Alice Cooper is celebrating his birthday and his career with a new single featuring the surviving members of his original band.
The song, "Social Debris," is from Alice's long-awaited Detroit Stories album due out on February 26. For the album, Alice reunited with his former band members drummer Neal Smith, bassist Dennis Dunaway and rhythm guitarist Michael Bruce. (Lead guitarist Glen Buxton died in 1997.)
"A gift to Detroit, to my fans and to myself," Cooper announced via social media on Thursday, giving fans a free download of the new song. "We always felt like we were social debris, we didn't fit in. Nobody plays like the original band. They were more dangerous than any other band."
Alice has explained in the past how much his band struggled to fit in (or find gigs) when it was starting out, playing gigs in Arizona and southern California. Detroit, he says, was the first U.S. city to accept the band.
“Los Angeles had its sound with The Doors, Love and Buffalo Springfield,” Cooper continued via his website. “San Francisco had the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. New York had the Rascals and the Velvet Underground. But Detroit was the birthplace of angry hard rock. After not fitting in anywhere in the U.S. (musically or image-wise), Detroit was the only place that recognized the Alice Cooper guitar-driven, hard-rock sound and our crazy stage show. Detroit was a haven for the outcasts."
You can stream "Social Debris" via the player at the top of this page.
Alice touts the song as an utter throwback that fits in perfectly with the band's late-'60s/early-'70s sound.
Smith, Dunaway and Bruce previously reunited for three tracks on Alice's 2017 Paranormal album.
Photo: Getty Images