Dennis Dunaway

Connecticut’s Dennis Dunaway was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2011 as a founding member of the band Alice Cooper and won a Grammy for co-writing that band’s 1972 smash “School’s Out.”

The original Alice Cooper group sold millions of singles/albums and had the highest-grossing tour in 1973 (over Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones). Their album of that year, Billion Dollar Babies (recorded in Greenwich, Connecticut), hit #1 in both the US and UK and they’re recognized as the innovators of theatrical rock shows, which featured giant balloons, mock hangings and snakes (not to mention spidery eye makeup). The original Alice Cooper lineup recorded three songs on Alice’s solo album Welcome 2 My Nightmare (UME, 2011) and re-recorded “School’s Out” with Joe Perry and Johnny Depp for the Hollywood Vampires’ self-titled 2015 debut album.

Recent albums/tours, Films, Snakes! Guillotines! Chairs!

Alice Cooper recorded a new album in 2017, Paranormal (EarMusic), with producer Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd, Deep Purple). Also that year, original band members Alice Cooper (b. Vincent Furnier), Dunaway, Michael Bruce and Neal Smith reunited for a UK tour. The group has made four movies – Diary of a Mad Housewife, Good to See You Again: Alice Cooper and Super Duper Alice Cooper – and Dunaway’s book Snakes! Guillotines! Electric Chairs!: My Adventures in the Alice Cooper Group (Thomas Dunne Books, 2015) has been translated into German.

Outside of his work with Alice Cooper, Dunaway has recorded and toured with Blue Coupe, featuring Joe and Albert Bouchard of Blue Öyster Cult, and singers Tish and Snooky of Manic Panic.

(by Tony Renzoni)

Tony Renzoni is the author of Connecticut Rock ‘n’ Roll: A History (The History Press, 2017) and portions of this piece are taken from that book.