Alice Cooper Chasing ‘Detroit Sound’ for New Album, EP
Alice Cooper said he's planning to release an EP later this year, to be followed by a complete album in 2020, and that the work would be done in his hometown of Detroit – where his breakthrough 1971 album Love It to Death was recorded.
His 2019 already includes touring as part of a double-header package with Halestorm, and separately as a member of the Hollywood Vampires, who are expected to announce a new album in the near future.
“There's a certain Detroit sound we're looking for," Cooper told Billboard in a new interview. “It's indefinable. There's a certain amount of R&B in it. There's a certain amount of Motown in it. But then you add the guitars and you add the attitude and it turns into Detroit rock. I feel like if we mine around with all Detroit players, we're gonna find that sound.”
He reported that he’d been talking to his former Alice Cooper Group colleagues, plus Suzi Quatro and Bob Seger, about potential involvement. “I can tell you Seger and I will be working on something. I talked to him and he said, 'Oh, yeah, that’ll be fun,' and I said, 'OK, let's do it.' … I know Dennis [Dunaway] is working on something, and so is Neal [Smith]. Hopefully they're writing, and they will certainly get the same listen that anybody does that comes in with songs for us.”
Meanwhile, Cooper said that although he’d given his blessing to a planned musical about his career, he didn’t have any creative input. However, he stated that he hoped his 43-year marriage would be part of the plot, arguing it was “something you never hear about in rock n' roll.” He added: “All you ever hear about is, ‘He's on his ninth wife’ and blah, blah, blah. You never hear things like, 'They're gonna be married for 45 years.' I guess that's not exciting to people – but it should be the norm, you know?”