INTERVIEW: Neal Smith, founding member of Alice Cooper, goes west
Photo: Neal Smith’s new album is called KillSmith Goes West. Image courtesy of the artist / Provided by Glass Onyon PR with permission.
For fans of Alice Cooper, Neal Smith needs no introduction. The legendary drummer is a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer who helped define the “shock rock” sound and image back in the 1960s/1970s. His playing can be heard on six gold and five platinum records, including Killer, School’s Out and Billion Dollar Babies, according to his official biography, and beyond his time with Alice Cooper, he has stayed busy with a number of bands and projects.
One of his longest-lasting efforts is the KillSmith solo series, and earlier this year he released his fourth KillSmith album, titled KillSmith Goes West. For this recording effort, Smith and his band have put together 10 songs that are more in the country-western vein of music, but they still rock out and give credence to the blues along the way. Smith’s new album, featuring such songs as “Tequila, Tamales & A Woman,” “Pull It Out Smokin'” and “Evil Wind,” is now available.
“As a songwriter over the years, you write songs, and they never fit on an album,” Smith said about the origins of KillSmith Goes West. “Either it’s in a different field or subject matter, it’s not something that you found the right placement for. I had a couple songs. I started looking at them. Going through my inventory of songs, I’ve probably written over 200 songs in my lifetime, and I just saw a couple that seemed to be going in an interesting direction. It wouldn’t be what I call country-western, but it had a little more edge on it.”
One song — “Coffee, Beer & Borrowed Time” — Smith wrote in the early 1980s after his divorce. The subject matter, not surprisingly, deals with people breaking up. Another tune — “Evil Wind” — has a western vibe to it and features a story that Smith tells within a few minutes. This storytelling aspect is what ties each of the songs together.
“Another one, ‘Jukebox Rose,’ was a song I wrote in the ‘90s,” he said. “[I thought], you know what, maybe I can put these together as a KillSmith project, but KillSmith is usually pretty heavy metal. … I can make the subject matter have an edge on it, be something interesting. These just fell into place. I worked with Rick Tedesco, a guitar player who works with me, and he’s also the engineer. We record everything in his studio, and it just started to develop. I actually had about five or six additional songs, and they just didn’t fit. It didn’t fit the project, so I took them out. And I replaced them with two of the newer songs, and that was ‘Sunsets of Gold’ and ‘Tattooed Cowgirl.’”
Helping with some of that country sound is Arlen Roth, who plays lead guitar on a few songs. Gary Oleyar offers his fiddle work on some tunes as well. Joining them are Peter Catucci on bass guitar and backing vocals, Pete Hickey on keyboards, and Stu Daye on slide guitar and rhythm guitar. Tedesco holds down the fort on a number of instruments: lead, slide, rhythm and bass guitar, plus keys. He’s only outplayed by Smith himself, who is responsible for rhythm guitar, keys, drums and percussion.
“[I wanted to make] something maybe a little more refreshing than the typical country and western songs that you hear on the radio now, and my inspiration for these songs goes back to the people that actually used to tell stories with their music,” Smith said. “Like Frankie Laine with ‘Rawhide’ and Johnny Horton with the ‘Battle of New Orleans’ … Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, they were all storytelling, and I like to create a visual when I’m writing my songs. I think from what I’ve heard from people that have listened and enjoyed the music, I think I achieved that.”
KillSmith Goes West is just the latest exploration by Smith into the various genres of American music. He became a fan of music at a young age in the 1950s. He remembers loving the songs of Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Fats Domino, what he calls the first generation of rock ‘n’ rollers.
“And the second generation started with the Beach Boys going into the ‘60s,” he said. “Of course, the British Invasion was a huge inspiration for the Alice Cooper Group. Then came the ‘70s, and we looked at ourselves as the third generation of rock ‘n’ roll. Those early days really inspired me. Hollywood, TV — we had the great westerns back in the ‘50s, The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid, The Range Rider, Roy Rogers. There’s a huge list there, and I watched every single one of them. For Christmas or your birthday, you get the cap guns or the six guns and the spurs for your shoes and the cowboy hat and everything. It was a fun time. I had that growing up, and then you had the horror movies on TV and in the theaters. So it was a lot of fun entertainment back then. It’s all out there today, but it’s a little bit different. It sounds like it’s on steroids, but that’s cool.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Neal Smith’s new album, KillSmith Goes West, is now available. Click here for more information.
