WANT TO GO?
Who: Hollywood Vampires
Where: Fraze Pavilion, 695 Lincoln Park Blvd., Kettering
When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 12
Cost: $59 lawn & terrace in advance, $64 lawn & terrace day of show, VIP packages available
More info: 937-296-3300 or www.fraze.com
Artist info: www.hollywoodvampires.com
There's nothing new about actors taking a stab at music careers. It worked for Tab Hunter in the '50s and more recently for Jared Leto and his band Thirty Seconds to Mars. You can add Johnny Depp's name to that list with Hollywood Vampires, performing at Fraze Pavilion in Kettering on Tuesday, July 12.
>> RELATED: Can you help this superfan meet Johnny Depp?
Joe Perry of Aerosmith was in Los Angeles recently when he answered some questions about Hollywood Vampires, which features Alice Cooper and Depp, who played in rock bands before his acting career exploded in the early 1990s.
Q: How did you get involved with this group?
A: “We all know each other from different places going way back but this all just happened step by step. Johnny was doing the ‘Dark Shadows’ movie and they put Alice in a part. Johnny and Alice sat down and started plinking on guitars and they wrote a bunch of songs. When they came back and started recording, I was living about 20 yards from the studio so that worked out really well. Doing this wasn’t much of a jump for me and Alice but it was for Johnny and he’s loving it. He’s the first one to tell you acting is his day job but he’s a musician first.”
Q: What kind of input did you have in the song selection on the new album?
A: “That was pretty much laid out before I got involved. I kind of came in and did my guitar-slinger thing. Not that Johnny couldn’t do it but we wanted to play together and that’s how it worked out. The original idea was Alice was going to do an album of cover songs but when the concept of our dead, drunk friends came along and paying tribute to the people that have left the planet a little earlier than they should have, it really started to get some momentum for all of us. We’re not only paying tribute but we get a chance to play some of the great songs they wrote together. It’s one of those things where one thing led to another.”
Q: What’s it like looking over as seeing Alice and Johnny on stage beside you?
A: “It’s incredible. I don’t know what’s more entertaining for me, looking out at the audience and seeing them get off on a band like this or turning around and looking at the band myself and going, ‘I wish I was in the audience watching this’ because this band is great, I have to say.”
>> RELATED: 10 must-see concerts this summer
About the Author