ALICE COOPER Says PAUL MCCARTNEY Is 'A Rocker'

THE BEATLES legend Paul McCartney, actor Johnny Depp and AEROSMITH's Joe Perry make appearances on the forthcoming album from legendary rocker Alice Cooper featuring songs that were originally written and recorded by THE DOORS, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon and THE WHO — members of the so-called "Hollywood Vampires" of the early and mid-'70s. Perry has contributed to several tracks on the CD, while McCartney will be heard on a new version of "Come And Get It", the song he wrote and produced for BADFINGER.

Speaking to NME, Cooper said (see video below): "We decided to put a band together and kind of celebrate all of our dead, drunk friends. All of our big brothers died at 27 years old. You know, Jim Morrison… We toured with THE DOORS. And Jimi Hendrix was one of our best friends, and we drank with these guys."

He continued: "Johnny Depp and I were doing that movie 'Dark Shadows', and we decided one night we were gonna over to the 100 Club and just be a bar band — no glitz, no glam. Somebody yells out 'Brown Sugar', yeah, we'll play that. Just to kind of have fun with it. And, at that time, we had so much fun playing covers that we said, 'Why don't we do an album that celebrates all of our dead, drunk friends?' We started naming them: John Lennon, Keith Moon from THE WHO, Harry Nilsson, T. REX… And the list was so impressive that we could pick out songs and we ended up making the album. So it's not an Alice Cooper album; it's a HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES album."

Regarding McCartney's involvement with the new record, Cooper said: "Paul's a rocker, man. If he wasn't in his band, he would be in a pub somewhere playing with a bunch of guys. He just loves to play. And even though, you look back and go, 'Jesus, the guy is a Beatle.' He wasn't just a Beatle; he was the Beatle… and wrote more songs than anybody and never has gone back on what he believes, what he does. So when he walks in a room and sits down at the piano and says, 'Okay, you take the high part, I'll take the…' We're all, like…' [mouths 'That's Paul McCartney over there.'] He was just one of the guys. He was just one of the guys in the band. So now when I see him, I go, 'Vampire.' And he goes, 'I'm a Vampire.' But John was a vampire. John Lennon was one of our nightly guys; he was there every night."

The HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES band — featuring Cooper, Perry and Depp — will perform at the Rock In Rio festival in late September, with more tour dates scheduled for that month.

Cooper previously revealed that the upcoming album will include "four or five new songs," which the legendary rocker wrote specifically for the new effort. He told VH1 Radio Network's Dave Basner: "We decided that in order to set up the 'Hollywood Vampires' thing, you had to kind of tell the story, and you had to write songs that were going to set up the story, and then get into the covers. So we had fun sitting there writing these new songs around it. So it's going to be quite a package, this thing is."