The Hollywood Vampires – A Drunken Oral History

Introduction

During the eventful year of 1973, events were converging in Los Angeles. The result of this would be the formation of an iconic “drinking club” forever known as The Hollywood Vampires. This group of musicians created the club for the singular purpose of spending time with each other and consuming copious amounts of alcohol in the process. However, as will soon be told, the real reason the Vampires were created, was to play softball.

The Hollywood Vampires charter members were musicians, Alice Cooper and Micky Dolenz. They were soon joined by John Lennon and singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson. Nilsson and Lennon at this point were close friends and about to start raising hell in Los Angeles during Lennon’s legendary “Lost Weekend,” which began in the summer of 1973 and lasted through early 1975. It marked the separation between Lennon and Yoko Ono.

The convergence of Lennon, Nilsson, Cooper, and Dolenz in 1973 would result in many drunken nights. It was also the genesis of films, multiple albums, and songs. Most importantly, John Lennon’s underappreciated 1974 album Walls and Bridges emerged from this haze. This oral history tells the story of The Hollywood Vampires, its founding, its exploits, and its continued existence today.

Origins Of The Vampires

Mickey Dolenz, actor, musician, vocalist/drummer of the 1960’s pop-rock band The Monkees in a 2020 interview with Goldmine Magazine:

“I started the Hollywood Vampires with Alice Cooper. (Harry) Nilsson and (John) Lennon joined shortly thereafter. Alice had this idea of starting a softball team to play on weekends for charity. We played some serious softball locally against the fire department, the police department, various boys’ clubs and record labels. It turned into an informal softball league that raised a little money. We got good press and everybody loved it. We had a great Hollywood Vampires softball shirt and cap with a big V on it…It was Alice and myself with Peter Tork as our pitcher. He was very good. Actor Albert Brooks was on that team.”

Singer, songwriter, actor, and “The Godfather of Shock Rock” Alice Cooper in a 2016 interview, also with Goldmine Magazine:

“Originally, the Rainbow (Bar and Grill) just happened to be the place where we all ended up drinking every night. It was a place that was convenient to everybody to end up…No matter what was going on, someone would say, “Where are you gonna be tonight?” I’d say, “I’ll be at the Rainbow…That was sort of like the nightcap. But the Rainbow ended up being our clubhouse. I think I was there more than anybody. I was there every night where everybody else kind of came in on different nights. But the stalwarts that were there were myself, Bernie Taupin and Micky Dolenz…We were the three that were there all of the time. It was so systematic that we all ended up there every night that pretty soon they started calling us the Hollywood Vampires because we only came out at night to drink (laughs)”

The Rainbow Room

Since 1972, the Rainbow Bar & Grill has been a home away from home for many rock icons. It rapidly became the hangout place for rock stars throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Before becoming the Rainbow, it was known as the Villa Nova, a popular place-to-be for Hollywood’s biggest stars from the 1930s through the 1960s.

The stars that would frequent this popular and successful establishment included icons such as Bing Crosby, John Wayne, and Judy Garland. The legend goes that actress Marilyn Monroe walked into Villa Nova with stage and screen legend Mickey Rooney and walked out with New York Yankee icon Joe DiMaggio.

Mario Maglieri, who was the manager of the Whisky a Go-Go, and the self-described “Pope of the Sunset Strip,” took over the Villa Nova restaurant in the early 1970s. He would subsequently turn it into the Rainbow Bar & Grill. It soon would become a haven for up-and-coming rock stars and actors of the day.

Above the restaurant was the “secret hideout” of Cooper’s drinking club, christened the “Lair of the Hollywood Vampires.” Along with Keith Moon, Dolenz, and Harry Nilsson. Ringo Starr was also a charter member. John Lennon, to be initiated, had to outdrink every single member. A plaque was displayed that listed Cooper as its President, and Moon as Vice-President. It remains today.

Anne Murray and Shep

Legendary talent manager, Hollywood agent, and film producer Shep Gordon had represented 4-time Grammy winner Anne Murray back in 1973. At the time, the 28-year-old Canadian singer was looking to change her image and book an appearance on the popular show, The Midnight Special. While in LA the crafty Gordon knew just how to generate buzz for his new client.

Anne Murray, speaking in the 2013 documentary Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon:

“When I was in LA recording I stayed at Shep’s House…Not only was the refrigerator full with all the booze you could drink, there was this note from somebody on the counter that said there’s a ‘surprise for you in the drawer’ and I looked in the drawer and here was this large vile of white powder…What I was looking for from Shep was to create a buzz in the business, and everybody who was anybody came on The Midnight Special”

Shep Gordon, speaking in the 2013 documentary Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon:

“It was at a time when hip meant everything, and the last thing Midnight Special wanted was a straight-laced singer from Canada. So I booked her at the Troubador. One of the techniques that I’ve always used is ‘guilt by association’, which is if you take somebody really famous and put them next to somebody else, that other person melts off the fame. It was John Lennon’s dark era, and he was rarely photographed. So if people could get their hands on John Lennon, it’s going to be very big…The whole purpose of that entire night was to get a picture of Anne Murray standing next to all these icons who were the coolest people in the world”

Murray would later state in Gordon’s 2013 documentary:

“That picture has had more mileage than any other picture that I have ever had taken of me in my career. Rolling Stone wanted to interview me, and I was the “it girl” for just a few weeks”

Nilsson’s Pussy Cats

Harry Nilsson, since the late 1960s was something of a vocal and lyrical wunderkind who had taken the musical world by storm with his psychedelic and Beatles-infused debut album Pandemonium Shadow Show, released in 1967. John Lennon had taken notice of the young artist and declared to the media in 1968 “Nilsson is my favorite group,” thinking that “Nilsson” was the name of Harry’s band.

Later that same year, Lennon would again state publicly “Nilsson for President!” For Harry Nilsson, Lennon’s comments would change his life and career forever. The pair would become lifelong friends after Nilsson traveled to London to meet with The Beatles, and subsequently become part of the Fab Four’s inner circle.

Pussy Cats was the tenth album by Nilsson and was released in 1974. Produced by Lennon during his “Lost Weekend” period, the album is more widely known for the antics that were going on during its production and recording sessions. The Hollywood Vampires were in full force and effect during the album’s production. Nilsson’s career would never fully recover after the vocal damage he suffered during the recording sessions.

Lennon had Nilsson, Ringo Starr (another Vampire member), and Keith Moon all share a beachfront Santa Monica house during the Pussy Cats sessions. Lennon’s then-girlfriend, May Pang, would later explain why the hard-partying Vampires had decided to bunk up together.

May Pang quoted in her 1983 memoir “Loving John” 

“John thought of it, it was his idea. Because, he said if he left it to everyone — ‘cause he had not spent that much time out in L.A., and he realized that if we couldn’t get everybody to the session on time, unlike New York, then all was lost. So he said, ‘Let’s pool everybody in, into the house.’ And this way, I was driving a group, somebody else was driving a group so that two cars would be driving and everybody would be getting to the studio on time. He just wanted everybody to be there”

While John Lennon’s life was cut tragically short in 1980 when he was gunned down in front of the entrance to his apartment building, “The Dakota,” his “Lost Weekend” in 1973-1974 was an incredibly productive time. He completed three albums; Mind Games, Walls and Bridges, and Rock ’n’ Roll. He also produced songs for Ringo Starr and Nilsson, while recording with David Bowie, Elton John, and Mick Jagger.

Moon The Loon

As far as new members of The Hollywood Vampires went, some drank harder and were a bit crazier than the others. None fit this bill of goods more than Keith Moon, Vice-President of the notorious group of rabble-rousers.

In an interview with The Quietus in 2015, Alice Cooper stated:

“We knew who the big drinkers were, especially Keith Moon. We’d go there every night and get a headstart because we wanted to see what Keith was going to turn up wearing. He would go to the costume shops around town and arrive dressed as the Queen of England. Then, maybe two nights later, he’d come in as Hitler, or wearing a French maid’s outfit. We’d all sit around and laugh at him, but then you think, ‘Well, this guy’s the best drummer in the world. He’s allowed to do that”

Alice Cooper further elaborates in the same interview on the drinking ability of the British, and destroying hotel rooms:

“The British, for some reason, can handle alcohol far better than Americans can. I was a sipper, so I could usually last a long time just sipping whiskey, but some of those guys were pounding it down pretty good…I was amazed that Keith Moon could drink as much as he did and still play a show the next day! I’d known The Who from my Detroit days, and I also spent a lot of time with the Small Faces there. People always talk about Led Zeppelin as the guys who destroyed hotel rooms, but nobody was better at it than the Small Faces. Those guys were the heavyweight champions. Keith was a room-destroyer too, of course, but the Small Faces really turned it into an artform”

All Things Must End

Alice Cooper was close friends and drinking buddies with Rock and Roll legends Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, frontman for The Doors. When Cooper first came to LA, Morrison and The Doors took Cooper and his band under their wing and let them sit in on their recording sessions. Subsequently, Alice Cooper and Jim Morrison were partying hard together quite often. Cooper has also stated publicly that the first time he had smoked marijuana, it was with Jimi Hendrix.

Alice Cooper reflected in a 2015 sitdown with NME about the realization that he needed to make some tough decisions: 

“When I watched Jim and Jimi die at 27 years old, it was one of those things where I knew there was going to be a crossroads – a point where I was going to have to make the decision to either join them on the other side or quit and make another 20 albums. It came down to that decision one morning a few years later, where I woke up and threw up blood. My body was giving out, my pancreas was probably infected and the doctor said, ‘You can either keep drinking and join your friends, in which case good luck. Or you can stop, live, and go on making records.’ And it really wasn’t a decision. Steven Tyler came to that point, Iggy Pop did too. I think everyone who’s still out there from my generation realized they were going to come to that crossroads at some point”

By the mid-to-late 1970s, John Belushi, Keith Emerson, Marc Bolan, and so many other legendary musicians and actors had all been a part of the orbit that was The Hollywood Vampires. However, time and mortality had taken their toll on its founding and early members. Some had survived, and some didn’t.

Keith Moon, one of rock’s greatest drummers and even greater characters, died in London on September 7, 1978, from an accidental overdose of the prescription drug Heminevrin, prescribed to combat alcoholism. John Lennon was taken from us too soon in December 1980 by an assassin’s bullet. After years of excess and a wasted career, Harry Nilsson died from a heart attack in 1994.

The Vampires Live On

Cooper and Dolenz, founding members of The Hollywood Vampires are both still going strong, doing better than most of their former friends, many of whom have since passed on. Cooper, 73, is touring with the band he named after the drinking club he started so many years ago. Hollywood Vampires was formed in 2015, with guitarists Joe Perry (Aerosmith) and, interestingly, Johnny Depp.

The genesis of this all-star band started with a private gig Cooper played at London’s 100 Club in 2011. Cooper and Depp were both in town, and Cooper invited Depp to play a few songs. They started discussing forming a “cover band” to pay tribute to Cooper’s fallen drinking buddies. Depp and Perry (whom Cooper has known for many years) both joined. Their first live gig was at LA’s Roxy Theatre in September 2015.

Guitarist Joe Perry spoke to The Guardian in 2015 about becoming a part of such a legendary and notorious group of hellraisers:

“You’ve got have ego to do what we do…But with this, I’m in a totally different headspace. I can just sit in the corner! It’s fucking great. And Johnny is the real deal, let me tell you…Quite often when you watch a movie and someone is playing, you can really tell that it’s not for real…But he was playing some really cool shit, things I’d never touched on as a guitarist. A lot of actors and actresses have walked our way over the years…But with Johnny it’s different. There’s a laser focus in his eyes.”

Hollywood Vampires throughout the years of their existence as a touring band, has included such members as Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum of Guns N’ Roses, drummer Glen Sobel, guitarist Tommy Henricksen, and multi-instrumentalist and singer Buck Johnson.

The band has released two studio albums featuring appearances on various tracks by Dave Grohl, Sir Paul McCartney, Joe Walsh, and drummer Zak Starkey, among others. The band has also discussed plans to release a live album. In 2019, they completed a seven-city North American tour, selling out the famous Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.

Reflection

Mickey Dolenz, in a 2021 interview with the Arizona Republic looked back and reflected on 50 years of friendship with Alice Cooper:

“When I first moved to Laurel Canyon, he was living across the street in a rented place. He wasn’t Alice yet. He was Vince, as you know. But then he became, of course, Alice, and we became just really good friends…I don’t know why or how but we just got along…We never worked together. It was all about friendship and camaraderie…I think a little of it may have been that Alice, as you know, was and is a theatrical act, like the Monkees were. We’re theatrical. Like Kiss. Or the Who. It was Broadway. Alice is probably one of the greatest Broadway theatrical rock stars ever. And the Monkees were essentially theatrical. So that’s probably one of the reasons we got along”

In a 2018 interview with The Guardian, Johnny Depp perhaps summed it up best about lost brothers-in-arms in the world of music and film:

“What separates survivors from the guys that die? It’s just about having the right people around you, people who care about you, at the right time, to save you from yourself. It’s not a good thing to face on your own, but some people do. Really, it’s just luck.”

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