Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / The Story Behind Alice Cooper's 'I'm Eighteen' From Bassist Dennis Dunaway [Episode 338]

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The Story Behind Alice Cooper's 'I'm Eighteen' From Bassist Dennis Dunaway [Episode 338] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

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  Speaker 1: Here's a highlight from a recent episode of Booked on Rock.
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  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, the showmanship, the shock value, and then you
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  Speaker 1: combine that with these songs that are just bonifide now classics,
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  Speaker 1: like I'm eighteen. That's a song and you write about
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  Speaker 1: how that becomes the most requested song in the history
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  Speaker 1: of CKLW, which is in Windsor, Ontario, and that station
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  Speaker 1: helped to establish the band in the Detroit Windsor market.
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  Speaker 1: Was released in I think on this month in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: seventy and you say they played it every fifth song.
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  Speaker 1: It was the heaviest rotation outside of the Beatles. And
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  Speaker 1: it's a song that really stood out to Bob Ezrin
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  Speaker 1: when he saw you guys play live. He thought it
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  Speaker 1: was I'm Edgy. But talk about how that song came together.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I'm Edgie isn't bad, yeah, But the reason
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  Speaker 2: it was I'm eighteen is because this song came from
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  Speaker 2: a jam that Michael had, like, you know, the chords,
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  Speaker 2: and when we would do a sound check at a
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  Speaker 2: you know, tiny club or whatever, we would just jam
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  Speaker 2: on that and then we would each of us would
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  Speaker 2: come up to the microphone and do a funny verse.
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  Speaker 2: We'd just make stuff up, but it was just to
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  Speaker 2: warm up. And then at one point the band was
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  Speaker 2: at Warner Brothers and we were talking to one of
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  Speaker 2: the A and R guys and we saw this chart
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  Speaker 2: on the wall, and we're saying, so, wait a minute,
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  Speaker 2: who's the what age is the biggest record buying age?
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  Speaker 2: And he said, hands down, eighteen years old because most
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  Speaker 2: of them are still living at home, they don't have
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  Speaker 2: to pay rent, and they've got money in their pockets.
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  Speaker 2: So so we said, okay, well we can relate to
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  Speaker 2: that because we all met when we were in high school,
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  Speaker 2: and so the idea of making it about an eighteen
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  Speaker 2: year old started coming together, you know. So now when
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  Speaker 2: we would do a sound check, we would come up
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  Speaker 2: with lyrics that we thought would fit that concept. Now.
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  Speaker 2: Of course, Alice polished it and really brought it home
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  Speaker 2: and Rosalie Trombley worked at c KLW. They called her
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  Speaker 2: the Girl with the Golden Ear. I think I think
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  Speaker 2: there was even songs written about her. Yeah, Bob Seger
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  Speaker 2: I believe wrote it. But anyway, so Rosalie Trombley is
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  Speaker 2: the one that started playing it. Now. I hadn't seen
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  Speaker 2: her for years, decades after the whole thing happened because
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  Speaker 2: Klew was right across the river from Detroit. But since
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  Speaker 2: they were in Canada, they didn't have the restrictions on
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  Speaker 2: the power of their transmitter, so they could blast the
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  Speaker 2: entire Midwest of America and Canada like Wolfman Jack did
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  Speaker 2: out of Mexico when he started. But so now years later,
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  Speaker 2: I'm in a bar in a hotel, late at night
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  Speaker 2: in Phoenix, Arizona. It was an event the town of
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  Speaker 2: Phoenix was giving an award to Alice and his wife
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  Speaker 2: for community service. But now it's late at night and
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  Speaker 2: everything's closed and I'm hungry and I'm in the bar
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  Speaker 2: trying to figure out what I can get to eat,
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  Speaker 2: and this guy comes over and says, are you Dennis
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  Speaker 2: don Away and said yeah, I said, my mom is
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  Speaker 2: Rosalie Trombley. I said what, and he said, she's over here.
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  Speaker 2: She wants to know if you want to have a drink. Sure,
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  Speaker 2: you know so Rosalie as he's giant Martine. So I
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  Speaker 2: have one of those. And I said, okay, I finally
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  Speaker 2: get to talk to you. And I said, so, how
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  Speaker 2: did this come about. What made you think that I'm
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  Speaker 2: eighteen was a hit? She said, the lyrics, She said,
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  Speaker 2: before it even got to the chorus, I knew it
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  Speaker 2: was a hit. And then she said, she started playing
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  Speaker 2: it and about day three, all of the other disc
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  Speaker 2: jockeys came into her booth while she was on the
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  Speaker 2: air and said, wait, you know, we don't think you
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  Speaker 2: should be playing this because this band is the Chicken
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  Speaker 2: Killers and all of that. And she said, the timing
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  Speaker 2: could not have been more perfect. Every phone was ringing
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  Speaker 2: off the hook with requests for I'm eighteen, and when
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  Speaker 2: they saw that, they said, oh, okay, go ahead and
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  Speaker 2: play it.