Hollywood Vampires

[Noodle Lizard]

It's that good ol' fashioned rock 'n' roll supergroup comprising of Alice Cooper, Joe Perry and er ... Johnny Depp, as well as some bored-looking session musicians, so it's not even really a full supergroup.  They've been touring and occasionally releasing some of their own tunes for the past three years or so.  It's every bit as awful as it sounds, but they just released a live performance of their upcoming single (https://youtu.be/X9mjH3hM49o) which prompted me to try and indulge in a bit of schadenfreude and find some online excoriation.   However, it was surprisingly difficult to find anything especially negative about it, despite how blatantly shite and self-indulgent it all is.  So I'd like to do that here, if that's alright.

First of all, you've got the name: Hollywood Vampires, referring to the club of rock drinkers who'd hang out in LA in the 70s, which I guess Cooper founded, and included people like Keith Moon and John Lennon.  Thing is, Cooper himself has been a born-again teetotaler since the 80s and even spends his time offering counseling to other bands about their substance abuse, and I think Joe Perry's partying days are long behind him as well.  Now they're both old golf-playing Republicans who don't appear to really embody that spirit at all, yet there seems to be little self-awareness or -deprecation about that in the concept of this band.

Secondly, I'm convinced Johnny Depp can't even play guitar competently.  There's no other reason why this band needs an additional two guitarists on stage while he prances around with his own spotlight, and it seems as though Depp's amp is either very low in the mix or turned off entirely for a lot of it.  I saw a similar thing when he appeared on stage to play The Beautiful People with Marilyn Manson a few years ago where I don't think he was even plugged in (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObiNpAk1p-8).  It's fine to have a member just for the fame, and I expect nobody would be going to watch this shit without him, but at least get someone who's at all musically serviceable.

Low-hanging fruit, I know, but it fascinates me that this stuff is able to sell out concerts at the Greek and headline metal/rock festivals around the world despite its blatant lack of quality, and escaping with very little due piss-taking.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

seriously why the fuck do they all dress like that

[Noodle Lizard]

seriously why the fuck do they all dress like that

That's a good question.  There's a good tendency for musicians who accidentally inspire a "look" to abandon it themselves, try and distance themselves from it as much as possible.  See John Lydon, for instance, who I don't think has worn a lick of leather since the 70s, and plenty of goth/metal/punk bands abandoning the Mohawks and long hair and chains in favor of a "cleaner" look as imitation became popular.

For some reason, that hasn't affected the way 70s/80s glam rockers dress at all, despite their adherents possibly being the most commonplace.  If you walk into the Rainbow (where the Hollywood Vampires began) in 2019, you can't move for people who still look and dress exactly like Joe Perry or someone out of Motley Crue.   You'd think they'd have noticed that, been appropriately embarrassed and changed it up a bit.  But no.

[Noodle Lizard]

Also, let's have a word: you're creating a rock 'n' roll supergroup, can you think of a more boring guitarist to hire than Joe Perry of Aerosmith?  He sounds like absolute gash, playing the same solo over and over again. 

And Alice Cooper himself is half-dead.  Some musicians can pull it off right until the day they die, but someone who relied so much on theatrics and flamboyance ... I saw him play at Knebworth once, 2011 or so, and they just played School's Out twice in a row.  He was fucking done then, there's nothing more embarrassing than watching him half-heartedly holding up a playing card during the Hollywood Vampires' awful "Ace of Spades" cover.

Try and find their Baba O'Riley cover live if you want to see some truly weak sauce.  It'd be embarrassing coming from a pub cover band, but there they are in front of a 10,000 strong audience.