Legendary Rock Interviews' John Parks has issued an interview he conducted with longtime ALICE COOPER guitarist Steve Hunter, who talks about a new album, classic Alice records, the Michigan scene and more. An excerpt follows:

Q: You were friendly with the original Alice Cooper band before and after the breakup of the original lineup weren’t you Steve?

A: "Oh, absolutely. They were all great guys, I met them in 1971. I got along really great with Glen (Buxton, late Alice Cooper guitarist) and also Michael (Bruce, guitarist) and even Neal Smith (drummer). Dennis (Dunaway, bassist) was kind of a quiet, shy guy in those days until he got onstage where he became outrageous and cool as hell. Dennis was so quiet back then that I really didn’t know him as well as the other three guys in those days but now Dennis has become a really dear friend of mine. I knew all of those guys and when we played Detroit’s Cobo Hall they all came to the show. I love those guys, they’re still good friends of mine."

Q: Obviously Alice went on to have a very successful career as a solo artist and you have been a huge part of that but what did you make of the band dynamic of that original lineup?

A: "Well, it would make sense that they definitely had their own chemistry but bands are complex things. There’s band politics and culture and all these things that make a group work together and function well together and something always enters into the picture that you’re not expecting and you can’t always be ready for that all the time. It’s funny, some people compare a band to a marriage but I compare it to a living organism, to keep it alive all of the parts have to be functional and they all have to have a common, uniting goal. Look at the Rolling Stones. I wouldn’t think those guys are all like deep buddies with each other but they somehow or another manage to make that band function on an incredible level for 50 years. I think they discovered how to make those band dynamics work for them."

LRI: Do you have any particular memories about working with Alice and Bob Ezrin on 'Years Ago' and 'Steven' from the Nightmare album?

A: "Well, I’ll tell you they were as fun to do because they were so creepy. We really approached the Welcome To My Nightmare album like we were working on the score to a film, a horror film. It got really psychotic and really creepy and man did that make for some great music. I loved it. You got to sort of get into your own personal creepy mode; it was almost like you wanted to hide under the covers to play guitar on those tracks. It was really cool and all of my memories of Welcome To My Nightmare are all really wonderful."

Q: As you were working on the recordings were there already concepts or discussions about the stage show that would accompany the tour in 1975?

A: "Well, I didn’t know about that exactly first hand but I did know that they were already kicking around ideas about how to present the stage. I didn’t hear any specific ideas but I know they were having meetings. Welcome To My Nightmare was a total concept from the music to the staging and everything and I think you’re right, I think Alice and Shep (Gordon, famed Cooper manager) and Bob (Ezrin, producer) were all working on that behind the scenes. I didn’t really know until we got to the soundstage and I saw the stage for the first time."

Read the full interview here.