Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Alice Cooper: High School Buddies to Rock Legends [Highlight From Episode 338]

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Alice Cooper: High School Buddies to Rock Legends [Highlight From Episode 338] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Here's a highlight from a recent episode of Booked on Rock.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Our guest is Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Dennis Dunaway,
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  Speaker 1: bassist for the legendary Alice Cooper group, who just recently
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  Speaker 1: released their first studio album together in over fifty years.
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  Speaker 1: I believe it's fifty two years, exactly, the Revenge of
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  Speaker 1: Alice Cooper. You guys have been close all along the
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  Speaker 1: band broke up, but it wasn't one of those things
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  Speaker 1: where there was a lot of trash talking in the
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  Speaker 1: media or anything like that. I mean, you guys remained
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  Speaker 1: pretty cool, right.
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  Speaker 2: You know at Banda's family. You know, we were in
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  Speaker 2: the same car, in the same hotel room, in the
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  Speaker 2: same stage and everything for many years. So you know,
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  Speaker 2: families all have certain things. You know that you nobody's perfect,
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  Speaker 2: but you make it work. And we've all been friends.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, Alice and I became friends when he was
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  Speaker 2: fifteen or sixteen and I was seventeen. So you know,
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  Speaker 2: we didn't get lawyers when things started going to rock.
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  Speaker 2: Thinking that we started as friends, just a bunch of
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  Speaker 2: high school buddies that had a dream and we achieved
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  Speaker 2: that dream. We made it to the top of the
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  Speaker 2: glittery rock pile, and we didn't want to lose our
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  Speaker 2: friendship over it. And also at the time, we thought,
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  Speaker 2: if we get lawyers involved, that'll be the nail in
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  Speaker 2: the coffin for anything ever happening again. We didn't know
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  Speaker 2: it would take fifty two years. But that was the
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  Speaker 2: thinking that there's a story that you had.
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  Speaker 1: Told in one interview to which I love about Glenn
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  Speaker 1: when he went over to his house and you were
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  Speaker 1: hanging out in his bedroom and playing some records, playing
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  Speaker 1: some Stones records, and you guys, go back that far.
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  Speaker 2: That's how I learned to play bass. When I bought
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  Speaker 2: my bass, Glenn went with me. We went to Montgomery
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  Speaker 2: Wards and bought a beginner's bass, and then I went
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  Speaker 2: over to Glenn's house and I didn't even know how
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  Speaker 2: to tune it, you know, I had, I had. I
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  Speaker 2: barely had an idea of what bass was because my
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  Speaker 2: record player at the time you couldn't hear bass hardly
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  Speaker 2: at all. The only thing, the only time I would
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  Speaker 2: be notice bass was if I heard a jukebox somewhere,
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  Speaker 2: you know. But Glenn, you know, the very first thing
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  Speaker 2: he did, he set me down and he had his guitar,
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  Speaker 2: and we sat down by the record player and he said, okay,
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  Speaker 2: before we start, always remember one thing. The most important
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  Speaker 2: thing is the feel. And then he taught me how
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  Speaker 2: to tune. And then we learned through mostly Rolling Stones,
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  Speaker 2: early Rolling Stones and Chuck Barry records and blues patterns,
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  Speaker 2: and that's the other link to Glenn. On this album,
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  Speaker 2: we have some songs that we wrote that are very
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  Speaker 2: Glenn Buxton from that era, the kind of stuff that
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  Speaker 2: he liked, including what Happened to You? But yeah, so
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  Speaker 2: but you know, first of all, I had to get
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  Speaker 2: Glenn out of bed because it was a weekend, and
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  Speaker 2: Glenn has always been, uh, the hardest person in the
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  Speaker 2: world to wake up. And so I went to his
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  Speaker 2: house and I didn't really know him that well yet.
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  Speaker 1: You know, he was your bicycle. You got on your
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  Speaker 1: bicycle and I rode.
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  Speaker 2: My bicycle and carried my base. Yeah uh uh. And
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  Speaker 2: then I went in the and his mom said, oh,
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  Speaker 2: he's down the hall there, the first door on the left,
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  Speaker 2: you know, go wake him up. And I went in
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  Speaker 2: Glenn's bedroom and all I saw he had ten foil
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  Speaker 2: This is Phoenix, Arizona, so to block out the sun
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  Speaker 2: he had tin foil over all of the window panes,
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  Speaker 2: and then he's totally covered up except one foot sticking
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  Speaker 2: out and TV guides all over the floor. Of course,
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  Speaker 2: it's the carcase. But I had to wake him up,
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  Speaker 2: you know, and he's all I could get out of
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  Speaker 2: him was go away, you know. But but I was persistent,
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  Speaker 2: and that wasn't the That wasn't the last time I
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  Speaker 2: had to wake him up.
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  Speaker 1: Oh man, Now, Alice, did he at the time Vincent Fernier?
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  Speaker 1: That was the pronunciation.
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  Speaker 2: Well, his family pronounces it Fernier, but Alice pronounces it Fernier.
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  Speaker 1: Did he stand out right away? When when did you
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  Speaker 1: first you were in class together? It?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, he had charisma, except nobody would ever in a
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  Speaker 2: million years think that he would be a lead singer
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  Speaker 2: of a band. He was just a skinny little stick
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  Speaker 2: with a big nose, you know. But but he's always
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  Speaker 2: had a knack for making anything sound more interesting. He
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  Speaker 2: would enhance even I used to say, he can make
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  Speaker 2: opening a can of tuna fish sound interesting. But he
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  Speaker 2: wouldn't go and try to collect people to listen to him.
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  Speaker 2: He'd just always be in the classroom. And then next thing,
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  Speaker 2: you know, he'd be surrounded by people because he'd be
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  Speaker 2: telling stories, and Glenn used to be Glenn and I
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  Speaker 2: would be standing off to the side, and Glenn used
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  Speaker 2: to have this thing where he'd go after Alice would
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  Speaker 2: be telling a story, Glenn would go twenty five. That
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  Speaker 2: meant twenty five percent enhancement on the story.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Alice is a great storyteller. I just saw a
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  Speaker 1: recent interview with him, and you could tell he loves
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  Speaker 1: to tell stories, and he tells them. He tells him
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  Speaker 1: as good as anybody.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, and you can't you know, I've heard him all
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  Speaker 2: so many times and you just never get tired of him. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I just spoke today. I spoke to our
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  Speaker 2: high school art teacher, Missus Sloan, who who is about
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  Speaker 2: to become one hundred years old. Wow, And I spoke
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  Speaker 2: to her for the first time since nineteen sixty seven.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, I told her, and she didn't know this,
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  Speaker 2: that Alis and I decided to start a band when
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  Speaker 2: we were in her art class because the Beatles had
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  Speaker 2: just come out, and we decided we wanted to start
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  Speaker 2: a band and we wanted to incorporate ideas like Salvador,
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  Speaker 2: Dolly surrealism and the New York pop art scene into
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  Speaker 2: a band, and that happened in her classroom.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, one hundred Yeah, how about that man. The final
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  Speaker 1: chapter of the book covers the twenty eleven Rock and
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  Speaker 1: Roll Hall of Fame induction. Since then, there have been
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  Speaker 1: the occasional reunions, and now we have this amazing new
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  Speaker 1: album that came out July with the original band. I
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  Speaker 1: was going to ask if you thought about it adding
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  Speaker 1: chapters for an updated edition, but I know that your wife,
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  Speaker 1: Cindy may really be the answer to that question, because
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  Speaker 1: she's working on something that it might be it might
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  Speaker 1: be considered like a sequel to your book.
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  Speaker 2: Cindy kept daily diaries. Not only that, but she has
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  Speaker 2: all of the letters that her and Neil wrote home
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  Speaker 2: to their mother, telling her what was going on every
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  Speaker 2: step of the way.
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  Speaker 1: And for those who may not know, she's been with
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  Speaker 1: the band from.
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  Speaker 2: Nineteen sixty seven, since before we did Pretties for You. Yep, yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: Cindy was here when we were writing the songs for
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  Speaker 2: Pretties for You. She got a job and helped feed
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  Speaker 2: us and and designed our our look and was basically
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  Speaker 2: our therapist. Yeah whatever, whatever, whatever the band needed. It
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  Speaker 2: was a team and we all worked together. We had
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  Speaker 2: the roadies, we had the management, we had. Everything was
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  Speaker 2: all for this vision that we shared and we were
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  Speaker 2: driven to achieve it, and there was there was no
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  Speaker 2: roadblock that we never would throw in the towel ever.
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  Speaker 2: You know, even when the band took a roll three
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  Speaker 2: van full of band members, full of all of our equipment,
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  Speaker 2: even a washing machine in the back, and we rolled
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  Speaker 2: three times across the San Bernardino Freeway coming into La
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  Speaker 2: in the nine o'clock in the morning rush hour, and
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  Speaker 2: our equipment was destroyed and we didn't have money to
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  Speaker 2: buy more equipment. So but did we throw in the towel. No,
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  Speaker 2: We figured it out. And you know, that's like Frank
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  Speaker 2: Sappa used to say, if you stay together long enough,
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  Speaker 2: you'll make it