Steel Notes Magazine
February 2017 high and you had The Stones and The British Invasion was still a heavy influence on things but things were moving in this new arena level shows . So instead of just being a band that they would book into a big venue , you would go there and do what you normally do at a club , well we wanted the people in the back row to see what ’ s going on . We want them to see something happen and go home or go tell all their friends about it . So things were getting bigger and we had our own light show on the road you know ? I don ’ t think many bands had a light show . They would show up with whatever the venue had . When we would come around we would have these lights that we ’ re going to hang up , and even the union guys at a lot of these arenas didn ’ t even know what we were talking about ! That ’ s how new it was .
Alexxis : Yes you were setting the standard higher !
Dennis : I ’ d say “ Ricky , see that thing way up on the ceiling there , that drops , there ’ s a lever somewhere , that drops down and we can hang our lights on it . Now it ’ s all routine but back then it was new , and In fact , we used Shell Co . which was a P . A . company and we took our own P . A . on the road which other bands started doing at that point . But before that , when we first started it was like The Beatles , where they would show up and used whatever was there . At Shea Stadium they show up and it ’ s like somebody decided that 100 stereo speakers are going to be heard over the screaming people ! [ Laughter ] We had that . You know if you look at real early pictures of The Alice Cooper Group , The Spiders or The Nazz , there ’ s no P . A . in the picture . Alice ’ s microphone is synced into the guitar amp . [ Laughter ]
Alexxis : [ Laughter ] Oh yeah , something else I wanted to ask you about was your your bass . You ' re using a Gibson EB-0 bass with the finger position , split pickup with a treble position and you spray painted it green and called it ‘ The Frog .’ That was on the back cover of ‘ Love It To Death .’
Dennis : Right . It was the standard SG color but this was the EB-0 , which was Electric Bass 0 . [ Laughter ] And there was a EB-3 , I don ’ t know where the other numbers went but that ’ s what Slap Jack Bruce played . It came with two pickups and the standard Gibson model . Mine only had one pickup but I added a split pickup to it later when we started going in the studio to record because I needed to get a different sound out of it . I spray painted it green because I wanted like everything else we did , to be different . I had just bought the bass when we were in Phoenix , Arizona and I used the same spray paint that I used for a model car , called Emerald Green . So first you spray Silver and then you sprayed this green paint over it for model cars . And so I did that when we decided we wanted to break down the barrier from between us and the audience and also because we thought with the ‘ Pretties For You ’ album , we were reflecting society . When we lived in Hollywood we were writing the album and doing the show that reflected it , which is all glitzy and flashy and everything . And so part of the flash was these mirrors that would reflect . The thing that is weird is , you know a lot of musicians would say “ Oh God , he ruined that bass !” Well , the way the bass looks has nothing to do with how good the bass is and how good it sounds . It ’ s two different things . It ’ s not that he can ’ t play that well and the bass can ’ t sound that good if he has to put or glue mirrors to it . No , it was a theatrical thing that when the spotlight would hit that bass and I would move especially since there was smoke used in the show so that you could see the rays of light coming off this bass and all of these Austrian rhinestones that were called ‘ Aurora Borealis ’ because they were part of the rainbow .
Alexxis : Yes very nice !
Dennis : And they were Swarovski Crystals . They were expensive we would get them in New York City .
Alexxis : Oh yes I love those crystals !
Dennis : They ' re what Cindy , my wife , calls “ Tinkerbells .” All these little dots and all the way on the top of the arena and this big ray of light that would go all the way to the back wall in Madison Square Garden and I would move slowly across the audience and it would be like a wave , like a wave people do at a football game .
Alexxis : That is very cool .
Dennis : You could see the audience could tell the ray was almost about to hit them and they would get so excited when the ray would be blinding them then they would all wave their arms and stuff . So that ’ s what it was all about . It was like OK I go in the studio and this bass sounds good and I can play but on stage we ’ re thinking “ well if you really want to just hear our music you could just sit at home and listen to the record . But if you come to a show , you should get more . You should get visual , you should get a whole show . That was what we believed in . Then a lot of people were totally against us on that .
Alexxis : Well , you definitely put on some show and I remember the show in ‘ 73 for Billion Dollar Babies at the Spectrum in Philly , which was the same night I was at the after party at The Showboat at Penn ’ s Landing . The stage was full of white fog and I think you all had the white outfits on . I do have some pictures from back then but I think because of all the fog on the stage it was kind of hard to see and the giant teeth . Remember that ? The giant teeth walking around ? [ Laughter ]
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