'We go back a long way': How the Monkees' Micky Dolenz and Alice Cooper became Vampires

Ed Masley
Arizona Republic

Micky Dolenz is, in theory, on the phone with a music reporter from Phoenix to talk about the Monkees Farewell Tour he launched a few days earlier with Michael Nesmith. 

But first, he'd like to ask a couple of questions.

"You're calling from Phoenix?" Dolenz asks.

"You know my friend Alice?"

Alice Cooper and Micky Dolenz at the Lair of the Hollywood Vampires years later.

His friend Alice, of course, is Alice Cooper, the shock-rock pioneer with whom he formed a celebrity drinking group known as the Hollywood Vampires in the '70s. 

Other members included Keith Moon, Harry Nilsson, Bernie Taupin, Ringo Starr and John Lennon. 

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"As you know, we go back a long way," Dolenz says. 

"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."

Cooper eventually moved into what Dolenz recalls as a beautiful house right next door to his.

"I don't know why or how but we just got along," Dolenz says. "We never worked together. It was all about friendship and camaraderie."

Alice Cooper and Micky Dolenz backstage.

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Both the Monkees and Alice Cooper were theatrical

It may have been that they were kindred spirits of a sort. 

"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."

At a certain point, that friendship gave way to the Hollywood Vampires.

"Alice and I kind of started it," Dolenz says. "To most people, they describe it as a drinking club. But it actually started as a softball team."

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They'd get together on the weekends and play softball games for charity.

"We got into kind of a league thing with other record companies and we'd play the fire department or the police department," Dolenz says.

"We'd go to boys schools and camps for underprivileged kids and we'd play softball. That's how it started. And Alice came up with the name, of course."

They even had their own team jerseys with big red V's.

"Alice tended to be the pitcher," Dolenz says.  "Peter Tork, who was probably the best baseball player on the team, he would play left field. I was not that great. I would play first base, usually."

Lennon never played, but he would show up at the games and definitely show up at the bar.

The membership was relatively fluid, if you will.

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Hollywood Vampires membership was fluid

"We'd have all kinds of different people come through," Dolenz says. "But then after the game, we would go to the Rainbow (Bar and Grill) and party." 

In an interview with the Quietus, Cooper said, "It was sort of a last man standing drinking club. And we would sit there every night waiting for what Keith Moon was gonna be wearing... Is he gonna be Hitler or is he gonna be Queen Elizabeth?"

To this day, there's a Hollywood Vampire plaque on the wall at the Rainbow listing Dolenz and other members with Cooper as president and Moon as Vice President.

Cooper and Dolenz have stayed friends through the years. 

Micky Dolenz of The Monkees and Sheryl Cooper perform at Alice Cooper's Rock & Roll Fundraising Bash at the Las Sendas Golf Club in Mesa on April 27, 2019.

In 2019, Dolenz was among the featured guests at the annual fundraising bash for Alice Cooper's Rock Teen Center at Las Sendas Golf Club, where he belted out "Last Train to Clarksville" and "I'm a Believer," playfully telling the crowd, "If you know the words, don't sing along; it puts me off."

"We learned to play golf simultaneously from my dearly beloved ex-wife, Samantha (Juste), who passed away," Dolenz recalls.

"Her father who lived with us and her mother, he was a good old English duffer is the term they use. He played golf. And he taught me and Alice how to play."

Cooper, of course, went on, as Dolenz says, "to almost be a pro."

And Dolenz?

"I haven't played recently, really," he says. 

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.

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