Guitarist Damon Johnson - "I’ve Been Having The Time Of My Life" With ALICE COOPER
Gnarly Charlie from
KNAC.com spoke to
ALICE COOPER guitarist
Damon Johnson (BROTHER CANE, SLAVE TO THE SYSTEM) recently about a number of topics. A few excerpts from the chat follow:
KNAC.com: How did the job with Alice Cooper come about?
Johnson: "Well, one of the guitar players here, right before I joined, was Eric Dover. Eric and I grew up together in Birmingham, Alabama. We kind of came up in the scene together there, and while I was in Brother Cane Eric did so many amazing things. He was in SNAKEPIT with SLASH and he was in JELLYFISH for a while, and had his own band IMPERIAL DRAG. He wound up working with Alice and he was getting ready to move on to do more of his own stuff. He just called me one night and he said 'Hey man, if you’ll just get to the audition, however you can … get there –you’ll get the gig.' I went ‘How can you be so sure?’ He says 'Well, because you sing, you play, and you write. You do all the things that Coop is gonna want in a guitar player.' I was just pretty skeptical. I was a fan of Alice growing up, for sure. I just assumed …I kind of went in there thinking it would be a little more image heavy, like he would want some guy to have the right look. At the time I auditioned my hair was really short –I don’t have any tats yet, man. My wife’s still on me to make that happen (laughs). And on top of that, our son, Gabriel, was born on a Tuesday and I flew to LA two days later for the audition. The night he was born, he and my wife are asleep in the hospital room and I’m sitting in the chair with my iPod learning all the songs that they had sent me the disc of for the audition. It worked out just like Eric said. I went out and jammed with those guys and it was a big deal the day that Alice called me and he said 'Hey, if you want the gig it’s yours.' And I’ve just been having the time of my life ever since."
KNAC.com: Did you know the whole song catalog prior to the audition?
Johnson: "I was a fan. I wasn’t a huge fan. There were probably 4 albums that I was really familiar with, but I remember talking with some of my friends, particularly on the West Coast and they all said the same thing. They’re like 'Man, you’re going to have so much fun, because Coop has so many great songs and it’s so guitar heavy.' It was that way right from the beginning. There hasn’t been one song that we’ve played in the set that I discount or sweep under the rug. They’re all amazing. They’re all great songs."
KNAC.com: You’re still involved in Brother Cane?
Johnson: "Well, yeah …I’m hanging on to this pipe dream that we’re going to be able to do another album, whether it’s with the whole original band or with some other guys. Brother Cane was always sort of my thing and it was definitely an outlet for me to show a lot of my Southern influences and things that I had grown up listening to. I love the history of that band, I love all the songs, and I love to go out and play them anytime. And if we can have the vehicle of a new album as some extra fuel to get out there and play –I would love that."
KNAC.com: How about Slave To The System?
Johnson: "Slave is something that I hope continues on forever. I just spoke to Scott (Rockenfield - QUEENSRŸCHE drummer) today, as a matter of fact. They’re in rehearsals at home in Seattle, getting ready to do another run of dates in the US. I think we’ve got eight songs in the can. I mean, written, recorded, mixed, ready, finished. If we can do another six or eight and then pick the best of that, we’d love to get the second album out as soon as possible."
To read the entire story head to this location.
http://knac.com/article.asp?ArticleID=4885
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