Joe Perry on working with Paul McCartney on Hollywood Vampires

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Joe Perry Says Working with Paul McCartney on Alice Cooper's "Hollywood Vampires" Album Was "an Ego Leveler"
WFJA 105.5
August 25, 2015



Aerosmith‘s Joe Perry is one of the many famous musicians who Alice Cooper and movie star Johnny Depp tapped to record the soon-to-be-released album Hollywood Vampires, which pays tribute to some of the late rock stars that Cooper partied with during the 1970s as part of an informal drinking club of the same name.  As big a star as Perry is, he admits that he was in awe of one of the album’s other contributors with whom he had the chance to collaborate…Paul McCartney.

McCartney appears on a cover of the 1970 Badfinger hit “Come and Get It,” a song that he wrote.  Perry, Cooper and Depp also took part in the session for the new version of the tune, and Joe tells ABC Radio that everyone was psyched to be in the presence of the Beatles legend.

“We were really grateful to have him come in and cut the track,” he maintains.  “I mean, for all of us, it was like, ‘Holy s***, we’re actually doing a session with Paul McCartney….I mean, talk about an ego leveler.”

Perry adds that during the session, which was done live in the studio, he, Depp and Cooper “were looking at each other like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening.'”

Joe tells ABC Radio that, like many other musicians who grew up during the 1960s, he credits The Beatles with inspiring his career path.

“I remember watching them on [The] Ed Sullivan [Show] when I was 14…I mean, that why I’m doing what I’m doing today,” he points out. “And to have [McCartney] just strolling in like any [of the] other cats that played on [the album] was really amazing.  I still can’t believe it.”

Perry also says he always thought “Come and Get It” was “a really good tune,” but getting to “play it live with the guy who wrote it, and a Beatle was, like, stunning.”

Perry also is featured on three other tracks on the Hollywood Vampires album, while the cast of musicians who contributed to the project also includes AC/DC‘s Brian Johnson, Joe Walsh, The Doors‘ Robby Krieger, Slash, Dave Grohl and Perry Farrell, among other stars.

Perry notes that because of the wide range of artists who lent their talents to the project, and their various commitments, the album took more than two years to come together.

“The whole thing just took time, you know, getting people’s schedules working and kind of having the whole thing mesh,” he explains.

As previously reported, Perry also is part of the performing lineup of the Hollywood Vampires — along with Cooper, Depp, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum — which has scheduled a pair of shows, on September 16 and 17, at the Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood, California, as well as a September 24 appearance at the Rock in Rio Festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

As for whether some of the other stars featured on Hollywood Vampires might take part in the shows, Joe says, “We will be bringing guests up [during the Roxy concerts], depending on who’s in town.  And also, down at the show in Rio, if there are some other bands on the bill that fit in and know the songs, we might have some of them sit in too.”

Hollywood Vampires hits stores on September 11.