← Behind The Song: Classic Rock Chronicles
Behind The Song: Classic Rock Chronicles
Janda and Christian talk Alice Cooper, Hollywood, and "Guitarmonies!"
00:14:56
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- [00:00]
A
97.1Fm the drive presents the behind the Song podcast, taking you deeper into classic rock's most timeless tunes. Here's your host, Janda.
- [00:11]
B
Yes, I'm Janda, joined today by behind the Song music producer, who also happens to be my husband, Christian Lane. Hi, Christian.
- [00:20]
A
Hello, everyone out there.
- [00:21]
B
So we're gonna chat today about a couple of things based on the last behind the Song episode, which was about no more Mr. Nice Guy by Alice Cooper. We're gonna talk about Alice Cooper and some interesting things that both you and I found out while we were putting that podcast together. Where shall we begin?
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A
Anything that you wanna bring up that didn't make any episode is interesting and good. So start there.
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B
Well, when you're talking about a guy like Alice Cooper, I can't think of a thing that he has set out to do that he hasn't accomplished, including totally freaking out parents around the world.
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A
Fact.
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B
He'S really kind of a special artist because of the way I think that he approaches his craft. You know, there was always that sort of horror show element to it, which is based on sort of vaudevillian stuff, making a show that people wanted to come and pay to see. I just thought that was so cool. And he was, you know, very good friends with Groucho Marx.
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A
Those two probably understood each other's sense of humor pretty well.
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B
And that's what I kept coming back to with getting into, you know, the. The mindset of Alice Cooper putting together the no More Mr. Nice Guy episode is that he has such a well honed sense of humor. It's. It's awesome. And of course, he was friends with Groucho Marx. And this is one of the coolest stories that I ran across that didn't make it into the podcast episode. In the late 70s, the Hollywood sign is in. In Hollywood was like, decrepit. I mean, it was about to fall down. Nobody cared about it, nobody was thinking about it. Nobody looked at it as like a landmark, an iconic landmark, which of course it is. So Alice Cooper said, I'm gonna take care of one of these O's in the Hollywood sign, the letter O for Groucho. He dedicated it to Groucho. And he was the first one to kind of take up this cause, to rejuvenate and repair and save, really, the Hollywood sign in la. So he took care of the O. It was about $27,000. Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers Records went and picked it up from there. Hugh Hefner, the guy that started Kelley Blue Book.
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A
Yeah, the car pricing guy.
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B
Yep.
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A
Amazing.
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B
Yep. He took care of one of the letters Gene Autry took care of. I think it was an L. And.
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A
It'S crazy to think that there was a time when that wasn't just a given as part of the landscape. The Hollywood sign is so important. I mean, you know, we live there. Southern California is so tied to its industry, which is the dream factory of Hollywood and mind blowing stuff right there.
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B
So. And it was kind of Alice Cooper that really picked up that mantle and ran with it. And who knows? I mean, we may not have a Hollywood sign now.
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A
Thank you, Alice Cooper.
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B
Thank you, Alice Cooper. That's right. For. For not allowing that land to be turned into a condo, which it certainly would have been. And this, it's that kind of wild stuff. I mean, here was a guy, you know, he grew up in Detroit, religious, you know, family moved to Arizona. You know, he's in the band. They start going to Los angeles, like late 60s. And then, you know, they start, you know, they get signed with Zappa's label and then didn't hit for a while. And then they finally did hit. He got some money and is the kind of thing that he started to do, which I just think is really incredible.
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A
Well, in speaking of another person that would see the, the magic and the intent of what Alice Cooper is doing, Frank Zappa, he's got, you know, he was a great spotter of talent.
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B
When Alice Cooper, the band were coming out onto the, you know, the scene at large, everything was all about peace and love. Peace and love. Hippie dippy. It was San Francisco culture really pushing the, the music thing forward with all the bands in the San Francisco area who were very much a part of that, you know, free love movement.
- [04:21]
A
And yeah, I mean, it was the time of the Dead starting their, like, road domination of the 70s and bands like that, you know, it was very much still a hippie carryover from the 60s. And yeah, what a shocker. You must like, wow. I mean, it's just context is everything. And that context is incredible when you think about time and place. And here comes Alice Cooper with that eye makeup.
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B
We are probably a little bit immune to how shocking it all was because I, I cannot remember a time when Alice Cooper wasn't in existence and wasn't, you know, doing something in, you know, music, TV shows or movies.
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A
Our entire lifetime he's been a presence. None of this is possible without excellent albums and great songs and great performances. You can be shocking all you want, but if you don't have the goods, you're definitely not going to have the staying power that he's had. But you're not. I don't even think you're going to break through, you know. What we have with him also is anthems, undeniable anthems, because the songs are so good.
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B
Yeah. And that, I think, has a lot to do with. And let's. Let's also give props to the classic lineup of Alice Cooper. You know, he had a great band there for. We're talking about the Billion Dollar Babies album primarily right here. He had a great band that had been together for a very, very long time and knew one another very well and were making great music together. And then we also have an excellent producer in Bob Ezrin, who most people, I think, you know, when you think of Bob Ezrin, you're kind of like, wow, that's the guy who produced the Wall by Pink Floyd. But he also produced 11 Alice Cooper band and Alice Cooper solo albums, and he was working with Alice Cooper before getting to Pink Floyd. So he's.
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A
He's essentially Alice Cooper, the band's George Martin. I find what happens as a musician observing these things, I find what happens when bands click with the producer and stay with them. Their vision is really realized. They get to really realize their vision. That's when magic happens and truly classic rock albums are made.
- [06:49]
B
When you think of, like, great producers, you know, I'm going to think of. I think of Jimmy Iovine with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, you know, Rick Rubin, also with Tom Petty, you know, Bob Ezrin, who not only worked with Alice Cooper and Pink Floyd, but also Kiss. And the list goes on and on and on. With Bob Ezrin, you know, these people are, like you said, they're instrumental in putting the vision of the band on record. But that also includes dealing with the, you know, a handful of personalities. You have to trust this person completely, and they have to believe in your vision, too. But nobody can be a pushover either.
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A
No, that's the thing. I mean, there's. There's a lot of give and take and there's a lot of massaging egos because especially as you progress with the band after a few hits and a few successes, you know, it's just natural. It's just human nature. The egos get bigger and everybody wants to make sure that their importance to the band is known. But, like, you know, you can love the way a producer's records sound, but he might not be able to manage your band. So it's just there's so many factors that could make it not work. That when it does and when they make 11 albums, when you make 11 albums together, I mean that's, that's certainly a sign of it working. I just want to mention one other thing about Bob Ezrin that I think is really cool. He made the first Peter Gabriel record. And it's very, you know, it's a very challenging record on some levels. For one thing, there are no hi hats on the record. Kind of like the. It's the thing that made be like in disco really propels it. It's. It's very important. It's very, it's. It's such a staple of rock music in particular and the way the beat is driven. And I. I believe on that record, even though, you know, he was no longer in Genesis, he was getting Phil Collins to play drums. But he told him you can't use hi hats and.
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B
Right.
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A
And so. But Bob Ezrin is a genius in his own right. And you know, they came up with different ways to propel the beats without using hi hats and just with studio trickery. And so he is a great technician as well. And he's someone who's not flummoxed by a non traditional sort of suggestion in the studio. And I just, you know, as I was kind of looking into, you know, when I do the music for these things, I tend to look into the producer and where it was recorded and what gear they used and all that stuff. And as I was reading about him, I was continually delighted by some of the little things like that that he did along the way and some of the inventiveness that on the.
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B
On a technical level, in Billion Dollar Babies, one of the things that. That I'd like to touch on from sort of your world of things is in the 70s, guitarmony was. Was so popular and such a thing to do. And you certainly had a lot of guitar. Many two. Two guys rhythm in the lead playing at the same time. Kind of like Thin Lizzy also did this a lot.
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A
Two guitars doing sort of a harmony part or a second guitar playing harmony much like you would here. Think of the Beatles singing together. It's just a kind of a funny term that musicians started using for the two guitar attack. But when they're actually doing complimentary things in Thin Lizzy being Boys Are Back in Town.
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B
Great example.
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A
Breakdown. So that's probably the Platonic ideal of guitarmony right there. Yeah, it crops up all over the 70s. You know, I think I mentioned this to you when I started recording this or learning it to record it is that I just always love these 70s bands where they're not both playing kind of the same thing, you know, which you kind of found in the 90s 90s. If there was two guitar players, they. They tended to play a lot of the same power chords until one did a solo and then they went back to both playing kind of power chords, which is fine. But in the 70s, they were each taking on different part, genuinely taking on different parts. And like in this one, there's. There's a guitarmany in the chorus. My whole life listening to it, I just assumed it was one part. Then I realized as I was learning it, I had to learn two separate parts, bring them together to make that sound.
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B
I think we should hear a little bit of that now.
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A
Yes.
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B
So this is the guitarmany that we're talking about in Alice Cooper's no more Mr. Nice Guy, Christian's Recreation. This would have been the parts in the band that Glenn Buxton on lead and Michael Bruce on rhythm did play.
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A
Yes. So. So you see where they. They kind of come together and, you know, one on its own would be cool, but it wouldn't be that part. That's one of the things I love about when we do 70s stuff. You know, the Allman Brothers guitarmony. I mean.
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B
Right. Perfect. Wow.
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A
Just rife with guitar me.
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B
But I mean, we could probably do an entire epis just on guitar. Mani from the 70s, Skynyrd, stones have it.
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A
I mean, and, you know, you get surprising examples of it just all over the place. They were thinking in terms of arrangements. And by that, I mean, who's going to come in when and what shade and what color they're going to bring to it. And you know. And again, that's why these songs are classic. And that's why this period of music is, you know, is referred to as classic rock. It's part of it is because they were pushing the boundaries of what a pop or rock song could be. You know, they were thinking classical music. Like, why can't this be as considered as classical music? Like they genuinely were. And often that borders on pretension, but often it pushes the edges of what a rock and roll song can be and puts it into arena of classic rock. Yeah. Fascinating stuff.
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B
For me, the next episode of behind the Song about a song will be coming later in November and the month is the hint.
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A
Oh, yeah. I was going to say, are you going to tease it? But you just did.
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B
Yeah, so. So that'll be coming down the pipe way soon. Christian, obviously we talk about this stuff till all hours of the day and night. And I appreciate you stepping in to do this little bonus with us because I just thought that some of the stuff that we uncovered, Alice Cooper and with the making of Billion Dollar Babies, was, was so cool. So thank you for your musical input on this particular type of song. Thank you.
- [14:11]
A
Of course. I, I, I just have to say, you know, you're, you do such good research for these episodes, and I feel like, you know, that term, they left it on the cutting room floor. There's so much that you have to leave on the cutting room floor. So I think it's great to talk about this stuff, and I really enjoyed it. And thanks for giving me a chance on about, you know, a little bit about what I do or what I find fascinating about these episodes.
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B
And thank you all for listening to behind the Song or watching it on YouTube or Tik Tok or downloading it or streaming it@wdrv.com or on our app. And until next time, much more classic rock and roll.