When Audible announced its ongoing “Words + Music” audio program - in which some of rock’s biggest names combine storytelling with music - it made perfect sense that legendary shock rocker Alice Cooper participate in the series.

As evidenced by his newly-released entry, Who I Really Am: The Diary Of A Hollywood Vampire, Alice tells great story after great story. Throughout the audio memoir, he is comparable to a “rock ‘n’ roll Forrest Gump” - recounting experiences in which he crossed paths with the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Syd Barrett, Frank Zappa, John Lennon, and Keith Moon, among others.

Additionally, you’ll hear new acoustic versions of “School’s Out”, “Is It My Body” (a tune from which a line was plucked from for the title of his Audible release), “Poison”, and other classics.

The singer, who released a new album called Detroit Stories earlier this year, recently spoke with Heavy Consequence about his Who I Really Am audio memoir, which is now available here. In addition to chatting about his Audible project, such topics as his current tour with Ace Frehley, his classic anthem “School’s Out,” and the Hollywood Vampires were also discussed.

On how the idea come up to do Who I Really Am: "Well, they came to me with the idea of it. It was kind of intriguing, the idea that you would do some of these hit songs, acoustic versions. I’d never done that - I’ve always been very electric onstage. The idea of doing it for an audio memoir though, that makes sense - to do a different version of “School’s Out,” “Eighteen,” “Poison,” and those songs. It made it a little more intimate. You’re telling the story of your life, according to yourself, and then those songs just kind of come in. I always say that bands that have been around as long as us, the Stones, the Beatles - they’re a soundtrack for our life. Like, I go back to being 15 years old with the Stones and the Beatles.... I can just about tell you what car I had when this album came out. It’s kind of like that for some kids with me - they listen to 28 albums, and they go, “Wow. I remember the girl I was going out with when that song came out.” It’s great to be around for this long, and have a great story."

On whether he approached Who I Really Am differently than his earlier traditional autobiography, Golf Monster: "Yeah, I think we did. Because [producer] Bob Ezrin and I have been working together for so long — since 1969/1970. I’ve always trusted him to pull the best stuff out of me. Even when I’m doing vocals when we’re writing. The only two people in the world who understand Alice Cooper — the character — are Bob Ezrin and myself. We always speak of Alice in the third person. So, when I’m doing this audio memoir, I’m talking about Alice in the third person — because he’s a character that I play. And that kind of gives it a different perspective, too. But Bob totally understands that. He produced it in the studio, and we really worked on making sure that it said the right stuff."

Read more at Heavy Consequence.