In a new interview with Steve Batlin from Forbes, Alice Cooper talks about his new podcast, Guns ‘N’ Roses, Jimmy Page and hanging with Pink Floyd in 1968. Here are a few excerpts from the chat:

Forbes: Was the podcast always intended to come out during this time frame or was the release sped up to come out during the quarantine?

Cooper: “We had planned the podcast before. We've been doing the radio show for 16 years and the podcast came up four or five months ago. I said, ‘What is it?’ And they said, ‘The idea is to take old interviews and for you to go into that interview and either explain it or be the narrator, the voice over top of these. Because every single interview, even if it's not your interview is somebody you know or have interviewed. So it's not like this is somebody you've never talked to before.’ So I kind of go in and do insight into that person or before they're talking. What it does is bring up all these great interviews that were kind of lost. You hear them once and they're gone. And I said, ‘Wait a minute, they're like records. What if we want to hear what Jimmy Page has to say about this? What if we want to hear what Slash says about that or whoever?’ So it's taking these interviews and turning them into something new all over again.” 

Forbes: At times it becomes overwhelming to think of the interviews you have done. Like it took me years to appreciate interviewing James Brown. Do you have that experience?

Cooper: “Yeah, I forgot a lot of these interviews. I totally forgot that I interviewed Jimmy Page. I've known Jimmy since 1968. We did the Whisky A Go Go together, but I totally forgot that interview. And in that interview there was never any mention of him going back in to all the Led Zeppelin albums and remixing them. And I think at the time they were still up in the air about Zeppelin getting back together. Of course that never happened and everybody in the whole world went, ‘Why? Everybody's still viable except the drummer and they've got his son who plays just like his dad.’ So I think it is a bit of a game to listen to what was supposed to happen, what didn't happen, what wasn't supposed to happen that did happen and it's a little bit shocking to see we don't have any control over what is going to happen.”

Forbes: This is an obvious question but is there one person you'd like to interview you never have?

Cooper: “Oh yeah, who wouldn't want to interview Bob Dylan? I've never interviewed Bob Dylan. And the easiest one in the world would be Paul McCartney. He's the nicest person you've ever met in your life. I did a really good interview with Jeff Beck one time. In fact I said I look at it this way: Jimmy Page best rock and roll guitar player; Jimi Hendrix, most inventive guitar player; Eric Clapton best blues player; Jeff Beck, best guitar player. And he went, ‘Yeah, that's right.’” 

Forbes: Even listening to the Slash one that was true as I was surprised at how open he was with you about the friction in Guns 'N' Roses at the time. I don't think he would have been that open with a journalist.

Cooper: “It was so obvious that there was such a tumor going on with Guns 'N' Roses. I took them on their first tour and a band cannot be as good as they are without being best friends. If you starve together, get high together, get arrested together, if somebody died and you cried together, you go through a lot of stuff when you're in a band early on. You really do become brothers. So those guys knowing that I've gone through the exact same thing as they have they can open up cause they know you know what they mean. As a fellow musician I totally get what he's talking about. I've been there. I know exactly what that is.” 

Read more at Forbes.