Recently, Punk Globe got the chance to speak with Neal Smith - the legendary drummer, member of Alice Cooper and solo-artist. In the interview, Neal tells us about his upcoming plans and recording projects, the early roots of Alice Cooper and the transformation from "Easy Action" to "School's Out", songwiring, the 60's, rock-n-roll now. It was quite an honor to interview him. we hope you'd enjoy!
Punk Globe: Prior to our interview you’ve mentioned that along with Michael, Dennis and Alice you recorded a few new tracks – how does it feel for you to get together and work on something new decades later ?
Neal: Well, you know, we did three songs on “Welcome 2 My Nightmare” album – prior to the introduction to Rock’N’Roll Hall Of Fame in 2011 we recorded the songs in 2010. And it was released the next year. There’s more recent Paranormal in 2017. We did three songs on that album. So we’ve been doing it for a while now. And, we did a tour together – in the UK in November 2017. And then, Alice had the 18th anniversary of his “Christmas Pudding”[show] here in Phoenix, Arizona. Before Christmas 2019 we got together in a studio, jammed and recorded some tracks for his upcoming album – in 2020. We did “Christmas Pudding” with Dennis [Dunaway],Alice [Cooper], Joe Bonamassa and Johnny Depp playing five or six of our greatest hits. So it’s always feels like no time goes by – we’re still having this crazy sense of humor and always have a great time! Always! We’re excited to do something new for the fans. ‘Cause there’s still a lot of original group fans out there curious about anything new we’re doing. My goal with it is doing the new original Alice Cooper [band] album. I don’t know when it’s gonna happen. But in the mean time we do some new music every now and then, play some shows, and get together – it’s always fantastic. We always have a great time. And of course, Bob Ezrin was our producer – from “Love It To Death” through “Billion Dollar Babies”. He’s a great producer and he’s also felt like a member of the band, because we all came up from the ground up – just like the six of us. So it’s always wonderful for us to think what we can do in future and then – make a new music!
Punk Globe: You’ have been working for MANY YEARS. How has your approach to songwriting changed after the years ?
Neal: I think, writing a song…I’m a drummer, as you know, Dan – but I always have a guitar. Glen and Michael showed me the chords long time ago. So after the years I can play guitar better, the keyboards. Just enough to write songs on my solo KillSmith project I started in the early 2000’s. I play rhythm guitar on those songs. Even with the recent album – we just recorded …There’s a song called “Social Debris”. One before that was a song called “Genuine American Girl” that I wrote for “Paranormal” album – we did the single that was off. On “Welcome 2 My Nightmare” was – “I’ll Bite Your Face Off” – I also wrote. So I stay creative, I try different styles. There’s a KillSmith album called “KillSmith Goes West” and it’s not as heavy-metal or as punk as my previous KillSmith albums. But it still has this element. It’s always challenging to write in new directions and try and face with that parts of being a musician and songwriter. I work with the great musicians! Keyboard players, guitar-players and bass-players with KillSmith music. And we’re putting all the music down the track just like I hear it in my head. And they all bring it to life!
Punk Globe: Talking about the KillSmith albums you said once that it was mainly you, working with some occasional collaborators. With each record of yours, what helps you to define the direction you’re moving to ?
Neal: First of all, I have a vivid imagination. And my last concept-album was released five years ago. Right after the introduction to the Hall Of Fame. It’s called “KillSmith & The Greenfire Empire”. And it’s almost like a rock-opera. I’m still working on it! Possibly, animating some of that story. The record goes with a lot of different styles of music. On “Billion Dollar Babies”, there were different types of music. From ballads to big power ballads. To rock songs and something faster. I tried to do that with The Greenfire album. But as far as the story goes, sometimes you write songs over a period of years – and you just put them aside. One day, you look at this song and that song. Just changing a lyrics a little bit, I can form a full concept. You have a song, two and three – and then a full album. That’s exactly what I did with The Greenfire-album. There were brand new songs on that album. Everything was brand new. But it took a long time until I figured out what to do…You notice what you have and then, feel a sense that it all comes together – into an album. It glues together within the musicians you work with. So it all sounds similar. The same as with “KillSmith Goes West” – the new one. There’s a concept. But it’s more connected with songs then with the story. Waking up in night, you have some feelings so you’d better write them down. And it a point when it all came together.
Another record that would come out this year is my Neal Smith Solo album – “Pop 85\95”.
Punk Globe: In 1999 you released your first solo-record – “Platinum God”. How long did it take for you to finish it ?
Neal: The album was actually recorded in 1975-1976. And it took 25 years to put it together and release. Actually, one of the songs on “Platinum God” is called “Baby, Please Don’t Stop”. And that was recorded when we were putting down the tracks for “Muscle Of Love” album. It was one of the songs I tried to sing. Dennis had bass, playing blues-like-guitar-parts. I played drums. Glen, unfortunately, didn’t record anything on “Muscle Of Love” album. But we had a guitar-player setting in for him in a studio and on live-concerts. His name is Mick Mashbir. Mick was a friend of mine from High School in Phoenix, Arizona. So Mick was in there playing guitar. He also played slide-guitar, he also played harmonica. We tried this song for “Muscle of Love” album – it didn’t fit. So I kept it for my solo-album – “Platinum God”. And I ended up of having the idea of the song as a full-concept song. I was reading the books coming out at that period: “Bermudian Triangle” etc– an alternative theories to the planet Earth about aliens. I don’t believe it, but one way or another it became a concept to write about. And “Platinum God” came out of this period of time – mid-70’s. By 1999 I done two other tracks: “Meaneter Deadly To Her Pray” and “The Seas A Meaniter” – those songs were done with my friend Richie Scarlet, who’d put down the guitars when I finished the songs. It took a long time to finish the songs. But then I had the complete album – “Platinum God”. I was in real estate business for 25 years so I wasn’t really doing too much music. And within the death of Glen Buxton in 1997, I started getting urged more music. I released “Platinum God” two years after Glen passed away. And that was certainly an inspiration for me to get back into the music a lot stronger that I had been for previous 25 years.
Punk Globe: We all know the period of late 60’s and theearly 70’s as an incredibly exciting time for music. But what was the most exciting for you being a part of it ?
Neal: It was exciting from a couple of levels. Because, first of all I’ve known Alice and Dennis and Michael and Glen from a college, here in Arizona. And we were friends. We were into different bands. But I got to know that Glen Buxton was from Akron, Ohio in the Midwest of the U.S. where I’m from. So have to be almost brothers right away. It just evolved as the band I was in broke up…I was in California – they were in California. We got together in Santa-Monica in 1967. We were good friends. Their drummer – John, quit. John was a good friend of mine. So they asked me to join the band. By that time we’d already jammed together. Four musicians: myself, Michael, Dennis and Glen. So we had directions and those jams led to some songs that were on two first Frank-Zappa’s albums – “Pretties For You” and “Easy Action”. I think, mostly, there were two things exciting: I was working with my friends. I was playing in a group of my best friends. And all of us: Dennis, myself, Michael, Glen and Alice – there were NO BOUNDARIES for our creativity. We came out with the new name in March 1968 – Alice Cooper. We can make it whatever we wanted to make it! That was exciting part of it: it was a brand new decade coming. 60’s were almost gone. A lot of great musicians from the 60’s were dying – because of drugs, overdoses, alcohol abuse and all the evils of rock-n-roll. We had a whole new decade. And, I think that the time was right for a band like Alice Cooper. We became very theatrical. There’s a lot of violence at our shows. We scared people. But we found the niche! There were band that had a rather dark side. But nobody got into that direction. It was hard, as original Alice Cooper did. So once we had that, we could record anthems like “School’s Out” and “I’m Eighteen”. The lack of songs that would tie the shock-value of Alice Cooper and the commercial value of Alice Cooper – that’s where these came in. That was an exciting part. How do we take it, create it and make it commercial ? And then give it to hundreds and thousands billions of fans throughout of Europe, South America, Canada, Australia, Japan…That was an exciting part. We started something brand new, we knew what we were doing. And been forever straight to this path. It’s still amazing that 60 years later…We change our name March 16, 1968 – Alice Cooper. 2018 was the 50th anniversary of our name changed. These many years later the music is still being listened to worldwide. That’s the most humbling and exciting part of this crazy journey we’d all been at that point.
Punk Globe: The sound of Alice Cooper has always been defined by a certain heaviness – that has became not just the number of accents you’ve been putting in, but stylistically feature. So being one of the first hard-rock pre-heavy-metal bands – was it hard for you to find the balance for each other’s individual style and find your sound?
Neal: That’s a really good question, Dan. I think that, again, the fact that each of us was a creative songwriter and musician…We worked together! There were always ideas pulling out of everybody! All the time! And there were always songs coming out of everybody. Glen was the one wrote the intro for “School’s Out” – it was amazing thing. And then dozens of amazing things too. So whatever ideas always came, we’d always Michael Bruce wrote most of the songs. Most of the hit-songs. “No More Mr. Nice Guy” – that’s his song! And then Alice wrote the lyrics. But we all would present a song: I’d present a song. Michael would present the song, Dennis would present the song. We all had the ability to put whatever we wanted to put – especially on ‘Billion Dollar Babies”. Bob Ezrin heard a part of “Billion Dollar Babies” –little shuffle I did . It was almost like a tango. And Bob said to me if I wanted to try idea like that, I got to play it perfect – that’s what I did. And the rest is history. It’s still one of the most unique drum-parts and drum-intros in rock-n-roll. So we have ability to do such things. But Bob as producer was the one that put it all together. He would take the songs. Together we would press the songs. And everybody says: “Easy Action” and then “Love It To Death” –what happened ?!” – Bob Ezrin and Jack Richardson are credited for that. But our songwriting changed! We had a third opportunity to make a hit-record. Most bands have the second much less then third. So we really wanted to make a hit-record. After a night in Toronto, Canada, Jack and Bob said they’d produce the record – which was “Love It To Death”. Once we did that, we got to look with them. So all the ideas and music – we brought it all to them. And all practices together. But this is the thing! You got to be flexible! In doing so, we find out who we were. The anthems were very successful. Once we figured out the songs like “I’m Eighteen” – about a struggle of a young man going into adulthood and “School’s Out” – the greatest things kids could every do – going out of school…Once we were able to figure that out we used just to stay in that groove. It was self-discipline too. But in self-discipline I can still play the most outrageous drum-set in the world. I’m a rudiment drummer. I spent two years learning snare-drum when I was 10-11-12. And Dennis – original bass-player is amazing. His bass is amazing! You can still tell when Dennis Dunaway is playing the bass. All other things come into play and I think it really was a coordinative effort to what’s we knew who we were, what we were able to do. Bob Ezrin was our producer, our arranger and we worked with him! There were no arguments and stuff. I want straight that, because a lot of people say that being in the same room for seven years it must have been a lot of tension. We all have the same goals in mind. That’s why I love this group of guys.
Punk Globe: You have credited Keith Moon, Ginger Baker and Carl Palmer as some of the first major influences as drummers. But when did you get this desire to take drumsticks and start playing ?
Neal: Everything what we wanted to do in a band called “Alice Cooper” was getting bigger and better than anybody else. Ginger Baker had a sat with double-bass drums. I wanted a maximum! I’m 6, 4 foot. I have a 7 foot from one tip of my finger to another tip of my finger. And I can reach one of drums. So I had a huge set for me. My first set was 18 drums. “Billion Dollar Babies” set was 22 drums. The same with my hair. People said “Long hair!” – Brian Jones had long blonde hair. I said: “I can even have a longer blonde hair then Brian Jones…Alice Cooper was all about extreme! Extreme and by doing that – we were just original. And I think, that’s was one of the things that everybody loved about the band. We wanted to get bigger, better than anybody. And still maintain who we were, keep our own sound and unique state shows. We started building unique stage-shows all the time. Nobody even did that! What we did was SO ORIGINAL! It was unlimited amount of what we could do with all that creativity. To this day, If we would get back to playing the shows – I have an idea about the drum-set that would BLOW EVERYBODY AWAY( laughs )! That’s always been my goal – to have the most unique show! And that was my job!
Punk Globe: Even though we all know Alice Cooper as a band as being lots of fun but yet s little gloomy, dark and at the end,very theatrical, It all was quite remarkable. In particular in1971. At that point, you relocated to Detroit and started playing with MC5 and The Stooges. Lots of critics still say that the sound of Detroit at that era was the highest point of of the rock-n-roll revolution.
Neal: First of all – I didn’t want to be in Detroit (laughs)! Like I mentioned – I was originally from Ohio. I moved to Arizona to get away from cold winters. So when we moved back there, there was a specific reason. ‘Cause, we were on the road for a year…For some reason, The Stooges and MC5, Ted Nugent and several other mid-west bands based in Detroit had a very high energy which we always had! Glen and I are from Akron, Ohio – Alice is from Detroit, Michigan – the rock-n-roll energy center of United States. So we were very comfortable in that part of the country. And my point is that we kind of understood that – a certain amount of our fans were the same age we were. And they were looking for the same music! LA was still real hippie, still real mellow 60’s. And we were going in a very energetic direction – loads of energy and big shows on stage. We were getting in Detroit and that had been going to give us a new lifeline. In September 1970, after “Easy Action” album we set in Michigan – that’s when Bob Ezrin came out to work with us. And playing shows in 69-70 – there were lots of outdoor concerts, you have to remember that! Like Woodstock and Rock N Roll Revival – big festival in Toronto in 1969. In Toronto, Canada we were monsters! But there, we’d never had hit album and hit singles. But we were rocking the stage witch chickens on stage and all the high energy. The Midwest and Canada were very-very energetic. Loads of crazy music and it was great time in music. Sometimes it was too dark – there were bikers involved, there were lots of fights. But that’s what all part of it. I think, we influenced the sound of Detroit-area in the late 60’s-early 70’s and Detroit certainly influenced us 100% too. It gave us the energy to not only come up with the ideas. But make them work on stage, having the audience that reacted POSITIVELY. We were in California and people would walk out of the shows. And by the time were in Midwest, people were coming by thousands on the shows. We hadn’t have a hit singles then!
Punk Globe: In one of your interviews you stated that even though your career started in late 60’s, the first bit success came with “School’s Out” – what was so special about the record ?
Neal: I’d tell you! I know the answer 100%, Dan! We had “Love It To Death” that broke. The first album with the hit – “I’m Eighteen”. “Killer” with my snake – Kachina, on the cover was our first platinum album. And had a hit song – “Under My Wheels”. It wasn’t quite as big as single as “I’m Eighteen”. But “Killer” album sold million copies. And twice as “Love It To Death”, right away. So now we had our first golden album, our first platinum album. But we still weren’t getting played on the East Coast and The West Coast of United States. By 1971 we were contracting on mid-part of the country. But New York and Los Angeles would not play our songs and on a normal basis. We needed a blow-out-hit to do what we wanted to achieve as a group. The idea came up with the concept of “School’s Out” – now we already had “I’m Eighteen” as an anthem song. Now we wanted another anthem song. And the concept started deal around “School’s Out”. People knew who we were – definitely! We were selling hundreds and thousands of records. But getting really big, we had to break New York and we had to break L.A. A part of this story was that Pink Floyd was opposite. They were huge in New York and huge in LA. But they didn’t get a chance to play in the middle of United States. So it’s just an interesting side-point. And getting back to what I said – East Coast and West Coast were keys to a huge-huge monster success. In the back of my mind I’d always knew that if we’re going to be a big national\international group, Glen Buxton would have a heavy hand in making that happen. This is what became so special. We were writing the album – the songs were great! It was really Glen’s album. But when we came to writing “School’s Out”, Glen came with intro which became now one of the most notable songs. You can tell “This is it!” from the intro. It was Glen Buxton – it was his idea for the intro of the song. And Glen put the solo on the top of the song. And that song was the one…I’m thinking about it now remembering how exciting it was, Dan. That was the song that kicked the f*cking doors opened in New York, kicked the f*cking doors opened in Los Angeles. And all of a sudden Alice Cooper, the group became known across United States. After the release “School’s Out” became double platinum. Almost 50 years later they’re still playing that song. And it humbles me and makes me very happy. Unfortunately Glen is not here anymore. But it was his baby. And that’s why that album was so incredible and special. And that’s what made it one of my favorite Alice Cooper’ group albums.
Punk Globe: It seems that with each record your sound was defining itself. And talking about the sound I don’t mean the sound of Glen’s or Michael’s guitar or the bass-parts of Dennis. It’s quite understandable that the whole band matures. But getting all that recognition, did you have any doubts about the direction you should move to ?
Neal: These were just one of these minutes when the songs kept coming. Michael was writing a lot of music, I was writing and Dennis as well. It just kept coming! And if lots of songs keep coming, what you’re going to do ? - Pick and choose one you’re gonna work on. And it’s always going to be evolving, one way or another. After you wrote something one time, the next – couple of years later would be different. ‘Cause your influences changed over time. That’s the part of life. We were just very-very lucky that “Love It To Death” let to “Killer”, “Killer” to “School’s Out” and “Billion Dollar Babies”. And “Muscle Of Love” which is still, one of my favorite albums. But it just kept evolving all the time. And that was one of the magical parts of it. We didn’t go outside as a band. We did that twice – two songs through all career outside of Alice Cooper songwriting machine: “Sun Arise” on “Love It To Death” album. And “Hello Hooray” by Judy Collins on “Billion Dollar Babies”. So the music was always coming. You can’t really control it. Even to this day, with my “KillSmith Goes West” album – when the songs come, I just have to write them. I don’t force music. I just let it come out naturally. And that’s, I think what helps you to do the best. That’s what we were doing then. By ourselves or with Bob Ezrin, Jack Richardson, Jack Douglas who also worked with us on “Muscle of Love” album. They take the songs, roll them together, they produced them and then…magic happens!
Punk Globe: How you usually write your songs ?
Neal: The way I write…It can be music first. Or lyrics first. There’s not a formula. It’s not me saying: “This is how I’m going do to this!” because, I can be on the keyboard, sometimes I can be on drums either. Sometimes I can be on guitar. Sometimes I just sing melody. Sometimes I write lyrics down. So there’s no formula. For me, it can go a lot of directions. When I write songs, I usually imagine Alice singing – that’s the band I relate to the most. Also, a lot of my solo-music, I imagine myself singing as well. So there’s no certain formula for doing that. Sometimes it can be very emotional. Sometimes I may come up with the feeling of a song. And then, you did the music and you have words for it. I’m not overthinking it. I’m not a big philosopher when it comes to songwriting. The very first lyrics I wrote were for a song called “Apple Bush” on “Pretties Of You” album. That was the first time in my life. And the time I was going to as young men. I was in my late-teens figuring out if I want to follow my musical career or more traditional career in my life. That was the struggle I was going through. That was emotional. I wrote it down – some metaphorical lyrics. That was unique. I sort of wrote it about my sister, and my mother – a single divorced mother. About my sister Cindy, our mother and myself…So that was very personal. Then I don’t really write a lot about that. Sometimes it sounds like you’re writing about relationships etc. But all you have to do – watch TV for a week and find thousands of different inspirations writing a song ( laughs ). There are lots of truths. But for me, the main secret about songwriting is TO START IT! You have to come up with the idea somewhere. So I figured, the more ways I can start a song – whether it’s on guitar, on keyboards, drums, lyrics –whatever it is, that’s a good thing. Because, I have so many ways to get inspired and write a song.
Punk Globe: Despite your work on a few solo-records. I know that you’re working on a memoir right now. Could you please tell the readers a little bit about the book itself ?
Neal: I’ve been working a lot of time on it. After introduction to The Hall Of Fame, I got back into the music – a little bit more. And I retired from real-estate business after 25 years. So I’m more concentrating to music. I’ll get back to it. I’m more a half way to finish it. It’s about my life as musician. A lot of that deals with the band, of course. I did a lot of music before I was able with this group of players – Dennis, Alice and Glen. So it’s truly my life’s story but basically to the end of the band. And the history of course. We haven’t talked about it. But history is an important part of it. I think The Vietnam War was an important part of the mentality of music if the late 60’s. The first time war came on television. Everybody could watch it every night on the nightly news. There was a lot of violence. It was a national story. It drew Unites States together. And also, pulled United States apart, with people who were against the war. There was a lot going on with gay-rights, with women’s rights and black struggle. There was a lot happening in news and sports. And I like to bring it to my book – that was sometimes you think about a lot, when you going through those times of your life. And they influence you. A lot of people don’t talk about that. But the history we’re living through – the history of 60’s and 70’s, most people leave this element out of their stories. I like to bring it in! I think it’s very critical part of the psyching of you’re going through, creating this time.
Punk Globe: And the last question, being a musician through many-many decades you have observed the beginning and transformation of rock-n-roll. So nowadays, for you, is it still as powerful as it was back in the day?
Neal: That’s not only a great question. But perspective. I think, Europe and some places on the globe still love rock-n-roll. But United States, if not hip-hop or rap-country but pop-country. I haven’t heard the new rock-groups in United States Of America for ages. I’m not as optimistic as Alice – if you’d seen some of Alice’s reviews about the things he thinks are gonna be huge in rock but I think, music in general is reflection of society. It used to be very rebellion if 60’s and 70’s. Then it became a little blend in the 80’s – everybody had a long hair and there were hair-bands. Everybody tried to be cooler than anybody else. But there’s no rebellious elements to rock anymore. It titled “rock” but…In the 90’s with grunge, there was a little splurge but after that I haven’t seen anything unique to any area The UK used to be. In UK we did great over there in 2017. But again, are there any new bands playing and breaking ? I don’t know…Finland is a huge heavy-metal Mecca. And Scandinavia. That’s why I love it there! These are last passionate about rock places, on the planet. Finish band – Lordi, I was looking at their career. I think they’re fantastic! Rammstein from Germany, there’re just phenomenal! But they can’t really break United States! They still do great shows in Europe and UK. I’m not as optimistic as some people are about the future of rock. I think Rock-N-Roll Hall Of Fame as you see – the acts are getting there for a couple of years already, are acts you haven’t heard of! Pop-acts. Rap-acts are going there too. It’s becoming diverse because of positional new inductees. So getting to the beginning…I’d love to think that. And I know there are a lot of people playing music. I’m not a perfect person. I don’t travel over the world all the time to really see music, and experience live-music. In New England area, where I’m from…Around Boston there’s a lot of live-music. But around Connecticut, where I live, it’s very hard. Bands I know – they’re playing in restaurants and clubs. There’s not even musical clubs unfortunately. In Arizona, there are a lot of bands. So I like to think there’s a future for rock…I hear music. There’s a show this year for Superbowl – with Jey Lo and other girl. And…it’s all pop! So they don’t have the band like The Stones and The Who playing anymore at the Superbowl. I don’t see that’s happening. Like I said – I’d like to be optimistic. Every generation has its own sound of music. And unfortunately I didn’t see this generation really going to rock in United States. I can’t speak about Canada, South America, Australia, Japan or Europe. But it certainly doesn’t seem like the younger audience lean to rock. It’s more pop and rap.
Recently, Neal Smith used to play Russian mob boss in “Desolation Angels/Rise of the BOAS” movie. Check it out at:
Neal Smith’s song for the movie:
Also, you may check out Neal’s current activities using these links: