www . steelnotesmagazine . com
Steel Notes Magazine
Dennis : Cindy was the dancing tooth . Alexxis : Oh really Cindy was the dancing tooth ? Dennis : Yeah . [ Laughter ] Alexxis : Oh ! Very cool , I did not know it was her !
Dennis : And she had a cavity that she could see out to the audience but the audience couldn ’ t see in . It would light up and she would come out and tap dancing in her silver tap shoes and then she would pretend to slip and fall over and Alice had a giant tooth brush and a giant tube of toothpaste and he ’ d go over and brush her while Michael would make erotic noises in the microphone .
Alexxis : [ Laughter ] Oh Yes I remember ! He had a big drill and you could hear the sound like the teeth were getting drilled .
Dennis : The Mad Dentist was Amazing Randy , the Magician .
Dennis : He was the one over the guillotine making sure Alice didn ’ t get hurt . And the Mad Dentist had the giant drill . The song is called ‘ Unfinished Sweet .’
Alexxis : Yes it is !
Dennis : It ’ s about going to the dentist and he gets not the Novocaine out , but the funny gas and he has this kind of a nightmare sequence about the tooth and has the giant toothbrush and he brushes her and then this Dentist comes out with a gigantic drill that ’ s all lit up and it ’ s spinning around and everything . So it was a dream sequence really that went with that song .
Alexxis : Yeah , they all were just really cool . Really cool theatrics .
Dennis : And so one of the lines was , “ Your teeth are alright , but your gums gotta go .”
Alexxis : Yes I remember it ! [ Laughter ]
Dennis : Oh , Cindy would come backstage and Alice had a break in the show at that point and we would do “ Halo of Flies ” and Alice would go back and change and catch his breath and stuff and have a drink . And Cindy would have whiskey backstage .
Alexxis : I remember the bottles of booze onstage all the time . [ Laughter ] with Alice carrying them around .
Dennis : And Cindy did come out one night when somebody had spilled a beer on the “ Billion Dollar Babies ” stage which had plexiglass , so every time somebody spilled a beer and it was too sweaty , it would get really slippery .
Alexxis : I can imagine !!
Dennis : Cindy fell down legitimately one night at Madison Square Garden and Alice came and looked into her cavity and said , “ What are you doing ? Are you OK ?” [ Laughter ]
Alexxis : [ Laughter ] Luckily she didn ’ t get hurt !
Alexxis : Well that was a great tour and album and “ Billion Dollar Babies ” was Number 1 in America and also in Britain simultaneously .
Dennis : Right .
Alexxis : “ Billion Dollar Babies ” is also one of my favorite songs . I mean I love “ 18 ” too , I love them all but “ Billion Dollar Babies ” has such a cool intro and beginning to it ...
Dennis : Alice had come up with we ’ re reflecting Society so now we live in this big mansion in Greenwich , Connecticut and the theme of the album reflects that all of a sudden we ’ re Rock and Roll brats that have a bunch of money and live in a mansion , that was the theme of the album pretty much , you know ?
Alexxis : Absolutely !
Dennis : Alice thought of the idea of Billion Dollar Babies . We usually don ' t have a song that is the title of the album like ‘ School ’ s Out ’ was , and most the time we didn ’ t . But this time we wanted to write a song for that . Well our friend Rock and Reggy Vincent , who was Glen Buxton ’ s friend from Detroit , would hang around a lot and write songs and stuff . Anyway , he and Glen Buxton came down from where we were recording in this mansion , so everybody had their rooms upstairs and the whole downstairs was all microphones in every room and a big recording truck out in the driveway . So anyway , Rock and Reggy and Glen came down and they had this song called ‘ Devil Doll ’ which was a beautiful kind of a Roy Orbison ballet and we kept playing it over and over and sitting on stools and stuff and it was a beautiful song so nobody wanted to change it but I finally said “ You know what , if this is going to be the title of the Billion Dollar Babies album we ’ re going to have to light some fire under it , dynamite or whatever ”. And everyone ' s like “ Well what do you
Steel Notes Magazine www . steelnotesmagazine . com
19