Legendary rocker Alice Cooper spoke to Billboard.com about “Welcome 2 My Nightmare”, a sequel to his 1975 concept album “Welcome to My Nightmare” — his first “solo” release after the break-up of the original Alice Cooper band.
“I had an idea to do a part two to (2008’s) ‘Along Came a Spider’,” Cooper says. “I came to Bob with it, and he listened and goes, ‘Eh. I would be more excited if ‘Along Came a Spider’ was a No. 1 record.’ He wasn’t really into it. Then we started talking about ‘Welcome to My Nightmare’‘s 35th anniversary or something like that, and he said, ‘What if Alice had another nightmare?’ All I was trying to do was get Bob to say, ‘Yeah, I want to produce the album,’ so we found a place where both of us really felt comfortable, and that was doing ‘Nightmare 2’.”
“Welcome 2 My Nightmare” features the original “Nightmare” tandem of Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, with Vince Gill guesting on a track called “Runaway Train”. In addition, surviving Cooper band members Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway and Neal Smith appear on the song “When Hell Comes Home”.
“There are certain songs where we let some of the themes from (the original) ‘Nightmare’ slip in,” Cooper tells Billboard.com. “All of a sudden you’ll hear the little piano part from ‘Steven’ or from ‘The Awakening’. I wanted (the albums) to be married together. I think we even make reference to a couple of characters from the original (album).”
Read more from Billboard.com.
