Vampires Tour Officially “Postponed”

The European Hollywood Vampires tour has now been officially postponed. This is obviously not a surprise. Many of the shows were at festivals which had already been cancelled over the last couple of week, and both Alice and Glen Sobel had inferred the shows weren’t happening in recent interviews. The official statement is as follows: “Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our upcoming European 2020 Tour has been postponed. We will post detailed ticketing information and new replacement dates very soon! We are beyond disappointed but will see you all once we are able to safely rock again!”

On a brighter note, check out this new video of Tommy Henriksen singing AC/DC’s ‘Hell’s Bells’ from Lockdown!

New Michael Bruce Song

New Michael Bruce Lyric Video

The Michael Bruce Group have posted a lyric video for their debut single ‘Born Screamer’ which you can see here. The song is taken from their upcoming debut album and also features Neal Smith on drums!

Eddie Trunk’s ‘Virtual Invasion’ interview with Alice from last week is now available to listen online here. SiriusXM subscribers apparently can see video of the interview as well.

Hawaii Public Radio has a new Alice interview coming up and have posted a preview here. Unfortunately they don’t mention a date it will air, just that it will be available at the same link afterwards.

Other new Alice interviews this week include KZZK radio’s ‘Heather’s Chat‘, and Studio 10 in Australia.

‘Phoenix Home and Garden’ magazine this month has a great feature on the Cooper home with photos and descriptions. You can read the article here.

Sonic Perspectives‘ have a new interview with Neal Smith talking about his just released ‘Pop 85/95’ album, the reunion tour and recording new tracks with Alice.

The GalaxyCon Nita Strauss/Mick Foley interview can now be watched on YouTube and it’s a complete "lovefest", with Nita and Mick telling stories about working together and the wrestling/rock connections. Well worth checking out.

iHeartRadio has a very long interview with Bob Ezrin by author Bob Lefsetz. At well over 2 hours it covers many aspects of Bob’s career, including plenty of Alice mentions of course.

Blue Coupe’s Joe Bouchard has a new solo album out on July 31st called ‘Strange Legends’ which also features ‘Hey Stoopid’ album drummer Mickey Curry. Check out the first video for ‘Forget About Love’ here.

New Interviews

New Interviews with Alice and the band.

Another week under lockdown and again not a huge amount happening for obvious reasons. Looking at the Hollywood Vampires tour it appears many of these shows/festivals have now been cancelled (according to venue sites), which puts the rest of the tour in doubt. In interviews Alice is referring to the tour as cancelled, although some shows, including the UK ones, are still on sale. He also confirmed the Mexico shows in October aren’t now happening, and they have been removed from AC.com.
Check out new Alice interviews at France24 (states ALL shows have been cancelled), 109.2 The Hog (Hollywood Vampires tour cancelled) and Finland’s KaaosTV.

The Cooper family all show up in a video made by the Solid Rock Foundation. The clip features kids from the Teen Center performing a cover of U2’s ‘"40" with the Coopers – Alice, Sheryl, Calico, Dash and Sonora – all joining in on the chorus. Check it out here and if you like the video consider making a donation to Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock here.

Alice was also a guest on the Rhino Records podcast this week which you can listen and download here.

Chuck Garric appeared on Lzzy Hale’s ‘We Are Hear’ podcast this week where he and Lzzy spent around an hour chatting about Alice, Beasto, and all sorts of other things. Check it out here.

Nita Strauss will be appearing with wrestling star Mick Foley as part of an online streaming event by GalaxyCon on Monday 15th at 7PM ET. You will be able to watch it live here. Nita was also featured during an episode of ‘Mosh Talks With Beez’ which you can check out here.

Ryan Roxie’s ‘In The Trenches’ this week had a second chat with Michael Monroe and next up will be Roxie’s old bandmate Gilby Clarke of Guns’n’Roses which you will see here on Tuesday. Roxie will also being premiering his new video shortly for ‘Hearts In Trouble’ from his ‘Imagine Your Reality’ album which you can check out here.

Neal Smith Releases New Album

Neal Smith Releases New Album

Neal Smith-Pop 85/95

Neal Smith has just released a new solo album! It’s called “POP 85/95” and consists of songs Neal wrote with guitaristJay Jesse Johnson after their band Deadringer (which also featured Dennis Dunaway) split up. You can order the new album now directly from Neal, however currently they won’t ship outside the USA. The full press release goes as follows:

Legendary Alice Cooper Group drummer Neal Smith will be releasing a new album in June, 2020. Neal’s new Retro Pop album is titled “POP 85/95” signifying the music style and time period in which Neal wrote these songs between 1985 and 1995.The songs and album concept are totally sexy and politically incorrect. Neal’s “POP 85/95” songs represent all aspects of relationships, falling in and out of love in a simpler bygone era before Coronavirus, politically correctness and the new world disorder.

With the onslaught of glam hair bands and heavily homogenized rock of the 1980’s, Neal Smith, Hall of Fame Drummer and founding member of the original Alice Cooper Group, was looking for a new direction for his songwriting. Inspired by another drummer, songwriter, singer Phil Collins, Neal turned from writing hard rock to a slicker, more pop rock songwriting style. In the late 1980’s he took four of his new songs into the studio and recorded them. One of the songs “Secret Eyes” helped land a recording deal with newly formed record company called Grudge Records. Along with Dennis Dunaway (Alice Cooper fame), Joe Bouchard (Blue Oyster Cult fame), Charlie Hune (Ted Nugent fame) and lead guitarist Jay Jesse Johnson (also known as “Triple J”), a new band called “Deadringer” was formed and signed by Grudge Records. Deadringer recorded an album in 1989 called “Electrocution Of The Heart” featuring the single “Secret Eyes.” The album and Deadringer were all short lived after Grudge Records quick demise. After Deadringer and well into the 1990’s, Neal continued writing songs with Jay Jesse Johnson (“Triple J”) in this pop rock style.

Decades later, well into the New Millennium, Neal was searching through his archives of music and found those songs that he composed and recorded with ‘Triple J” between the years of 1985 and 1995. Inspired by “Triple J’s” amazing lead guitar work, Neal polished the songs and brought them back to life with the help of two of his best friends, Peter Catucci (bass guitar of Killsmith) and Rick Tedesco (guitarist/engineer). Now, much to the excitement of his fans worldwide, Neal Smith’s “POP 85/95” is available digitally and on CD!

Hall of Fame Drummer/songwriter/singer Neal Smith on “POP 85/95” CD: "In the 80’s and 90’s Rap, Hip Hop, Pop and even Rock music was being recorded with synthesized programmed drums. I understood that this was a new wave of recording percussion. But what I did not like was many of the synthesized drum tracks were being programmed by engineers and musicians who were not even drummers. Disappointed and inspired by that fact, I began a new phase of songwriting by programming synthesized drums on my recordings. The last eight songs on my new CD “POP 85/95” is a collection of songs I wrote from that era featuring synth drums I programmed myself."

The London Film and Comic Con, which Alice was scheduled to appear at, has now been officially postponed until November 21st/22nd. While the promoters are still listing Alice as appearing "subject to contract" it seems very unlikely he could make the rescheduled dates as he already has shows announced in the US during the period.

Neal Smith and Michael Bruce were in Phoenix last month visiting the new Glen Buxton memorial mural and the project now has it’s own facebook page here.

Alice was due to be interviewed for ‘Eddie Trunks Virtual Invasion‘ yesterday but it appears it was postponed until a later date.

New Alice interviews have appeared at California Rocker, and KSHE 95.

519 Magazine has a new interview with Brother Latham and Calico Cooper of Beasto Blanco which you can read here.

Dennis Dunaway and Rockin’ Reggie New Single

Dennis Dunaway and Rockin’ Reggie release Tribute to Suzi Q

Dennis Dunaway and Rockin’ Reggie have released a new song paying tribute to Detroit legend Suzi Quatro to mark her 70th birthday. The song is called ‘Motor City Bad Girl’ and be streamed below. Suzi, who has lived in the UK for many years but came out of the same Detroit scene as the Coopers, was a trailblazer for women in rock and is best known for a string of hit singles in the mid-seventies as well as regularly appearing on the classic sitcom ‘Happy Days’. She was also the opening act on the ‘Welcome To My Nightmare’ US tour. A new film biography called ‘Suzi Q‘ has been doing the rounds at film festivals for the last year or so and features Alice and manager Toby Mamis.

In other Dennis news, with the Sweden Rock Festival cancelled this year the organizers are going online and will be streaming concerts and interviews on radio channel Sveriges Radio P4 from this Friday with full concert recordings airing on Saturday including Blue Coupe’s epic show from last year which included guest Ryan Roxie. A detailed schedule is now available here.

This years Record Store Day has been split into three separate events due to the coronavirus pandemic. This means that the Alice Cooper live record from Glasgow in 1982 has been put back until October 24th. The other record store dates are August 29th and September 26th.