Unfinished Sweets

Over the years there have been a number of projects that have been discussed by Alice but have failed to materialize. This page attempts to collect together some of those abandoned projects that never had the staying power or support to bear any fruit.

The Seven Deadly

In late 1998 Alice began talking about a project called The Seven Deadly, or Alice's Deadly Seven as it was sometimes refered to. Alice described the project as "a concept album, pretty classically themed" ⁽¹⁾ based on the the seven deadly sins, that was planned to be "a rock 'n' roll album, all sort of entwined with this guy telling the story" ⁽²⁾. The seven deadly sins — those cardinal sins of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride — seemed to a perfect subject for Alice to tackle considered he was bringing a touch of theology into his work a little more openly at this point.

The project had an interesting twist. The collaborator on the project was Alan Menken, the film and Broadway composer whose credits include Little Shop of Horrors, Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast. Alice's friendship with Rob Ross, director of Disney's Broadway production of Beauty and the Beast, was the link that brough Alice and Alan together. "Somebody else put it together, Rob Ross who did The Beauty and the Beast. And he's the biggest Alice Cooper fan of all time" ⁽¹⁾. Rob Ross would later help Alice with stage productions for Brutal Planet and Theatre of Death tours.

It appears as if this project might have been quite far along. "He's [Menken] writing the music and I'm doing the lyrics" ⁽³⁾ Alice had stated. Alice described the writing process, which sounds closely co-ordinated, "I sat down with the guy and everything the guy writes is a hit, and when he writes it with me it's really an adventure. He's used to working with Tim Rice and I'll come in with a lyric and he'll go 'That's cool, very experimental.'" ⁽¹⁾ But sadly it appears as if the album never made it to the final recording stage, perhaps that's because they weren't really sure which direction to proceed to secure interest and financial backing to support the project. "We still don't know if it's going to be a Broadway play, a cartoon, an Alice stage show or what. All we know is it's very visual, and it's full of hits. When you have that, you can go in any direction with it" ⁽²⁾.

Bob Ezrin's name was brought up in many interview in relation to this project, with the role of producer being touted should an album have materialized. Bob did return to the Alice fold as an Exuctive producer on Brutal Planet (2000), and would later produce Alice's sequel to Welcome To My Nightmare (1975), Welcome 2 My Nightmare (2011).

The project has yet to come the fruition — in its final form — but Alice was still talking about the project as late as 2007, stating they had "songs for each of the seven deadly sins" ⁽⁴⁾ but any release or further development has yet to surface. It should be noted that Alice touched on the deadly sins on Brutal Planet (2000) with Eat Some More (gluttony) and Gimme (greed), once again being influenced by projects that had stalling. The Seven Deadly definitely hit a nerve with Alice, and helped inspired his dark and brutal return.

"Do you like the taste?
Stuff it in your face
It's not nice to waste
We're not happy 'til we're choking
So we eat some more"

Notes

1. Boston Globe, May 7th, 1999
2. Wall of Sound, September 1998
3. Metal Edge, January 1999
4. LocoFest, September 9th, 2007