Alice Cooper has released a new single, "Social Debris," in celebration of his 73rd birthday. The song also previews his new album, Detroit Stories, which arrives later this month.

"A gift to Detroit, to my fans and to myself," Cooper said in a Twitter video, noting that the song was recorded by the "original" Alice Cooper band, whose surviving members include Neal Smith, Dennis Dunaway and Michael Bruce. (Original lead guitarist Glen Buxton died in 1997.)

"We always felt like we were social debris, we didn't fit in," Cooper noted. "Nobody plays like the original band. They were more dangerous than any other band."

From the beginning, Cooper and his band had a tough time figuring out where their distinct sound might fit it. In the late '60s, with most of America's musical attention turned to the hot spots on the east and west coasts, there wasn't much action in the middle - except for Detroit, where Cooper and the band relocated in 1970.

“Los Angeles had its sound with the Doors, Love and Buffalo Springfield,” Cooper said on his website, where he's offering a free download of "Social Debris" during its first 24 hours of its release. “San Francisco had the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. New York had the Rascals and the Velvet Underground. But Detroit was the birthplace of angry hard rock. After not fitting in anywhere in the U.S. (musically or image-wise), Detroit was the only place that recognized the Alice Cooper guitar-driven, hard-rock sound and our crazy stage show. Detroit was a haven for the outcasts."

It isn't the first time Cooper has reconvened with the original band members, who have been making occasional appearances on several of the singer's recent albums. For his 2017 album, Paranormal, Smith, Dunaway and Bruce play on three tracks, along with another Cooper alumni, Steve Hunter, who joined the band in 1973.

Working once more with longtime producer Bob Ezrin, Cooper is revisiting both his physical roots in Detroit and his enduring relationship with his original band members on the new album, which comes out on Feb. 26.

"‘Social Debris’ was just the original band writing a song about us, essentially," Cooper noted in a press release. "And it came out sounding like it belonged into 1971. That’s just the original band – you can’t change that, it’s great.”

You can listen to the song below.

 

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