#KeriKelli – SickthingsUK

The Rock, Mesa Grand Opening

Alice Cooper to perform at The Rock Mesa Opening

Alice Cooper will be performing at the Grand Opening of the new ‘Solid Rock’ Teen Center in Mesa, AZ on September 3rd, backed by the ‘Solid Rock Band’. The event runs from 5.30pm-8pm local time, when visitors will also be able to tour the new center. This is the second teen center set up by Alice and Sheryl Cooper’s Solid Rock charity, the first being in Phoenix.

Alice’s set from Wacken a few years ago will be shown as part of the W.O.A. BBQ today at around 6PM UK time. Presumably this will be a version of the ‘Raise The Dead: Live From Wacken’ film.

Ryan Roxie’s next guest on ‘In The Trenches’ will be his old stage buddy Keri Kelli, who is now playing with Nightranger. Listen in on Tuesday at 5pm UK time.

Alice was at the ‘Day of the Dead’ event in Indianapolis last week for signings, photos, and a Q&A which you can now watch on YouTube.

August 27th sees the release of ‘The Official Alice Cooper Colouring Book’ by Eyesore Merchandising. "Featuring iconic artwork from classic albums and other instantly recognizable images, all printed on high quality paper, in a square format, fully endorsed and officially licenced, these killer designs have the potential for hours of satisfying colouring in." It’s available to pre-order now.

Catching Up

Alice speaks to Billboard about new albums/tour

Firstly, apologies for the site issues the last few days. There was a problem with the host server which I’m told should hopefully be fixed now. As a result I didn’t want to do updates in case they were simply lost, so here’s a catch up on what’s come through in the last week:

Six new shows have just been announced for the USA preceding the Halestorm co-headline dates. They are:
July 4th – Foxwoods, Mashantucket, CT
July 6th – Express Live!, Columbus, OH
July 7th – Peoria Civic Center, Peoria, IL
July 9th – Five Flags Center, Dubuque, IA
July 10th – The Sylvee, Madison, WI
July 11th – Honeywell Center, Wabash, IN
Tickets go on sale Friday but VIP Pre-sales begin tomorrow at AC.com.

Billboard has a new interview with Alice talking about his plans for this year including the tour, the forthcoming new solo album, and the new Hollywood Vampires releases.
Talking of the new tour Alice says “It’s going to be a brand-new show, an entirely new production – all new staging, all new props and everything. It’s taking a lot of the stuff we know we have to do and a lot of the stuff people are not going to be expecting. ”
As to the new solo album, he’s considering releasing an EP of four new songs in time for the tour, with the full new album to follow in 2020.
“There’s a certain Detroit sound we’re looking for [for the new songs]. It’s indefinable. There’s a certain amount of R&B in it. There’s a certain amount of Motown in it. But then you add the guitars and you add the attitude and it turns into Detroit rock. I feel like if we mine around with all Detroit players, we’re gonna find that sound.” He also mentions guest appearances by fellow Detroit natives Suzi Quatro and Bob Seger. “I can tell you Seger and I will be working on something on this new album. I talked to him and he said, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s be fun,’ and I said, ‘OK, let’s do it.’ So that’s going to happen in the future.” The original band are also set to contribute material, presumably in a similar way to the previous two albums. You can read the whole interview here.

Alice will be appearing at the ‘FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention‘ between April 19th and 20th at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, UT. This is a signing and Q&A session, not a show.

The ‘Live From The Astroturf’ film will be shown at a couple more film festivals in addition to the Phoenix premiere on April 5th. It will be shown at Freep Film Festival in Detroit, MI between April 10th and 14th, and the Dallas, TX International Film Festival between April 11th and 18th.

TruRockRevival have a cool interview with Beasto Blanco co-founder/guitarist Chris Latham. They previously interviewed Chuck and Calico which you can see here.

Keri Kelli’s ‘A New Revenge’ have released another new video, this time for ‘Never Let You Go’ which you can see here. It’s taken from their debut album ‘ Enemies & Lovers’ which is released March 29th on Golden Robot Records. ‘A New Revenge’ features Keri with Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens (Judas Priest) on vocals, James Kottak (Scorpions, Kingdom Come) on drums and Rudy Sarzo (Ozzy, Whitesnake etc) on bass.

Grammy’s and BAFTA’s

Its been very quiet on the news front for the last couple of the weeks. This could be because Alice has been holed up in the studio as shown by a photo of him with Tommy and Chuck posted by Kyler Clark. Is this the new Alice Cooper album, or maybe guesting on a Beasto Blanco track. Time will tell.
With the start of awards season he’s been out and about this weekend, firstly at Clive Davis’s celebrity Pre-Grammy bash on Saturday (February 9th), and then I assumed he would be at the Grammy’s ceremony itself at the Staples Center in Los Angeles yesterday, where Jesus Christ Superstar was up for an award, but lost.
According to a tweet from UK broadcaster/comedian and AC fan Danny Baker he was also at the BAFTA awards ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall last night in London and sat next to Alice! This is weird as there are pictures of Alice with Steven Tyler at Tyler’s Janie’s Fund Benefit at Raleigh Studios in Los Angeles last night. It seem far more likely Alice was in Los Angeles then London, so quite what Baker was talking about I’m not sure. It’s not like he wouldn’t know who he was talking to.

Back in December Alice featured on ‘Top 2000 A Gogo’ in the Netherlands talking about ‘Elected’, but the video was geo-locked, preventing most people seeing it. Now it’s up on YouTube and you can see it here. (Thanks Jos)

Keri Kelli has a new band, although it’s really an old band with a new name. He’s launched ‘A New Revenge’ along with Tim ‘Ripper’ Owen’s (Judas Priest), Rudy Sarzo (Ozzy, Whitesnake) and James Kottak (Scorpions, Kingdom Come) and they have an album out on March 25th called ‘Enemies and Lovers’. The band have been playing shows for a few years now under various names, normally playing classic rock covers, but now it’s a proper band playing their own material. You can see a video for the catchy first single ‘The Way’ here which actually features ex Ozzy bassist Phil Soussan standing in for an unavailable Sarzo.

Damon Johnson has released a video for ‘Shivering Shivering’, the lead single from his ‘Memoirs Of An Uprising’ solo album which is released on March 8th via Double Dragon Records. Damon recently spoke to ‘The Classic Metal Show’ about leaving Black Star Riders and heading out on his own which you can read here.

Lastly don’t forget Ryan Roxie’s UK shows are less than two weeks away! With the Nantwich charity show postponed you only have two chances to catch Roxie playing classic solo songs as well as a few Cooper surprises. Don`t miss it! He plays Bedford Esquires on February 22nd and Birmingham ‘The Asylum’ the following night.