519 Magazine recently caught up with musician, songwriter and producer Tommy Henriksen at Caesars Windsor. He was about to hit the stage with rock legend Alice Cooper.
Henriksen is best known for his work with Cooper and with The Hollywood Vampires, the supergroup that includes Joe Perry and Johnny Depp. He also fronts his own band, Crossbone Skully. We talked about all of it: playing, writing, producing with Bob Ezrin and working with the great Mutt Lange.
Watch the full interview below.
Fired, then hired
Henriksen has been Cooper’s guitarist, songwriter and associate producer for about 15 years. The way it started is a good story, because he was once fired from the crew.
“What you didn’t know is I was a roadie for Alice Cooper in 1996 or ‘97, and I got fired,” he said. Years later, he was working in a studio with a set of twins. One of them was dating Cooper’s daughter, Calico, and he wanted her there.
“I’m going to bring Alice and Calico,” Henriksen remembers being told. “Alice walks in the studio, and he looks at me and goes, ‘I know you.’ I said, ‘Yeah, you guys fired me.’”
Henriksen later moved to Nashville. Producer Bob Ezrin called, hoping to sign a band Henriksen was working with, Runner Runner. That deal fell through, but Ezrin had other work for him. Henriksen helped on projects with Lou Reed and Peter Gabriel. Then Ezrin asked him to help redo some tracks for Alice.
“Alice came in to sing, and he looked at me and said, ‘You again?’” Henriksen said. “That’s how I started that.”
A bass player picks up guitar
Henriksen was a bass player when Cooper asked him to join the band. It was 2011, and the two were working with Ezrin on Welcome 2 My Nightmare.
Guitarist Steve Hunter, one of Henriksen’s all-time favourites, was recording solos. Cooper turned to Henriksen and asked if he wanted to play guitar. He said yes.
Then he went to YouTube. He watched old clips of Alice Cooper, AC/DC, Chuck Berry, Link Wray and Ace Frehley of Kiss. He gave himself six months to a year to learn it all.
“That’s how I learned how to play guitar: by watching that stuff,” he said. “So I’ve been playing guitar as long as I’ve been in Alice Cooper.”
Finding “Blackthorn”
For the past four years, Henriksen’s main project has been Crossbone Skully. The band features young guitarist Anna “Blackthorn” Cara. She is also filling in for Nita Strauss in Cooper’s band right now.
Henriksen has played beside some top guitarists in Cooper’s group, including classically trained Orianthi and shredder Nita Strauss. When it was time to build his own band, he followed Cooper’s lead.
“I want a girl guitar player,” he said. “And I found my Nita in Anna Cara.”
He found her on Instagram, where he is always watching guitar players and leaving encouraging comments. Cara was playing Gary Moore songs, and Henriksen was impressed by her vibrato and rhythm. She wasn’t playing to the camera or showing off. “I was like, this kid’s cool,” he said.
He reached out and told her he might have a project for her. He also asked to speak with her parents.
“I don’t know how old the kid is,” he said. “You can’t just call someone’s kid up. People might think I’m some weirdo. So I said, ‘Put your parents on the phone.’ That’s how we first communicated.”
Condemned to rock ’n’ roll
Crossbone Skully’s second album, Condemned to Rock ’n’ Roll, is due January 29, 2027, on earMUSIC. Two singles are out now on all digital platforms: “Thunder Love,” featuring Phil Collen of Def Leppard, and “Riding With Angels.”
The album’s title comes from a talk with Henriksen’s friend, the late Jack Ponti. Ponti wrote and produced songs with Alice Cooper and Bon Jovi, and he passed away a couple of years ago. The two spoke a few times a week.
“He was no filter, no B.S.,” Henriksen said.
One night, Henriksen called Ponti with a lyric idea: “When you’re licking a knife, and you’re sentenced to life.”
“He’s a smoker, and he says in this gravelly voice, ‘It’s pretty good, kid, but you’ve got to remember, guys like us, we’re screwed. We’re condemned to this ****. We’re condemned to rock ’n’ roll.’”
Henriksen knew right away that he had his title. Ponti told him it was good and that this one was “on the house.”
Henriksen got to send Ponti the finished track before he died.
“It was so special,” he said. “I almost want to cry when I think about it. He was just like, ‘You did it, kid. You knocked it out of the park.’”
