ALICE COOPER Talks About Making Of 'Welcome 2 My Nightmare'

Justin Tedaldi of the Music Q&A Examinerrecently conducted an interview with legendary rocker Alice Cooper. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Music Q&A Examiner: What can we expect from the new album?

Alice: The idea of the album was, [producer] Bob Ezrin and I were going to start working on another album, actually, and he mentioned that it was the 35th anniversary of "Welcome To My Nightmare". And we started thinking, what would Alice's nightmare be 35 years later? [The original was] what's under the bed, what's in the closet at night, and you're pretty sure your toys come to life at night, you know? So it was sort of the classic nightmare. This new nightmare, [Alice] would, of course, hate technology, he would hate disco with a passion, stillthat would be a nightmare to him. So we started writing songs, and we ended up with 17 songs working with Bob Ezrin I bring out the worst in him, and he brings out the worst in me. And so it ends up being one of the five best albums I've ever done. And you know, we had access to a lot of great musicians in Nashvillea great bunch of guys who love playing rock and roll, because that's their first love, you know? They knew all my old songs. So the bed tracks were basically studio guys on that, and all the deluxe stuff was guys like [veteran guitarist] Steve Hunter. So the idea was just to create a new nightmare, and I hadn't worked with Bob in such a long time. I had forgotten how much fun it was to write with him he's (laughs) the same type of writer that I am; we write the punchline first and then write the song around the punchline.

Music Q&A Examiner: I love what you guys did with "Brutal Planet". [Cooper's 2000 album with contributions from Ezrin].

Alice: Almost every album's got a flavor to it, and every time you pick a producer, you're picking that guy because you believe that he can produce what you've got in your head. With "Brutal Planet", I said, "I want a modern day metal album, but I don't want it to be a 'duh' album; I want it to be a story that makes you think." So it was just after Columbine and all these things that were going on, so there was a lot to write about. That album came out great, and it was really fun to work with those guys.

Music Q&A Examiner: You'll be touring to promote the album, and it's been five years since you've played New York City. Are you planning on coming back anytime soon?

Alice: It's always the promoters or the managers who decide how the schedule's going to be, so when the guys that promote the shows see that we're coming into those areas, we're going to be in Pennsylvania, we're going to be in Philadelphia, we're going to be here, here, here and here, and then they just see if there's a date that opens up in a venue that's the right feel. So a lot of times, in a New York City theater like [around] Halloween or some kind of special occasion, we come to New York CityI love it there.

Music Q&A Examiner: Do you plan on doing any other early '80s songs of yours in the future?

Alice: They find their way into the show every once in a while. "Who Do You Think We Are", songs like that. There's so many good little gems from that era, songs like "Model Citizen", and every once in a while I find one of those and I go, "Let's rehearse this and see how it works." And, you know, only the real Alice aficionados know those songs. If we do one, I look down into the audience and like 12 people go, "Yeah!!" and everyone else goes, "What's up with that?"

Read the entire interview from Music Q&A Examinerrecently conducted an interview with legendary rocker Alice Cooper.