November 30, 2025 • 8 mins
From humble beginnings to rock legends: Dennis Dunaway opens up about the early days of Alice Cooper, meeting Alice, and the journey of forming a band that would change music forever.
Listen to Episode 338 - Alice Cooper Bassist Dennis Dunaway
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Listen to Episode 338 - Alice Cooper Bassist Dennis Dunaway
15% OFF Any Purchase At Old Glory For Booked On Rock Listeners! — Over 300,000 officially licensed items. Featuring legendary music artists like Bob Marley, The Beatles,
Grateful Dead, and more. Use the code "BOOKEDONROCK" or hit this link:
https://oldglory.com/discount/BOOKEDONROCK
----------
Booked On Rock is part of The Boneless Podcasting Network
BookedOnRock.com
The Booked On Rock Store
The Booked On Rock YouTube Channel
Follow The Booked On Rock with Eric Senich:
BLUESKY
TIKTOK
X
Find Your Nearest Independent Bookstore
Contact The Booked On Rock Podcast: thebookedonrockpodcast@gmail.com
The Booked On Rock Music: “Whoosh” by Crowander / “Last Train North” & “No Mercy” by TrackTribe
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here's a highlight from a recent episode of Booked on Rock.
Our guest is Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Dennis Dunaway,
bassist for the legendary Alice Cooper group, who just recently
released their first studio album together in over fifty years.
I believe it's fifty two years, exactly, the Revenge of
Alice Cooper. You guys have been close all along the
(00:20):
band broke up, but it wasn't one of those things
where there was a lot of trash talking in the
media or anything like that. I mean, you guys remained
pretty cool, right.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
You know at Banda's family. You know, we were in
the same car, in the same hotel room, in the
same stage and everything for many years. So you know,
families all have certain things. You know that you nobody's perfect,
but you make it work. And we've all been friends.
(00:48):
I mean, Alice and I became friends when he was
fifteen or sixteen and I was seventeen. So you know,
we didn't get lawyers when things started going to rock.
Thinking that we started as friends, just a bunch of
high school buddies that had a dream and we achieved
(01:08):
that dream. We made it to the top of the
glittery rock pile, and we didn't want to lose our
friendship over it. And also at the time, we thought,
if we get lawyers involved, that'll be the nail in
the coffin for anything ever happening again. We didn't know
it would take fifty two years. But that was the
(01:31):
thinking that there's a story that you had.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Told in one interview to which I love about Glenn
when he went over to his house and you were
hanging out in his bedroom and playing some records, playing
some Stones records, and you guys, go back that far.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
That's how I learned to play bass. When I bought
my bass, Glenn went with me. We went to Montgomery
Wards and bought a beginner's bass, and then I went
over to Glenn's house and I didn't even know how
to tune it, you know, I had, I had. I
barely had an idea of what bass was because my
(02:09):
record player at the time you couldn't hear bass hardly
at all. The only thing, the only time I would
be notice bass was if I heard a jukebox somewhere,
you know. But Glenn, you know, the very first thing
he did, he set me down and he had his guitar,
and we sat down by the record player and he said, okay,
(02:29):
before we start, always remember one thing. The most important
thing is the feel. And then he taught me how
to tune. And then we learned through mostly Rolling Stones,
early Rolling Stones and Chuck Barry records and blues patterns,
and that's the other link to Glenn. On this album,
(02:51):
we have some songs that we wrote that are very
Glenn Buxton from that era, the kind of stuff that
he liked, including what Happened to You? But yeah, so
but you know, first of all, I had to get
Glenn out of bed because it was a weekend, and
Glenn has always been, uh, the hardest person in the
(03:13):
world to wake up. And so I went to his
house and I didn't really know him that well yet.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
You know, he was your bicycle. You got on your
bicycle and I rode.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
My bicycle and carried my base. Yeah uh uh. And
then I went in the and his mom said, oh,
he's down the hall there, the first door on the left,
you know, go wake him up. And I went in
Glenn's bedroom and all I saw he had ten foil
This is Phoenix, Arizona, so to block out the sun
(03:44):
he had tin foil over all of the window panes,
and then he's totally covered up except one foot sticking
out and TV guides all over the floor. Of course,
it's the carcase. But I had to wake him up,
you know, and he's all I could get out of
him was go away, you know. But but I was persistent,
(04:08):
and that wasn't the That wasn't the last time I
had to wake him up.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Oh man, Now, Alice, did he at the time Vincent Fernier?
That was the pronunciation.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Well, his family pronounces it Fernier, but Alice pronounces it Fernier.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Did he stand out right away? When when did you
first you were in class together? It?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yeah, he had charisma, except nobody would ever in a
million years think that he would be a lead singer
of a band. He was just a skinny little stick
with a big nose, you know. But but he's always
had a knack for making anything sound more interesting. He
(04:53):
would enhance even I used to say, he can make
opening a can of tuna fish sound interesting. But he
wouldn't go and try to collect people to listen to him.
He'd just always be in the classroom. And then next thing,
you know, he'd be surrounded by people because he'd be
telling stories, and Glenn used to be Glenn and I
(05:16):
would be standing off to the side, and Glenn used
to have this thing where he'd go after Alice would
be telling a story, Glenn would go twenty five. That
meant twenty five percent enhancement on the story.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Well, Alice is a great storyteller. I just saw a
recent interview with him, and you could tell he loves
to tell stories, and he tells them. He tells him
as good as anybody.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Absolutely, and you can't you know, I've heard him all
so many times and you just never get tired of him. Yeah,
you know, I just spoke today. I spoke to our
high school art teacher, Missus Sloan, who who is about
to become one hundred years old. Wow, And I spoke
(06:05):
to her for the first time since nineteen sixty seven.
And you know, I told her, and she didn't know this,
that Alis and I decided to start a band when
we were in her art class because the Beatles had
just come out, and we decided we wanted to start
(06:28):
a band and we wanted to incorporate ideas like Salvador,
Dolly surrealism and the New York pop art scene into
a band, and that happened in her classroom.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Wow, one hundred Yeah, how about that man. The final
chapter of the book covers the twenty eleven Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame induction. Since then, there have been
the occasional reunions, and now we have this amazing new
album that came out July with the original band. I
was going to ask if you thought about it adding
chapters for an updated edition, but I know that your wife,
(07:03):
Cindy may really be the answer to that question, because
she's working on something that it might be it might
be considered like a sequel to your book.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Cindy kept daily diaries. Not only that, but she has
all of the letters that her and Neil wrote home
to their mother, telling her what was going on every
step of the way.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
And for those who may not know, she's been with
the band from.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Nineteen sixty seven, since before we did Pretties for You. Yep, yeah, yeah,
Cindy was here when we were writing the songs for
Pretties for You. She got a job and helped feed
us and and designed our our look and was basically
(07:49):
our therapist. Yeah whatever, whatever, whatever the band needed. It
was a team and we all worked together. We had
the roadies, we had the management, we had. Everything was
all for this vision that we shared and we were
(08:09):
driven to achieve it, and there was there was no
roadblock that we never would throw in the towel ever.
You know, even when the band took a roll three
van full of band members, full of all of our equipment,
even a washing machine in the back, and we rolled
(08:29):
three times across the San Bernardino Freeway coming into La
in the nine o'clock in the morning rush hour, and
our equipment was destroyed and we didn't have money to
buy more equipment. So but did we throw in the towel. No,
We figured it out. And you know, that's like Frank
(08:52):
Sappa used to say, if you stay together long enough,
you'll make it
Here's a highlight from a recent episode of Booked on Rock.
Our guest is Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Dennis Dunaway,
bassist for the legendary Alice Cooper group, who just recently
released their first studio album together in over fifty years.
I believe it's fifty two years, exactly, the Revenge of
Alice Cooper. You guys have been close all along the
(00:20):
band broke up, but it wasn't one of those things
where there was a lot of trash talking in the
media or anything like that. I mean, you guys remained
pretty cool, right.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
You know at Banda's family. You know, we were in
the same car, in the same hotel room, in the
same stage and everything for many years. So you know,
families all have certain things. You know that you nobody's perfect,
but you make it work. And we've all been friends.
(00:48):
I mean, Alice and I became friends when he was
fifteen or sixteen and I was seventeen. So you know,
we didn't get lawyers when things started going to rock.
Thinking that we started as friends, just a bunch of
high school buddies that had a dream and we achieved
(01:08):
that dream. We made it to the top of the
glittery rock pile, and we didn't want to lose our
friendship over it. And also at the time, we thought,
if we get lawyers involved, that'll be the nail in
the coffin for anything ever happening again. We didn't know
it would take fifty two years. But that was the
(01:31):
thinking that there's a story that you had.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Told in one interview to which I love about Glenn
when he went over to his house and you were
hanging out in his bedroom and playing some records, playing
some Stones records, and you guys, go back that far.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
That's how I learned to play bass. When I bought
my bass, Glenn went with me. We went to Montgomery
Wards and bought a beginner's bass, and then I went
over to Glenn's house and I didn't even know how
to tune it, you know, I had, I had. I
barely had an idea of what bass was because my
(02:09):
record player at the time you couldn't hear bass hardly
at all. The only thing, the only time I would
be notice bass was if I heard a jukebox somewhere,
you know. But Glenn, you know, the very first thing
he did, he set me down and he had his guitar,
and we sat down by the record player and he said, okay,
(02:29):
before we start, always remember one thing. The most important
thing is the feel. And then he taught me how
to tune. And then we learned through mostly Rolling Stones,
early Rolling Stones and Chuck Barry records and blues patterns,
and that's the other link to Glenn. On this album,
(02:51):
we have some songs that we wrote that are very
Glenn Buxton from that era, the kind of stuff that
he liked, including what Happened to You? But yeah, so
but you know, first of all, I had to get
Glenn out of bed because it was a weekend, and
Glenn has always been, uh, the hardest person in the
(03:13):
world to wake up. And so I went to his
house and I didn't really know him that well yet.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
You know, he was your bicycle. You got on your
bicycle and I rode.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
My bicycle and carried my base. Yeah uh uh. And
then I went in the and his mom said, oh,
he's down the hall there, the first door on the left,
you know, go wake him up. And I went in
Glenn's bedroom and all I saw he had ten foil
This is Phoenix, Arizona, so to block out the sun
(03:44):
he had tin foil over all of the window panes,
and then he's totally covered up except one foot sticking
out and TV guides all over the floor. Of course,
it's the carcase. But I had to wake him up,
you know, and he's all I could get out of
him was go away, you know. But but I was persistent,
(04:08):
and that wasn't the That wasn't the last time I
had to wake him up.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Oh man, Now, Alice, did he at the time Vincent Fernier?
That was the pronunciation.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Well, his family pronounces it Fernier, but Alice pronounces it Fernier.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Did he stand out right away? When when did you
first you were in class together? It?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yeah, he had charisma, except nobody would ever in a
million years think that he would be a lead singer
of a band. He was just a skinny little stick
with a big nose, you know. But but he's always
had a knack for making anything sound more interesting. He
(04:53):
would enhance even I used to say, he can make
opening a can of tuna fish sound interesting. But he
wouldn't go and try to collect people to listen to him.
He'd just always be in the classroom. And then next thing,
you know, he'd be surrounded by people because he'd be
telling stories, and Glenn used to be Glenn and I
(05:16):
would be standing off to the side, and Glenn used
to have this thing where he'd go after Alice would
be telling a story, Glenn would go twenty five. That
meant twenty five percent enhancement on the story.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Well, Alice is a great storyteller. I just saw a
recent interview with him, and you could tell he loves
to tell stories, and he tells them. He tells him
as good as anybody.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Absolutely, and you can't you know, I've heard him all
so many times and you just never get tired of him. Yeah,
you know, I just spoke today. I spoke to our
high school art teacher, Missus Sloan, who who is about
to become one hundred years old. Wow, And I spoke
(06:05):
to her for the first time since nineteen sixty seven.
And you know, I told her, and she didn't know this,
that Alis and I decided to start a band when
we were in her art class because the Beatles had
just come out, and we decided we wanted to start
(06:28):
a band and we wanted to incorporate ideas like Salvador,
Dolly surrealism and the New York pop art scene into
a band, and that happened in her classroom.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Wow, one hundred Yeah, how about that man. The final
chapter of the book covers the twenty eleven Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame induction. Since then, there have been
the occasional reunions, and now we have this amazing new
album that came out July with the original band. I
was going to ask if you thought about it adding
chapters for an updated edition, but I know that your wife,
(07:03):
Cindy may really be the answer to that question, because
she's working on something that it might be it might
be considered like a sequel to your book.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Cindy kept daily diaries. Not only that, but she has
all of the letters that her and Neil wrote home
to their mother, telling her what was going on every
step of the way.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
And for those who may not know, she's been with
the band from.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Nineteen sixty seven, since before we did Pretties for You. Yep, yeah, yeah,
Cindy was here when we were writing the songs for
Pretties for You. She got a job and helped feed
us and and designed our our look and was basically
(07:49):
our therapist. Yeah whatever, whatever, whatever the band needed. It
was a team and we all worked together. We had
the roadies, we had the management, we had. Everything was
all for this vision that we shared and we were
(08:09):
driven to achieve it, and there was there was no
roadblock that we never would throw in the towel ever.
You know, even when the band took a roll three
van full of band members, full of all of our equipment,
even a washing machine in the back, and we rolled
(08:29):
three times across the San Bernardino Freeway coming into La
in the nine o'clock in the morning rush hour, and
our equipment was destroyed and we didn't have money to
buy more equipment. So but did we throw in the towel. No,
We figured it out. And you know, that's like Frank
(08:52):
Sappa used to say, if you stay together long enough,
you'll make it
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