In a new interview with Hollywood Soapbox, original Alice Cooper band drummer, Neal Smith, reveals that the band's early days still linger in his memory.

“I think about everything,” he said in a long-ranging phone interview. “We were all best friends, and so it’s like when people go to college, that time in their late teens / early 20s, and they make really good friends. It’s like a lifetime bond, and so I think differently than just the success and what we did as a group. I also think about Glen Buxton and Mike Bruce and Dennis Dunaway and Alice and myself; the friendship that we created has been strong ever since.”

Smith has stayed busy since Alice Cooper disbanded in the mid-1970s. He was part of the Billion Dollar Babies with a few other original members and also has found success with his own outfit, KillSmith (celebrating 10 years in 2018 with a new album, KillSmith Halloween 2008-2018). Still, those memories with Alice Cooper are so present, as if they occurred yesterday.

“Since we were inducted into the [Rock and Roll] Hall of Fame in 2011, we’ve gotten together many times socially and as a band, so it’s never really gone away, especially in the last eight or nine years,” Smith said. “There’s been a lot that we’ve done, and the most exciting part again is the fans.”

It wasn’t until 1971’s Love It to Death, featuring “I’m Eighteen”, that the band started climbing the charts and gaining more of a place in the headlines. Then the song “School’s Out”, the title track of their 1972 album, catapulted them to newer heights.

“We just tried to do one album, one song at a time and pick a single off the album and have it do as well as the previous one or maybe even better,” Neal said. “But, of course, when ‘School’s Out’ came out, it just blew the whole thing out of the water. It was great, and I’ve got to tell you the truth, I’m still shocked. That was 1972. We’re closing in on 45, close to 50 years now, and the fact that it’s become a perennial song, comes around every year, it’s just amazing. I’m still surprised by it. I knew that back in the ’60s and ’70s, there were great summertime songs, but I never realized that half a century later that they’d still be playing ‘School’s Out’ every time the school year came around to an end and summer vacation was ready to go.”

Read more at HollywoodSoapbox.com.