The Revenge of Alice Cooper, a new studio album out July 25, may have never happened if not for Chris Penn, the veteran Dallas record store manager who was gaga over the ghoulish band behind “School’s Out” and “No More Mr. Nice Guy.”
Penn, who died in April at age 54, masterminded the reunion of the original Alice Cooper group in 2015. By hook and by crook, he pieced his favorite band back together at Good Records’ previous location on Greenville Avenue, leading to a surprise concert, a live album and a DVD. It was a rare revival for a group that had split up in 1974, when Alice left to launch a solo career.
“Getting it to happen was like playing a 3D chess game. But everything aligned and the band was on fire … it was kismet,” Penn told me in 2019, when the documentary Alice Cooper: Live From the Astroturf screened at the Dallas International Film Festival.
“The theme of the documentary is ‘You gotta believe.’ It’s one superfan with the drive to pull off something that everyone says ‘It’s never going to happen,’ ” Penn said. “This is the pinnacle of my career, in a way.”
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In 1987, when he was a teenager in San Antonio, Chris Penn, in the Aerosmith shirt, met Alice Cooper at a Sound Warehouse grand opening.((Courtesy Chris Penn))
After the Good Records show, Cooper (vocals), Dennis Dunaway (bass), Neil Smith (drums) and Michael Bruce (guitar, keys) kept in touch and reconvened in April to record The Revenge of Alice Cooper with their longtime producer Bob Ezrin. The band gives Penn a shout-out in the liner notes.
With no plans for the original group to tour, the 2015 gig on Greenville might stand as its most important reunion show.