STILL SHOCKING
Alice Cooper says latest album is like 12 episodes of ‘Twilight Zone’
Alice Cooper is the King of Shock Rock, and he’s held that title for decades.
It’s been six years since his last album, and he’s back with “Paranormal.”
“(The album) is like 12 great episodes of ‘The Twilight Zone,’” Cooper says. “Each song tells its own twisted little tale.”
The album, released July 28, was produced by longtime producer — and legend — Bob Ezrin. The album features ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons, U2 drummer Larry Mullen Jr. and Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover.
“My definition of ‘paranormal’ is something that is ‘other than normal’ or ‘alongside of normal’,” Cooper says. “You could say my whole career has been that. I would look at what was normal and step left of it. That’s what gets people’s attention. They’d listen to our music and see our show and say, ‘That’s so strange … oh, yeah, that’s so Alice.”
Never one to rest on his laurels, Cooper wanted to go in a different direction from his 2011 concept album, “Welcome 2 My Nightmare.”
“Bob Ezrin and I wanted to break the mold,” he says. “I said, ‘Let’s get 20 different ideas from 20 different places, put our spin on them, and go with whatever turns out the best.’”
Aside from the new material that Ezrin produced, Cooper also had another surprise for fans.
His former bandmates — guitarist Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway and drummer Neal Smith — reunited for the album.
Cooper says that when the original band broke up in 1975, there was no bad blood.
He says the band had just burned out on the creative process.
“We had gone to high school together and had recorded something like five platinum albums in a row. We were never out of sight of each other for 10 years. Everybody just went their own way,” he says.