies and here this young guy Mozart , this kind of viral character just naturally writes stuff that is what better than his . [ Laughter ]
Alexxis : Yes I am familiar with it .

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