Alice Cooper reveals how his new record, “Paranormal,” became an accidental concept album

Dan Weir

8 years ago

earMUSIC

earMUSICAlice Cooper‘s North American summer tour with Deep Purple and Edgar Winter winds down Sunday in Cincinnati. While the shock rocker mainly has been playing classic songs on the trek, he actually has a whole album of new tunes called Paranormal that was released in July.

Cooper tells ABC Radio that Paranormal is concept album that he didn’t intend to be one.

“[My collaborators and I] wrote 13 really great songs, and then, listening back to them, I realized that I had accidentally written a concept album,” Alice admits with a laugh, “because it was about 13 people that had paranormal problems, or some sort of abnormality to their brains.”

A unique aspect of the album is the list of guest artists, including U2 drummer Larry Mullen Jr., ZZ Top‘s Billy Gibbons and Deep Purple‘s Roger Glover. Coopersays it was producer Bob Ezrin‘s idea to bring in Mullen, whom Alice says gave “an entirely different feel to the bottom of the songs.”

Cooper reveals that he and Ezrin both agreed Gibbons was the perfect musician to contribute to the song “Fallen in Love,” which Alice says “had such a Texas roadhouse rock kind of thing to it.”

Paranormal also includes two bonus tracks that Alice wrote and recorded with the surviving members of the original Alice Cooper band — bassist Dennis Dunaway, drummer Neal Smith and guitarist Michael Bruce.

Regarding the approach to the collaboration, Cooper says, “I told Mike, Dennis and Neal…’Let’s just go in the studio and play everything live…and see if it sounds like old Alice Cooper.'”

Dunaway, Smith and Bruce will play a special mini set with with Cooper at his five U.K. headlining shows this November. Alice’s fall plans also include shows in South America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, Ireland and mainland Europe.