I’ve only seen him with his hair up once – the “Special Forces” tour in 1981. But Hollywood Vampires – a supergroup he formed with Aerosmith’s Joe Perry and Tim Burton’s favorite actor, Johnny Depp – is Alice Cooper’s chance to let his hair down in more of a figurative sense.

As he explained it in a recent interview with azcentral, when he does an Alice Cooper show, he has to stay in character.

With the Vampires, he doesn’t have to be that Alice. He can be the Alice he was Friday at the Pool at Talking Stick Resort, the one that introduces songs and plays guitar on "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" while his bandmate takes the spotlight or plays blues harp on the Yardbirds' version of a Tiny Bradshaw song.

He’s having fun. And it’s contagious.

To be clear, he doesn't come across that different than the Alice character he's played for 50 years on stage. There's still a lot of sneering. Still a lot of striking poses. More than once, he brought out his signature top hat and cane, even hobbling along like a little old lady a la “No More Mr. Nice Guy” while singing "The Boogieman Surprise."

That kind of thing is in his blood at this point. And we all know how Vampires can be about their blood.

When Cooper formed the group with Depp and Perry in 2015, adopting the name of his old drinking club whose ranks included Keith Moon, Ringo Starr and Micky Dolenz, he envisioned these new Vampires as something of a bar band whose lineup just happened to feature two Rock and Roll Hall of Famers and a movie star.

RELATED: Alice Cooper group reunion documentary wins prize at Phoenix Film Festival

But since the release of a first album loaded with covers of songs by friends and favorite acts alongside two originals (or three if you count "The Last Vampire," which is more of a mood piece than a song), they’ve grown into a proper band, about to drop a second album, “Rise,” on which the covers are outnumbered five-to-one by Vampires originals.

They covered “Five to One” at Friday’s Talking Stick Resort show, by the way. It was part of a medley with another Doors song, “Break on Through (To the Other Side),” as featured on the Vampires’ first album.

He introduced that one with "We're the Vampires. We pay tribute to all of our dead drunk friends."

And that tribute extended to filling the screen behind the Vampires with images of those no longer with us.

"Hollywood Vampires started in Hollywood," Cooper told the crowd at one point, "in a bar called the Rainbow. It was occupied by some of the drunkest rock stars you've ever met. John Lennon. Keith Moon. Harry Nilsson. And we used to drink until we couldn't walk. I was there one night at 3 in the morning after all of them were dead and it was a ghost town. So we wrote this song."

And with that, the scene was set for one of their earliest originals.

A number of the friends they showed on screen while singing "Dead Drunk Friends" (John Lennon chief among them) died of causes wholly unrelated to their drinking habits while Ringo Starr still walks among us despite all the drinking he did in his days as a Hollywood Vampire.

But the tributes were frequently touching. Perry's heartfelt salute to "a really good friend of mine who died a long time ago, way too soon," New York Dolls guitarist Johnny Thunders, on a song we learned was one of Perry's all-time favorites, "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory," was a highlight.

So was a really nice version of "Heroes," sung by Depp, while David Bowie's image filled the screen.

When it comes to covering a wide array of legendary acts, it helps that the principal Vampires have assembled a stellar assortment of players to round out the lineup – two members of Cooper's touring band (guitarist Tommy Henriksen, drummer Glenn Sobel), Aerosmith keyboardist Buck Johnson (who sounded awesome on those Doors song) and Ace Frehley bassist Chris Wyse.

The show turned especially poignant during an otherwise raucous performance of "People Who Died" by the late Jim Carroll, sung by Depp, when the actor gave an emotional tribute to his longtime bodyguard and confidant, Jerry Judge, who died in April.

Although he only sang lead on two songs in Friday's set, Depp has clearly been a major part of this project's appeal from the start, with his leading-man looks and his swashbuckling rock-and-roll swagger. This is a man, after all, whose portrayal of Capt. Jack Sparrow was based in part on studying Keith Richards' stage moves.

He's also a primary source of their original material. Cooper says the new album, in fact, was largely driven by pent-up frustration on Depp's part over how he's been depicted in the media.

"Who's Laughing Now" addresses that head-on. But so too does the title track (of sorts), "We Gotta Rise," with its oft-repeated chorus of "We gotta rise / Let's rise / We gotta rise / Let's rise above the lies/ It's you and I / It's do or die / We gotta rise / Let's rise above the lies."

It's really more a commentary, though, on our current political climate, which, in keeping with Cooper tradition, manages to steer clear of taking a side in the growing divide that separates our country. The chorus even sounds like an old-school campaign song.

They opened the encore with that one, Cooper shouting tabloid headlines ("$100,000 Bird Sings Unrecorded Beatles Songs!," "Boy born with dog's head") before settling into the role of the candidate, the way he once did on "Elected."

"Thank you, thank you, my fellow Americans," he shouted. "As your leader, I can assure you that all your hopes and dreams I promised in order to get elected will never come true. Thank you. I am incapable of affecting change. In fact, I will probably make things much worse. And frankly, America, I don't give a damn."

After bringing the night to a crowd-pleasing climax with that one, there was only one thing left to do – send those fans on their way with a raucous performance of "School's Out," allowing his guitarists one last chance to tear it up, which they did as the song segued into and out of "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2," the way it does these days.

Son Arise: Dash Cooper's CO-OP

The Vampires’ set was preceded by CO-OP, fronted by the legend’s son, Dash Cooper, who told the crowd after their first song, “You’re gonna have to be a little louder than that if you want to wake the undead.”

Nicely played.

The singer’s raspy baritone is just the thing to put across the sound they tend to favor, which sits on the cusp of alternative rock and alternative metal with just a hint of classic rock. It would be easy to picture them making the most of an opening slot on a Stone Temple Pilots or Alice in Chains tour.

Much like those bands (or the Who before them), they’re essentially a power trio fronted by a vocalist. And like those, it doesn’t feel like they could use more instruments to flesh things out. They’ve got it covered and it rocks, especially on a song like "N.O.W."

Hollywood Vampires setlist

"I Want My Now"

"Raise the Dead"

"As Bad As I Am"

"Five to One" / "Break On Through (to the Other Side)" (The Doors cover)

"The Jack" (AC/DC cover)

"Who's Laughing Now"

"The Boogieman Surprise"

"You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" (Johnny Thunders cover)

"My Dead Drunk Friends"

"Baba O'Riley" (The Who cover)

"Sweet Emotion" (Aerosmith cover)

"Heroes" (David Bowie cover)

"Git From Round Me"

"I'm Eighteen" (Alice Cooper cover)

"People Who Died" (The Jim Carroll Band cover)

"The Train Kept A-Rollin'" (Tiny Bradshaw cover)

Encore:

"We Gotta Rise"

"School's Out" (Alice Cooper cover with snippet of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall”)

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

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