Alice Cooper Reunites With Original Band For Their First Album in 51 Years: ‘All of a Sudden It Just Falls Into Place’

Alice Cooper says that making a new album with his original bandmates — the first in more than 51 years — was like riding a proverbial bike. 

“Oh, very much so,” the veteran shock rocker tells Billboard by phone from his home in Phoenix, speaking about the upcoming The Revenge of Alice Cooper (out July 25 on earMUSIC). “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.”

Producer Bob Ezrin, meanwhile, says that the band on The Revenge… was eerily similar to the group he worked with on platinum Cooper 70s albums such as Love It to Death, Killer, School’s Out and Billion Dollar Babies. “None of them has changed much as a person,” Ezrin notes. “Obviously everyone’s older and more mature and more settled, but 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 14-track album reunites Cooper with guitarist Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway and drummer Neil Smith. Guitarist Glen Buxton passed away in 1997 at the age of 49 — the album is dedicated “to our brother Glen Buxton” — and he’s represented on two songs. “What Happened to You” is built from the riff on an old demo tape Dunaway and Buxton made together and the limited-edition box set bonus track “Return of the Spiders 2025,” is an upgraded remix of a track from the group’s second album, 1970’s Easy Action.

The set also features another bonus remix, of the “Titanic Overunderture” from the group’s 1969 debut, Pretties For You, and a remake of the Yardbirds’ “I Ain’t Done Wrong” from 1965 — a nod to a favorite band of Cooper and company that it covered during their early days as the Spiders on Phoenix. 

Cooper will be premiering the first single, “Black Mamba,” on Tuesday (April 22) on the latest episode of his syndicated radio show, Alice’s Attic. Featuring Robby Krieger of the Doors, a friend since the band’s late 60s days in Los Angeles, it was, according to Cooper, “definitely an Alice Cooper, from-the-ground-up song” created during studios sessions for the album.

“It wasn’t even a song yet,” Dunaway recalls. “We’re in the studio and we start jamming on the riff and warming up together. The next thing you know we get this swampy feel and decide it’s gonna be about a Black Mamba snake, which is very deadly, and it fell into place. It was so new Alice had to stop us at one point and ask me if I remembered what the melody was. It was very spontaneous.”

For Ezrin — who also co-wrote songs, sang backup and played keyboards and percussion on the LP — “Black Mamba” in particular defined what The Revenge… was going to be. “When we started to play that it’s when I knew the spirit of the Alice Cooper group was back and that what we were making was very much an album that could’ve been in the 70s, when we were last together. It had the psychedelia, it had the artful drumming and bass playing, the great atmospheric guitars. It has Alice telling a really fabulous story, in character.”

Cooper adds that, “We didn’t know where it was gonna go. At the end we looked at each other and went, ‘Oh, that’s pretty good!’”

The Cooper crew has been working its way towards another full album for more than a decade.

Its split in 1974 — after seven albums over six years, and such iconic hits as “I’m Eighteen,” “School’s Out,” “No More Mr. Nice Guy” and more  — was acrimonious but not insurmountable. “We didn’t’ divorce as much as we separated,” Cooper explains. “There was no anger, no bad blood — not for very long anyway.”

Dunaway adds that, “the breakup wasn’t what the band was about; the togetherness was. After all of these years we’ve buried a lot of hatchets.” Bruce and Smith performed at the opening of one of the Alice Coopers’town restaurants in Phoenix during 1988 and all four living members played for the band’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2011.

That led to song collaborations on several of Cooper’s subsequent albums — Welcome 2 My Nightmare in 2011, Paranormal in 2017 and 2021’s Detroit Stories, and on Oct. 6, 2015, the four played an eight-song set at Good Records in Dallas to celebrate Dunaway’s memoir Snakes! Guillotines! Electric Chairs! My Adventures in the Alice Cooper Group; the show was subsequently released as the Live from the Astoturf album and DVD three years later.

And during 2017, Bruce, Dunaway and Smith performed as special guests on the U.K. dates of Cooper’s Spend the Night with Alice Cooper world tour.

“All of those things got everybody reacquainted — reacquainted is a weird term ’cause we’re  so much like family, so it’s more like a family reunion,” Dunaway says. “Then Alice and Bob called and were talking about, ‘Oh yeah, we want to do an album,’ because there’s so many songs kicking around.”

Ezrin explains that, “We’ve worked together here and there over the years. The boys played together… and every time it’s been a joy and complete pleasure, and kind of like going home. So we finally decided, ‘Let’s just do a whole album, an Alice Cooper group album like we used to.”

Work on The Revenge… actually began in Phoenix a few years ago, when Cooper, Bruce, Dunaway and Smith gathered together to try out songs. Dunaway recalls that he and Smith each came in with around 30 songs, putting them on par with Bruce, who was the band’s primary music writer during the 70s.

“Dennis and Neil really blew my mind,” Bruce says. “They’ve come a long way as writers. I just can’t say enough about their songwriting. We all are songwriters now; it’s a real battle of the songwriters. I’m so proud of the band.”

Cooper maintains that he’s long felt, “if we’re gonna do an original Alice record, I want it to sound like the original Alice band. The original band has a darker sound, and a heavier sound. It’s a very different personality, and I even sing differently when I sing with those guys.

“On this (album) it was much more of a band, where each one of us has a certain say. In other words, it wasn’t like my albums. I’m not gonna have a final say on it; I had one-fourth of the say on it, and that’s the way we always did it,” he adds. “I think the best thing about this is normally Bob and I would go, ‘OK, wait a minute — that doesn’t necessarily fit. That shouldn’t go there.’ When we’re working with this band, we go, ‘No, let it go there,’ ’cause that’s what the original Alice Cooper Band did. We would see where it should go, and 70 percent of the song went where it should go, and the about 30 percent of the song went in another direction — but it all sounded like it fit.

“That was the difference. When we heard that, we kinda laugh and say, ‘Let’s go there.’ On my albums I wouldn’t go there, but on this album, we go there.”

Filling Buxton’s role on The Revenge… is Gyasi Hues, a Nashville player who was recommended to Ezrin by Mike Grimes, owner of Grimey’s New & Preloved Music in Nashville and checked out by Dunaway and Smith in a local club. “Neil and Dennis were slightly skeptical,” Ezrin says.

“Nobody wants to replace Glen, and they hold jealously onto his memory and their love for him. But very early on (Hues’) started playing some really cool stuff and the guys were looking around going, ‘That’s kinda  great.’ So we have the Alice Cooper group, not with Glen Buxton but with somebody who honors Glen Buxton.” A number of other players, primarily Connecticut guitarist and instrument merchant Rick Tedesco, also appear on The Revenge…

Tracking sessions for The Revenge… began during August of 2022 in Nashville, with other recording done in Phoenix, Los Angeles, Hollywood and Glendale, Calif., and Cooper’s vocals recorded at Noble Street Studios in Toronto.

As word about The Revenge… filters out, Dunaway says the band is “ready to explode with excitement because we’ve kept it secret for so long.” There’s no word yet, however, on whether the four will regroup to play live to support it; Cooper already has a full slate of touring ahead this year, including a May and August dates in the U.S., summer shows in Europe and a co-headlining run with Judas Priest during September and October.

“We haven’t even gotten to that point yet,” Cooper says about putting the quartet back on stage. “I don’t really see it being a full-out tour; it would be very, very hard, I think, if you haven’t done it for a long time. But I could see it being a feature, like going into certain cities — Detroit, New York, L.A., London maybe, and doing a half-hour or 40 minutes in a club or something. We always leave those things open, and if it looks feasible then we do it.”

His bandmates are game. “If (Cooper) asks, I’ll be there,” says Bruce, who continues to write and plays in a local band in Arizona. “I’m an Alice Cooper trouper.” Dunaway, whose various musical endeavors include Blue Coupe with former members of Blue Oyster Cult, adds that, “It has always depended on Alice. If Alice gives us a call, we’re there. We’re ready.”

And while Dunaway considers The Revenge… to be “a full-circle moment” for the original Alice Cooper band, all concerned seem to feel like it’s not the last thing they’ll do together. 

“Dennis was talking about a one-off album, and I’m like, ‘Who says it’s a one-off album,” says Cooper, who’s working on his next solo album with Ezrin. “I have no problem working with these guys all the time. I can be doing my albums, working with them. I’ve got the Hollywood Vampires. I’m in the Solid Rock band for all the kids at Solid Rock (his youth centers in Arizona). I’ve got to keep remember what band I’m in! But doing (the original band) again is great. I’ll always be up for that.”

The Revenge of Alice Cooper is currently available for pre-order. The full tracklist includes:

1. “Black Mamba”

2. “Wild Ones”

3. “Up All Night”

4. “Kill The Flies”

5. “One Night Stand”

6. “Blood On The Sun”

7. “Crap That Gets In The Way Of Your Dreams”

8. “Famous Face”

9. “Money Screams”

10. “What A Syd”

11. “Inter Galactic Vagabond Blues”

12. “What Happened To You”

13. “I Ain’t Done Wrong”

14. “See You On The Other Side”

15. “Return of the Spiders 2025” (bonus track)

16. “Titanic Overunderture” (bonus track)