Alice Cooper has worked with countless musicians during his reign over shock rock that has lasted more than four decades. With a new album on the horizon, the singer is getting the band back together — the original band!

“I’ve always liked the idea that Alice Cooper has always been a Detroit rock band. We’ve always been a hard rock band, guitar rock, and I’ll never give that up,” the icon told The Weekender. He went on to discuss dipping into the creative well of his past concerning a new album, stating, “Every once in awhile, though, there’s just a flavor of what album do we want to go to here to give it that flavor. And it seems to be going toward the Killer album. And I kind of go, that album, let’s revisit the sound of that album and what we were kind of thinking. You can never go back and totally recapture it, but you can certainly look at the elements that made that album work the way it did.”

Though his current backing band is a truly ironclad cast, Alice revealed he'll be working with some familiar faces from the early days to help recapture the vibe of the 1971 record. “I wrote three or four songs with Neil Smith [original drummer] and Mike Bruce [original guitarist], and so we worked together in Phoenix for about two weeks just writing songs and demoing songs. And you never know which ones are going to make the album, but I said let’s do that."

Alice didn't stop there, going on to detail, “Dennis Dunaway [original bassist] wrote two or three things. We haven’t seen those yet, but I know Dennis has always written great stuff." Excited at working with his old bandmates, he cautioned this is not an attempt to simply sound young again, but that, "It’s fun to go back and work with guys you haven’t worked with in awhile. It’s not trying to recapture your youth. It’s trying to recapture a sound, and it’s a very elusive sound.”

The surviving members of the original Alice Cooper band performed onstage together in October of last year for the first time since their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011. The event took place at Dennis Dunaway's book signing for Snakes! Guillotines! Electric Chairs!: My Adventures in the Alice Cooper Group where the band surprised fans fortunate enough to be in attendance. Replacing the deceased Glen Buxton was current Alice Cooper guitarist Ryan Roxie.

The classic lineup of the band is responsible for some of rock's greatest albums, including Love it to DeathKiller and Billion Dollar Babies along with the all-time hit "School's Out."

Alice Cooper is currently on a headlining "Spend the Night" tour, which will extend through May 21. The shock rocker will head back out on the road again in August and October for two more jaunts. A full list of dates can be seen at our 2016 Guide to Rock + Metal Tours.

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