Tag: #TommyHenriksen

Hollywood Vampires UK Tour Roundup

With the conclusion of the Hollywood Vampires UK dates we can do a quick round up of the press and happenings during the tour. Ronnie Wood and Imelda May joined the band in London for the Jeff Tribute and Train Kept a Rollin’, while Black Sabbath legend Tony Iommi appeared in Birmingham for a unique version of ‘Paranoid‘ with Alice singing it! Not something you see everyday. Jimmy Page was also at the London show (again) but sadly didn’t make it onstage (again!).

Unsurprisingly the tour generated a great deal of press. Also unsurprisingly most of it just revolved around Johnny Depp’s every move or satorial choice. As usual I will ignore all those and concentrate on worthwhile articles or reviews about the band and/or shows.

Firstly there was the surprise appearance of Alice on ‘Good Morning Britain’ on Monday. It was a short interview and there wasn’t really anything new said but nice to see him back on UK TV. You can see a version of it on YouTube., but sadly they have blurred out the images and footage (presumably for copyright reasons). If you’re in the UK the show is currently still available on ITVX. You want Monday 10th July show and Alice appears around  1 hour 56 minutes into the show. 

There’s been various show reviews/photos, including Scarborough: Yahoo, Yorkshire Post, Northern Echo,  Soundsphere Swansea: WalesOnline  Planet Rock. Manchester: Daily Mail, RamZine, JustJared. London:, Far Out, The Telegraph (paywall), The Upcoming, Daily Express, TotalRock, Birmingham: BirminghamLive, BirminghamWorld and here, Express & Star, Metal Planet.

While in Manchester Alice was out and about shopping and was spotted buying a T-shirt for Johnny Depp. This, of course, also made the news.

The Arizona Republic has an interesting article about the early days of the band in Phoenix and their mentor Jack Curtis, who will be inducted into the ‘Arizona Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame’ on Sunday, with comments from Dennis Dunaway.  They also have a new article on Michael Bruce’s induction into the AZ Hall of fame on the same day.

Nita Strauss made her solo show at the Whisky in LA special by geting engaged to long time boyfriend and band drummer Josh live on stage. Congrats both! Naturally it was caught on video which you can see here. There’s also new Nita Strauss interviews this week from Metal Global,  and the Mistress Carrie Podcast.

If you remember back in April 2022 Solid Rock announced there would be Alice Cooper Arizona car license plates, and then it all went quiet. But now it appears they are finally available to order and it also appears anyone can order one! On top of that $17 from each sale goes to Solid Rock.

Alice Hits The Road

Alice Cooper hits the ‘Road’ with new album

While we’re still waiting for the official press announcement, details of the new album have been surfacing over the last few days from various retailer listings and the appearance of the short video teaser above [since removed for some reason] suggests a full announcement won’t be long coming.
What we know so far is that the album is entitled ‘Road’ and it will be released on August 25th by earMusic in various combinations. There are *at least* three different CD versions: CD, CD/DVD and CD/Blu-ray. Then there are also *at least* three double vinyl versions, in black, red and orange, which also come with the DVD. There will also be a deluxe limited edition vinyl+CD+Blu-Ray+merchandise version. The DVD contains last years Hellfest performance which was streamed live at the time. (I’ll post order links up once both AmazonUK and US have finalised their listings)
The album was produced by Bob Ezrin and features the current live band (Tommy, Roxie, Nita, Chuck, Glen) plus guest appearances by Kane Roberts, Tom Morello, Keith Nelson (Buckcherry) and Wayne Kramer (MC5) who all also co-write at least one song. The track listing as listed on Amazon is:

  1. I’m Alice
  2. Welcome To The Show
  3. All Over The World
  4. Dead Don’t Dance
  5. Go Away
  6. White Line Frankenstein
  7. Big Boots
  8. Rules Of The Road
  9. The Big Goodbye
  10. Road Rats Forever
  11. Baby Please Don’t Go
  12. 100 More Miles
  13. Magic Bus

Amazon.com has the following description:

“The road will make you or break you. To survive it, you need to be as tough as asphalt and move fast enough to make the competition eat dust. Throughout 2022, Alice collaborated closely with the members of his touring band as well as long-time producer Bob Ezrin, putting together what would become his brand-new studio album “Road.” You can feel the energy and lightness that the band brings with every riff and hear the story behind what inspired them. Bringing everything full circle, it channels the spirit of old school Alice with instantly recognizable grit and plenty of gusto. It’s everything you’d hope for from him and more. And this time his trusted longtime bandmates— Ryan Roxie [guitar], Chuck Garric [bass], Tommy Henrikson [guitar], Glen Sobel [drums], and Nita Strauss [guitar]—are riding shotgun. Kane Roberts (a touring and recording collaborator with Alice’s in years past who briefly rejoined Cooper on the road in 2022) makes a special guest appearance, contributing the raucous and rip-roaring “Dead Don’t Dance.” Other special contributors to the album include Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello, who co-wrote, and plays and sings backing vocals on “White Line Frankenstein,” and Buckcherry’s Keith Nelson and MC5’s Wayne Kramer, who also co-wrote new songs with Alice.”

Obviously I’ll post the full release information as soon as it’s released

In other news, Nita Strauss has released another track from her forthcoming second album. This one is called ‘Victorious’ and features "Dorothy" on vocals. Nita says: "‘Victorious‘ is the anthem I always wanted, a song about inspiring change, marching forward relentlessly, being willing to save yourself instead of waiting for someone to do it for you, and never backing down from a fight, Dorothy was the perfect powerhouse voice and personality to stand and deliver, and knock this one out of the park.” You can see the video below.

Radio Eksen in Istanbul, Turkey have posted a short interview with the Hollywood Vampires which you can check out here. It’s in English. The band began their European tour a couple of days ago with a similar set to the last tour but with a couple of nods to Jeff Beck added in.

The "Sally Steel Rocks! Show" has posted the second part of her interview with Alice talking about being on Hollywood Squares, what he feels his best song was, what he was like in high school. You can check it out here.

Beasto Blanco have signed a deal with COP International for two new singles later this year followed by a new album in 2024. You can read the full press release here.

Too Close For Comfort

The Too Close For Comfort Tour Begins

We’re now three shows into the new ‘Too Close For Comfort’ US tour and there’s plenty of video appearing on YouTube. As promised the tour features a completely new stage set which heavily relies on video screens showing close ups of Alice and the band, as well as pre-recorded clips to illustrate certain songs. Sadly the new setlist is rather predictable, with only a couple of real surprises, and there seems to be minimal theatrics, although the snake is back for the first time in some years. The tour also sees the return of Nita Strauss after she sat out the fall tour last year.
Ultimate Classic Rock have a full review of the Mount Pleasant show with photos and lots of spoilers, while Seth Lewis has posted some excellent photos from the same show. More photos can be found at PennLive.

To mark the start of the tour April 29th was named ‘Alice Cooper Day’ in Youngstown, MI by radio station WYFM and the Mahoning County Commissioners who presented Alice with a proclamation in honour of his 50 years playing shows in the area and a custom painted trash can! You can see a copy of the document here while WYTV has video and a report but it’s region locked.

Nita Strauss has been talking to Loudwire about touring with Alice and Demi Lovato, plus her new solo album which is due this summer.

New Nita Strauss Single Features Alice Cooper

Nita Strauss releases new single featuring Alice Cooper

Nita Strauss has released a third single from her forthcoming second solo album and enlisted her boss to sing on it! The song is called ‘Winner Takes All’ and you can check out it out on YouTube or below.

Kane Roberts has been talking to ‘The Shoe’ podcast clearing up some confusion over his role in the last tour and standing in for Nita Strauss. Check it out on YouTube.

Also worth checking out is video of Alice, Ryan, Tommy and Sheryl rehearsing for the recent private acoustic show earlier this month. It’s something you don’t see very often! That’s also on YouTube. The same channel also has a short clip of the Q&A with Alice talking about the Hollywood Vampires, plus clips of Under My Wheels and Eighteen from the show although the sound is poor.

Hollywood Vampires Release Rio Show

he Hollywood Vampires will release their 2015 ‘Rock In Rio’ show on CD, vinyl and blu-ray on June 2nd.

The Hollywood Vampires will release their 2015 ‘Rock In Rio’ show on CD, vinyl and blu-ray on June 2nd. The show, supporting their first album; saw the band play in front of over 100,000 people and includes guest appearances from Lzzy Hale, Andreas Kisser (Sepultura) and Zak Starkey (The Who). You can pre-order via AmazonUK and AmazonUS now. The full track listing is as follows:

1. Raise The Dead
2. My Generation
3. I Got A Line On You
4. Cold Turkey
5. Five To One / Break On Through (To The Other Side)
6. Manic Depression
7. 7 And 7 Is
8. Whole Lotta Love
9. Jeepster
10. I’m A Boy
11. School’s Out
12. Billion Dollar Babies
13. Train Kept A-Rollin’
14. Brown Sugar

Alice has been talking to Ultimate Classic Rock about the forthcoming "Road" album, which features the current band, and also a possible original band album.

"Well, there’s a new album coming out with my touring band right now. I wanted to show off the touring band, so we wrote songs, went in the studio, and I said, “Here’s the deal on this album: No overdubs.” I said, “Everything has to be done in the studio live because the whole idea of this album is showing off how good this band is live.” So when you hear this album, it sounds like a studio album, but it’s actually them playing live in the studio. That album will be coming out, and then, the thing with the original band is when we broke up, we never broke up with any bad blood. We went to high school together, we were on the cross country and track team together, things like that. There was never bad blood between any of us, and we always… I mean, I would ask Dennis [Dunaway], “Dennis, could you come in and play bass on this song?” “Yeah. Could you sing on this song? I’ve got a thing going on with this band that I’m in.” “OK.” So there was never that like, “Oh, I’m never gonna talk to him again,” or “I’m never gonna work with him again.” So we’ve always been writing. “Neal Smith will send me three or four songs and I’ll do some writing lyrics on it and send it back to him, and he has his own band. Dennis is in two or three bands. Mike [Michael Bruce], they’re always working musicians. So when we write 10 or 12 songs, I don’t know exactly what that’s going to be, but I know that those songs exist now. So I’m thinking about in the future, that would be kind of a cool thing."

Tommy Henriksen’s Crossbone Skully has launched a kickstarter campaign for an official comic book, ‘Thing #1’, based on the forthcoming album. There are as usual various levels of support beginning with a simple digital pdf from just $5. You can find all the information here.

Distortions Unlimited, the company that builds many of the props used in the Alice Cooper show, have posted a ‘Behind The Monsters’ video demonstrating some of their creations, including one that has so far not been used on stage. Check it out here. The company also has a couple of old Alice related items for sale online here.

Ryan Roxie is the guest on ‘The Guitar Coach’ podcast which you can watch on YouTube.

Crossbone Skully Launched

Crossbone Skully Launch

Today was the official launch of Tommy Henriksen’s ‘Crossbone Skully‘ project and this evening Tommy was ‘In The Trenches‘ with Ryan Roxie spilling the beans on the concept behind the record/film/comic and it’s special guests which include fellow Vampires Alice Cooper, Johnny Depp and Joe Perry, along with appearances by Sheryl Cooper, Nikki Sixx, Chris Wyse and many more! The first single ‘Evil World Machine‘ is available now on all good streaming service so go check it out!

The Arizona Desert Sun has a report from last weekends ‘Rock The Plaza’ event which featured Alice along with Orianthi, Teddy Zig Zag, Eric Singer, Paul Rodgers, and Josh Homme amongst others. The event raised $200,00 for ‘Save The Plaza’.

Neal Smith is reissuing the first two Killsmith albums ‘Sexual Savior’ and ‘Killsmith Two’ and will be appearing on Talk Shop Live on November 23rd during which signed copies of both CDs will be available.

The current issue of UK horror magazine ‘The Darkside’ has a Alice on the cover and a feature inside. You can order a copy here.

If you are into baseball cards there’s a new one to search out. You can find it in random packs of ‘Topps 2022 Allen & Ginter‘ cards in the US and features art of Alice about the throw a baseball.

Youtube houses a wealth of rare material but one new video worth highlighting is 13 minutes of silent super8 footage filmed at the Toronto show on December 14th 1973, What makes this footage so special is this was the show the band were forced to play without the legendary ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ stage show, which didn’t arrive at the venue on time due to adverse weather conditions. As mentioned in Bob Greene’s ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ book, the band had to scramble around to decorated the stage with Xmas decorations and change the show at the last minute, which makes this footage truly unique, especially as it includes Greene himself, as Santa, being beaten up at the end of the show! Definitely worth a look.

Dave Libbert, Alice Cooper tour manager in the 70s is featured in two new interviews promoting his recent book ‘Rock And Roll Warrior’. The first is live tonight at 10PM PST on KFI-AM. This is apparently NOT archived so you can only hear it live. The second is an interview with All Music Live which you can check out on YouTube.

Vampires In Italy and Poland

Hollywood Vampires confirmed for the Marostica Summer Festival

The Hollywood Vampires have been announced as playing the Marostica Summer Festival in Marostica, IT on July 2nd. Tickets go on sale tomorrow.
They have also been confirmed as playing the Rock Legends Festival at Dolina Charlotty, Słupsk, Poland on July 22nd.

Alice turned up at the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame awards at the weekend to finally induct British legends Judas Priest into the hall. You can see fan footage now on YouTube. An edited version of the show will be televised at a later date.

Tommy Henriksen is following Beasto Blanco in publishing his own comic book. ‘Crossbone Skully: Thing #1’ will be available exclusively st the San Francisco Fan Expo 2022 which takes place between November 25th and 27th, and Tommy will be there to sign copies. Attendees will also be able to enter a competition to win one of Tommy’s guitars. The comic is based on Tommy’s forthcoming concept album of the same name and the first single from the album will be launched to coincide with the comics release. Chuck Garric and Calico Cooper will also be at the Fan Expo signing copies of their ‘Beasto Blanco: Spacewave Conquest’ comic. For Tommy’s full Expo schedule see here.
Crossbone Skully also have a track entitled ‘Evil World Machine‘ included on the soundtrack to new horror movie ‘The Retaliators’. The film is available in the US now via Amazon Prime. Presumably a European release will follow shortly.

UK Tour and Catch Up

UK Tour Reviews, New show date and more

With the UK dates now behind us there have been quite a few show reviews to mention, some of which have some really great photos. Check out:

WalesOnline meanwhile catches Alice out on the golf course, while the Daily Mail is more interested in reporting that Alice was seen out shopping in Swansea…

An additional US show show has been announced for October 7th at the Taamava’ Resort & Casino in Highland, CA. Tickets are on sale now.

‘Trash’ co-writer/producer Desmond Child is planning a special show on June 27th at the ‘Odeon of Herodes Atticus’ in the Acropolis, Athens, Greece, and among the promised guests is Alice Cooper, who will perform ‘Poison’ and ‘Bed of Nails’, and Kip Winger. Tickets are on sale now.

Alice shows up in the new issue of ‘Fireworks‘ magazine in the UK which should be on newsstands now.

Blue Coupe have added a show at the Biltmore Theatre in Oshawa, Ontario for July 28th. Tickets are on sale now. Dennis was also a guest on the ‘Bill Kelly Show’ talking about the 50th Anniversary of ‘School’s Out this month and you can listen to that here.

Martin Popoff has two new Alice Cooper books on the way via Wymer Publishing. The first, entitled ‘Easy Action: The Original Alice Cooper Band’, obviously concentrates of the band years, while ‘Feed My Frankenstein: Alice Cooper, the Solo Years’ covers the years since 1975. Both books are due September 9th and available to pre-order now. How these books relate or repeat Martins previous Alice Cooper book ‘Welcome To My Nightmare. Fifty Years Of Alice Cooper’ isn’t clear, as it kinda sounds like he’s split the previous book in half to make two books.Time will tell how they differ. In the meantime you can currently get that first book direct from Wymer for just £12.50 which is a pretty good deal.

Steve and Karen Hunter have released a new track called ‘Sweet Love Of Mine’ which you can check out here. Steve was recently interviewed by American Blues Scene which you can read here.

And thanks to eagle-eyed Johnart69 for letting me know Alice Cooper is mentioned in the first issue of ‘Batman: Fortress‘ which is out now. While on a school bus the Joker sings ‘School’s Out forever!’ and is rather distressed when the kids on the bus don’t get the reference! "Really? No Alice Cooper fans? What are they teaching you kids these days?" We’ve all wondered that on occasion!

Back In The UK

News from the UK Tour and other happenings

Back from the UK tour for a bit. It’s a sadly shortened setlist for these shows due to The Cult being co-headliners, so only around 75 minutes or so a night. Chuck missed the opening show in Swansea so Hollywood Vampire bassist Chris Wyse stepped in at short notice to help out. Chuck was back in London though, and Chris joined in on ‘School’s Out’ as well. The show is as expected, with the ‘Nightmare Castle’ set again. ‘Shut Up And Rock’ has been added to the list as well.
If you’re going to any of the UK shows yet to happen try and get there early enough to catch Creeper. We were all very impressed by their entertaining and energetic performances, just a shame their stage time is so short.

Other news to catch up on:

There’s been a couple of show reviews so far from Swansea by The Guardian and Metal Planet.

As mentioned previously the ‘Live From The Astroturf’ movie will finally be seeing a general release on August 26th on CD, DVD, Blu-Ray and four more coloured vinyl – just when you thought they had run out of colours! This time it’s "Curacoa" (whatever colour that is) in Europe, Glow In The Dark (US/Germany), Apricot (Worldwide) and Gold (another Good Records Dallas exclusive with a print and trading card). Each vinyl comes with a DVD while the CD comes with the Blue-Ray. All versions have the bonus of an instrumental ‘Desperado’ recorded during rehearsals which wasn’t in the previous releases.

Good Records are also holding an album launch party on August 27th with a screening of the film and chat with various people behind the project (but not any of the band it seems unless it’s a surprise) followed by local band The Mumbles performing ‘Love It To Death’ in it’s entirety. The evening will close with other Dallas musicians playing a selection of Cooper classics. Tickets are available here.

Ryan Roxie is again offering his "All Excess Pass’ which offers various merchandise and access to a private instagram channel with special backstage videos and message, live guitar lessons and all sorts of other bonuses. Get all the info here. You can also check out a new Roxie interview from Boomerocity.

Super7 are releasing a new Alice Cooper "ReAction" figure which comes with a microphone, a snake and a billion dollar bill. Must admit personally I don’t think this one is that great (and I normally love this sort of thing) but decide for yourself.

And lastly for now, US TV channel ‘Reelz‘ will be showing ‘Alice Cooper: Story of the Songs’ on June 19th with Alice talking about ‘School’s Out’, Welcome To My Nightmare’ and ‘Poison’.

US Tour Roundup

New Show in Nevada and Tour News

A new show has been added to the October tour in the US. Alice Cooper will play the Dollar Loan Center in Henderson, NV on October 8th.

‘Creeper‘ have been announced as the opening act on next months UK tour with The Cult. They’re a goth/punk/emo band from Southampton who have been building a substantial following over the last few years.

Alice has been talking to Planet Rock about the forthcoming UK tour, promising to do "something a little different" for the dates. "We’re gonna do something a little different (on the UK tour). Every night we’re gonna be doing different songs – at least two or three different songs. If you see the show in Birmingham, the next night you’ll see two or three different songs in the show." Whether these songs will be the same old warhorses they’ve played endlessly (‘Lost In America’ again anyone?) or something more interesting only time will tell.

There’s also a new interview from the Yorkshire Post which you can check out here.

The last few nights of the US tour saw a few unusual events. Tommy missed three shows, presumably due to illness (I’ve not seen the reason posted) but was back for the final Greek Theater show, and Nita Strauss has been seriously in the wars, after "…struggling with a bit of knee pain on and off the past couple weeks, it all finally came to a screeching halt on stage last night [April 22) when I stepped off the castle stairs and my right knee went POP! Definitely some of the most overwhelming pain I’ve ever had in my life." She managed to finish the show with her knee heavily strapped up before heading for the ER for tests. Nita soldiered on to finish out the US dates and has since had more treatment and been cleared to play her scheduled solo dates over the next few weeks, although you probably won’t been seeing her tearing around the stage quite as much as usual for a few weeks!

Music Connection has a long review of the final LA show the other night including so great photos.

‘No Cover’ episode 3 is now up on YouTube as four more hopefuls play for Alice and the other judges for a chance at the top prize.

The Akron Beacon has a cool new interview with Neal Smith, talking about his childhood growing up in Akron, OH.

German tour posters are advertising the release of a ‘Live EP” version of ‘Live From The Astroturf’, the recording of the original band’s 2015 reunion at Good Records in Dallas, TX, which is to be released on August 26th. No more details as yet.

Alice has been signed up to be a character in HypGames‘ ‘Ultimate Golf’ at some point in the future. The mobile golf simulator is available to download now but it’s unclear when Alice will make an appearance.