Post by classic rock revival on Apr 30, 2011 13:08:26 GMT -6
This is an interview I did with Neal Smith in 2005.
Jim: Can you tell us about your current band with Joe Bouchard and Dennis Dunaway? How did BDS come about ?
Neal: Bouchard, Dunaway & Smith, AKA BDS, is a classic rock power trio featuring Joe Bouchard from Blue Oyster Cult on guitar and vocals, Dennis Dunaway from Alice Cooper on bass and vocals and me on drums. BDS currently has two CD's available, Back From Hell , (studio album) and BDS Live In Paris, recorded live on our 2002 European tour. We (Alice Cooper) first met the Blue Oyster Cult while touring together back in the early 70's. Joe Bouchard and Donald Roser both lived in the same part of Connecticut as Dennis and I. Joe actually only lived a few miles from me and on occasion Dennis and I would hang out, party, jam and even write and record some music together in his studio. In Connecticut a huge annual event, "The Norwalk Oyster Festival," is held with about a million people attending every year. In 1985 Cindy Lauper was headlining the big Saturday night rock concert, but at the last minute she cancelled her performance. Joe, Dennis and I were asked to fill in the headline spot and "Bouchard, Dunaway & Smith" was born. Although we called ourselves "Brainstorm" for that show, we officially became Bouchard, Dunaway & Smith years later in the late 90's. For bio information and CD purchase info check out www.nealsmith.com
Jim: You also have another band and CD available called "Cinematik," how did this band project come about?
Neal: Fans who enjoy the more experimental - freeform musical side of the original Alice Cooper would enjoy Cinematik. Cinematik features Peter Catucci on bass and vocals, Robert Mitchell on guitar and vocals and myself on percussion and vocals. This band is very mellow, melodic and at times a little dark. This project gives me the liberty to play and experiment with hand drums and percussion from my large personal collection of drums. I also get some wonderful opportunities to explore more primitive and exotic drumbeats from all over the world. One of the great aspects of this group is that our engineer and producer is Rob Fraboni. Rob has worked in the studio with the Rolling Stones for many years, from "Exile On Main Street" to the present and is a master in the studio.
Cinematic actually came about when Peter Catucci heard Platinum God and was really impressed with the primitive percussion featured in the middle of the title song. That was the nucleus for his idea of Cinematic. Peter then approached me to see if I would be interested in recording a CD playing only hand drums and percussion. Since I'm always interested in expanding my musical horizons, I eagerly agreed. Peter lives not even a mile away from my home in Connecticut and has his own studio called "Rock Wall Studios." He requested the guitar skills of his friend Robert Mitchell to musically and creatively fill out the band. Rob Fraboni, who also is a neighbor and friend, manned the controls and Cinematic was born. Cinematik currently has 2 CDs available, "Cinematik" and "One Full Moon Away." Both available at www.nealsmith.com.
Jim: Your first solo album, "Platinum God", was recorded in 1974, but wasn't released until just recently. What was the long delay in getting this excellent album released?
Neal: My first solo project in 1974/1975 "Platinum God," gave me an opportunity to again write songs totally on my own. I wrote every song except "Rock n Roll Radio" which was a collaboration with me and four other people. Also, I had always wanted to play in a power trio format with Dennis and I as the rhythm section. That's one reason why I presently enjoy Bouchard, Dunaway & Smith so much. As I mentioned previously, when all of us in "Alice Cooper" agreed to take a year off in the mid 70's to do solo projects, "Platinum God" was the album that I wrote and recorded, with the combined talents and efforts of Dennis on bass and Mike Marconi on guitar. However, I never released it until Halloween 1999. I actually had lost two of the tracks from the album, and they were discovered early 1999, but they did not have vocals or lead guitar on them. So all those year later back into the studio I went, finished the vocals and my friend Richie Scarlet played some incredible lead guitar, putting the finishing touches on my "Forbidden Project." To buy a copy of "Platinum God" go to www.nealsmith.com, also find more information regarding the recording and players on "Platinum God".
Jim: Are you currently performing any songs from "Platinum God", in your live shows?
Neal: No. The last time I performed a Platinum God song was with Dennis's and my band the Flying Tigers and I sang "Rock n' Roll Radio."
Jim: How did the Nazz evolve into Alice Cooper?
Neal: In May of 1967 The two most notorious rock bands in Phoenix, Arizona headed for California at the same time to seek fame and fortune. One of the bands was my band, The Holy Grail and the other band were good friends of mine, The Nazz. As did happen in the 1800's as people migrated to California from all over this country and like the early Californians the Holy Grail encountered many hardships. After two months in the San Francisco Bay area, although we were a great band, we failed to survive the ordeal and The Holy Grail broke up for good during the "Summer of Love." By the early fall of 1968 I was bandless and made my way to the Los Angles. With the generosity of my Phoenix friends the Nazz, I was invited to move myself and my drums into their band house in Santa Monica. By Halloween I was asked to become a member and join the Nazz permanently . My musical background and personal ambitions were exactly parallel with those of Glen, Dennis, Vince and Michael's. Not only did I/we want our music to be precise, different and outrageous, we wanted our image and stage show to be outrageous, bigger than life and most importantly, memorable. In addition to that and most importantly, their hair was almost as long as mine, which was beyond cool at the time. About six months later on March 16th 1968, we officially changed our name to Alice Cooper and played our first show under that new banner in Santa Barbara, California. Although my influence on the band was no greater or lesser than their influence on me, we were all at the right place at the right time and heading in the same direction together. As you study photos of the original Nazz without me, then the last days of the Nazz with me, then the early Alice Cooper, there was definitely a transformation and mutation occurring. We were slowly evolving into the worlds first and most famous shock rock band "Alice Cooper."
Jim: The late 60's was a time of love and peace. How well was Alice Cooper accepted by the flower power generation in those days?
Neal: Coming out of the "1960's Peace, Love and Flower Power Generation " music scene, conditions were musically and socially ripe for a band like "Alice Cooper." Music trends in the sixties were moving at a blistering pace. With bands like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Grateful Dead, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, and finally the Doors, there was a musical side of rock 'n' roll that was getting darker and more ominous. The stereotypical band had a very limited mind set when it came to live stage performances. The Jimi Hendrix Experience and The Who were actually bringing more to live shows than just simply getting on stage in front of their fans to play and promote their latest record. This paradigm set up a perfect theatrical void for our band "Alice Cooper" to fill, bringing elaborate staging, lighting, props along with some blood and gore to rock 'n' roll concerts. With songs like "Fields of Regret," "Lay Down & Die Goodbye," "Dead Babies," "Killer," "School's Out," "I love The Dead," "Raped & Freezing" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy," "I laughed to myself at the men and the ladies who never conceived of us Billion Dollar Babies".
Jim: From 1969 to 1973 Alice Cooper was a band. But, when "I'm Eighteen" became a huge hit Vincent Furnier became Alice Cooper in the eyes of the public.Was this something that just happened that way or was your management involved in promoting Vince as being Alice Cooper?
Neal: Actually Glen, Dennis, Michael and I started calling Vince, Alice several months after we officially changed the name of the band to Alice Cooper in March of 1968 when we were still living in Topanga Canyon, California. Anyone in the band could have been called Alice, it definitely was never Alice's idea. The four of us just started calling Vince, Alice as sort of a goof at the beginning, but slowly over a period of several months everybody felt comfortable with Vince's new nickname and it stuck. To have a name of a band that stands out and surfaces to the top just out of pure curiosity real quick in L.A. was pretty much a miracle in itself and a great break for us to stand apart from other groups. The fact that there was an all male band called Alice Cooper, and the lead singer's name was Alice, was kind of flipping people out even when people couldn't be flipped out anymore. Our crazy idea was working. It was getting peoples attention, even Frank Zappas.
For the first couple years of Alice Cooper, all five of us would do live radio interviews together. You can imagine how crazy that was. Then later on all five of us decided and agreed that Dennis, Glen, Michael and I would take care of the sound checks and the music at the venues and because time was becoming of the essence, when we were on tour, we also all agreed that Alice's job was to do the interviews. Occasionally one or two of us would also do interviews along with Alice or even by ourselves, but the bulk of interviews were put on Alice's shoulders, that was his job.
What bothered me personally early on, even in our second album "Easy Action," with Zappa, was when there would be and extra photo of Alice by himself in the albums press kit. Once newspapers and the media get an Alice Cooper press kit, it was up to them to chose which photo they wanted to use and many times it was Alice's individual photo, not the bands photo. Although no one had control over which photo the press would use, I never really thought that was the right thing to do. It was possible setting the stage for Alice's solo career, which we never thought in a million years he or anyone else in the band would do. By 'Muscle Of Love', the promotion for the album in record stores was a stand up life size poster of Alice by himself, wearing shorts and a T-shirt that said "Malibu" on it. I went "What the fuck is this bullshit all about." We're still making all the same money, splitting everything equally five ways, so it didn't really matter. I think the only time it really got to me was on the 'Muscle Of Love' tour. I think everybody in the band is going to have a different take on it. We all owned 20% each of the band and Alice Cooper Inc, and we still do, we never sued anybody for the name. There was a trust and a bond that was made very early on in the inner circle with the five of us that was to never be broken. We'd been through a lawsuit with Frank Zappa, that drug on about a two or three years and I didn't want to go through that again.
Mike Bruce did the first solo album, so once that happened everybody in the band had the right to do a solo album as well, including Alice. With the name and the momentum of the band he found success certainly on his own. It could've been Michael Bruce that found solo success. After all he'd written some of the most successful music of that era. Michael could've been like Peter Frampton just out of "Humble Pie" and had the potential to become more successful than anybody else in the band. It could've happened to anybody in the band. The main thing I was always concerned about is that we maintained friendship and we are always there for each other.
Jim: Was there ever a time when you felt the theatrics was overshadowing the music?
Neal: Myself, Michael, Vince, Dennis and Glen were completely immersed in the creation and performing of our music and stage shows and never in a million years would or could have felt that our music was overshadowed by our theatrics, they both play a very intricate part in what we were doing. The doubting Thomas press at the time had to try and find a weak link in the Alice Cooper phenomenon and that was the best they could come up with. Most of the press, like most the establishment at the time really hated our band. As a matter of fact, the more the press hated us, the more our fans loved us, they were just added fuel to the Alice Cooper fire. It was impossible to make negative press work against us, we thrived on negative press and it completely worked in our favor. However, by the time it came to record our second Warner Brothers album, "Killer," we were a little pissed off that the press was still trying to hammer the last nail in our coffin with the theatrics verses music bull-shit. So we came up with a little number we recorded on "Killer" called "Halo Of Flies." The album with my snake Kachina on the front cover went platinum, becoming our first million selling record and more importantly quieted the fucking press, as well as the doubting Thomas's for ever on that subject!
Jim: Any chance of a reunion tour of the original Alice Cooper?
Neal:
As far as an "Alice Cooper Reunion Tour" I've said many times, if Michael Bruce, Alice Cooper, Dennis Dunaway and myself ever thought it would be the right thing to do, then we would do a reunion. Obviously we've never planned it or it would have happened.
© classic rock revival. all rights reserved.
Jim: Can you tell us about your current band with Joe Bouchard and Dennis Dunaway? How did BDS come about ?
Neal: Bouchard, Dunaway & Smith, AKA BDS, is a classic rock power trio featuring Joe Bouchard from Blue Oyster Cult on guitar and vocals, Dennis Dunaway from Alice Cooper on bass and vocals and me on drums. BDS currently has two CD's available, Back From Hell , (studio album) and BDS Live In Paris, recorded live on our 2002 European tour. We (Alice Cooper) first met the Blue Oyster Cult while touring together back in the early 70's. Joe Bouchard and Donald Roser both lived in the same part of Connecticut as Dennis and I. Joe actually only lived a few miles from me and on occasion Dennis and I would hang out, party, jam and even write and record some music together in his studio. In Connecticut a huge annual event, "The Norwalk Oyster Festival," is held with about a million people attending every year. In 1985 Cindy Lauper was headlining the big Saturday night rock concert, but at the last minute she cancelled her performance. Joe, Dennis and I were asked to fill in the headline spot and "Bouchard, Dunaway & Smith" was born. Although we called ourselves "Brainstorm" for that show, we officially became Bouchard, Dunaway & Smith years later in the late 90's. For bio information and CD purchase info check out www.nealsmith.com
Jim: You also have another band and CD available called "Cinematik," how did this band project come about?
Neal: Fans who enjoy the more experimental - freeform musical side of the original Alice Cooper would enjoy Cinematik. Cinematik features Peter Catucci on bass and vocals, Robert Mitchell on guitar and vocals and myself on percussion and vocals. This band is very mellow, melodic and at times a little dark. This project gives me the liberty to play and experiment with hand drums and percussion from my large personal collection of drums. I also get some wonderful opportunities to explore more primitive and exotic drumbeats from all over the world. One of the great aspects of this group is that our engineer and producer is Rob Fraboni. Rob has worked in the studio with the Rolling Stones for many years, from "Exile On Main Street" to the present and is a master in the studio.
Cinematic actually came about when Peter Catucci heard Platinum God and was really impressed with the primitive percussion featured in the middle of the title song. That was the nucleus for his idea of Cinematic. Peter then approached me to see if I would be interested in recording a CD playing only hand drums and percussion. Since I'm always interested in expanding my musical horizons, I eagerly agreed. Peter lives not even a mile away from my home in Connecticut and has his own studio called "Rock Wall Studios." He requested the guitar skills of his friend Robert Mitchell to musically and creatively fill out the band. Rob Fraboni, who also is a neighbor and friend, manned the controls and Cinematic was born. Cinematik currently has 2 CDs available, "Cinematik" and "One Full Moon Away." Both available at www.nealsmith.com.
Jim: Your first solo album, "Platinum God", was recorded in 1974, but wasn't released until just recently. What was the long delay in getting this excellent album released?
Neal: My first solo project in 1974/1975 "Platinum God," gave me an opportunity to again write songs totally on my own. I wrote every song except "Rock n Roll Radio" which was a collaboration with me and four other people. Also, I had always wanted to play in a power trio format with Dennis and I as the rhythm section. That's one reason why I presently enjoy Bouchard, Dunaway & Smith so much. As I mentioned previously, when all of us in "Alice Cooper" agreed to take a year off in the mid 70's to do solo projects, "Platinum God" was the album that I wrote and recorded, with the combined talents and efforts of Dennis on bass and Mike Marconi on guitar. However, I never released it until Halloween 1999. I actually had lost two of the tracks from the album, and they were discovered early 1999, but they did not have vocals or lead guitar on them. So all those year later back into the studio I went, finished the vocals and my friend Richie Scarlet played some incredible lead guitar, putting the finishing touches on my "Forbidden Project." To buy a copy of "Platinum God" go to www.nealsmith.com, also find more information regarding the recording and players on "Platinum God".
Jim: Are you currently performing any songs from "Platinum God", in your live shows?
Neal: No. The last time I performed a Platinum God song was with Dennis's and my band the Flying Tigers and I sang "Rock n' Roll Radio."
Jim: How did the Nazz evolve into Alice Cooper?
Neal: In May of 1967 The two most notorious rock bands in Phoenix, Arizona headed for California at the same time to seek fame and fortune. One of the bands was my band, The Holy Grail and the other band were good friends of mine, The Nazz. As did happen in the 1800's as people migrated to California from all over this country and like the early Californians the Holy Grail encountered many hardships. After two months in the San Francisco Bay area, although we were a great band, we failed to survive the ordeal and The Holy Grail broke up for good during the "Summer of Love." By the early fall of 1968 I was bandless and made my way to the Los Angles. With the generosity of my Phoenix friends the Nazz, I was invited to move myself and my drums into their band house in Santa Monica. By Halloween I was asked to become a member and join the Nazz permanently . My musical background and personal ambitions were exactly parallel with those of Glen, Dennis, Vince and Michael's. Not only did I/we want our music to be precise, different and outrageous, we wanted our image and stage show to be outrageous, bigger than life and most importantly, memorable. In addition to that and most importantly, their hair was almost as long as mine, which was beyond cool at the time. About six months later on March 16th 1968, we officially changed our name to Alice Cooper and played our first show under that new banner in Santa Barbara, California. Although my influence on the band was no greater or lesser than their influence on me, we were all at the right place at the right time and heading in the same direction together. As you study photos of the original Nazz without me, then the last days of the Nazz with me, then the early Alice Cooper, there was definitely a transformation and mutation occurring. We were slowly evolving into the worlds first and most famous shock rock band "Alice Cooper."
Jim: The late 60's was a time of love and peace. How well was Alice Cooper accepted by the flower power generation in those days?
Neal: Coming out of the "1960's Peace, Love and Flower Power Generation " music scene, conditions were musically and socially ripe for a band like "Alice Cooper." Music trends in the sixties were moving at a blistering pace. With bands like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Grateful Dead, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, and finally the Doors, there was a musical side of rock 'n' roll that was getting darker and more ominous. The stereotypical band had a very limited mind set when it came to live stage performances. The Jimi Hendrix Experience and The Who were actually bringing more to live shows than just simply getting on stage in front of their fans to play and promote their latest record. This paradigm set up a perfect theatrical void for our band "Alice Cooper" to fill, bringing elaborate staging, lighting, props along with some blood and gore to rock 'n' roll concerts. With songs like "Fields of Regret," "Lay Down & Die Goodbye," "Dead Babies," "Killer," "School's Out," "I love The Dead," "Raped & Freezing" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy," "I laughed to myself at the men and the ladies who never conceived of us Billion Dollar Babies".
Jim: From 1969 to 1973 Alice Cooper was a band. But, when "I'm Eighteen" became a huge hit Vincent Furnier became Alice Cooper in the eyes of the public.Was this something that just happened that way or was your management involved in promoting Vince as being Alice Cooper?
Neal: Actually Glen, Dennis, Michael and I started calling Vince, Alice several months after we officially changed the name of the band to Alice Cooper in March of 1968 when we were still living in Topanga Canyon, California. Anyone in the band could have been called Alice, it definitely was never Alice's idea. The four of us just started calling Vince, Alice as sort of a goof at the beginning, but slowly over a period of several months everybody felt comfortable with Vince's new nickname and it stuck. To have a name of a band that stands out and surfaces to the top just out of pure curiosity real quick in L.A. was pretty much a miracle in itself and a great break for us to stand apart from other groups. The fact that there was an all male band called Alice Cooper, and the lead singer's name was Alice, was kind of flipping people out even when people couldn't be flipped out anymore. Our crazy idea was working. It was getting peoples attention, even Frank Zappas.
For the first couple years of Alice Cooper, all five of us would do live radio interviews together. You can imagine how crazy that was. Then later on all five of us decided and agreed that Dennis, Glen, Michael and I would take care of the sound checks and the music at the venues and because time was becoming of the essence, when we were on tour, we also all agreed that Alice's job was to do the interviews. Occasionally one or two of us would also do interviews along with Alice or even by ourselves, but the bulk of interviews were put on Alice's shoulders, that was his job.
What bothered me personally early on, even in our second album "Easy Action," with Zappa, was when there would be and extra photo of Alice by himself in the albums press kit. Once newspapers and the media get an Alice Cooper press kit, it was up to them to chose which photo they wanted to use and many times it was Alice's individual photo, not the bands photo. Although no one had control over which photo the press would use, I never really thought that was the right thing to do. It was possible setting the stage for Alice's solo career, which we never thought in a million years he or anyone else in the band would do. By 'Muscle Of Love', the promotion for the album in record stores was a stand up life size poster of Alice by himself, wearing shorts and a T-shirt that said "Malibu" on it. I went "What the fuck is this bullshit all about." We're still making all the same money, splitting everything equally five ways, so it didn't really matter. I think the only time it really got to me was on the 'Muscle Of Love' tour. I think everybody in the band is going to have a different take on it. We all owned 20% each of the band and Alice Cooper Inc, and we still do, we never sued anybody for the name. There was a trust and a bond that was made very early on in the inner circle with the five of us that was to never be broken. We'd been through a lawsuit with Frank Zappa, that drug on about a two or three years and I didn't want to go through that again.
Mike Bruce did the first solo album, so once that happened everybody in the band had the right to do a solo album as well, including Alice. With the name and the momentum of the band he found success certainly on his own. It could've been Michael Bruce that found solo success. After all he'd written some of the most successful music of that era. Michael could've been like Peter Frampton just out of "Humble Pie" and had the potential to become more successful than anybody else in the band. It could've happened to anybody in the band. The main thing I was always concerned about is that we maintained friendship and we are always there for each other.
Jim: Was there ever a time when you felt the theatrics was overshadowing the music?
Neal: Myself, Michael, Vince, Dennis and Glen were completely immersed in the creation and performing of our music and stage shows and never in a million years would or could have felt that our music was overshadowed by our theatrics, they both play a very intricate part in what we were doing. The doubting Thomas press at the time had to try and find a weak link in the Alice Cooper phenomenon and that was the best they could come up with. Most of the press, like most the establishment at the time really hated our band. As a matter of fact, the more the press hated us, the more our fans loved us, they were just added fuel to the Alice Cooper fire. It was impossible to make negative press work against us, we thrived on negative press and it completely worked in our favor. However, by the time it came to record our second Warner Brothers album, "Killer," we were a little pissed off that the press was still trying to hammer the last nail in our coffin with the theatrics verses music bull-shit. So we came up with a little number we recorded on "Killer" called "Halo Of Flies." The album with my snake Kachina on the front cover went platinum, becoming our first million selling record and more importantly quieted the fucking press, as well as the doubting Thomas's for ever on that subject!
Jim: Any chance of a reunion tour of the original Alice Cooper?
Neal:
As far as an "Alice Cooper Reunion Tour" I've said many times, if Michael Bruce, Alice Cooper, Dennis Dunaway and myself ever thought it would be the right thing to do, then we would do a reunion. Obviously we've never planned it or it would have happened.
© classic rock revival. all rights reserved.