Multi-instumentalist Richie Scarlet has only actually played with Alice Cooper himself once, as a guest on 'School's Out' during the 2018 Australian tour, but he has multiple connections to the original band, as well as being a big fan of the early albums.
Richie played bass for Leslie West and Mountain for some years, but is best known as the guitarist in Ace Frehley's solo band. More recently he has been back with Frehley and was in his band when Ace opened for Alice in 2018. This in turn finally gave him the chance to appear on stage with Alice. Away from that he has released a string of excellent solo albums and plays clubs shows around his home in upstate New York. Anything Richie does is well worth checking out, he's a hugely underrated performer and songwriter.
He first hooked up with Michael Bruce around 1995/1996, when he made a guest appearance with Michael at a solo show in North Carolina. From there the pair worked together for a week in 1997 at the 'Red House' in New York working on new material which sadly has never been released. A amateur video of the sessions did appear, 'The Red House Tapes' but is long out of print.
In May '97 Richie joined Michael again for a month of recording at a studio in League City, TX, also appearing with him at various local shows and appearing together on local radio KLOL.
In October Richie stood in for an unwell Dennis Dunaway at the Area 51 show in Houston featuring Michael, Neal Smith and Glen Buxton. It would be Buxton's last show. Scarlet organised and rehearsed the band, and appeared on local radio with them as well.
In April/May 1998 he again joined Michael Bruce for a show in Hackensack, NJ with Neal Smith also appearing. While there he records additional guitar parts for Neal's long lost solo album 'Platinum God' which was finally released later in the year. In July Richie is playing with ex-Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach, and brings Michael in to record backing vocals on Bach's 'Bring 'Em Bach Alive' album.
In 2001 Richie releases his excellent solo album 'Insanity Of Life', which features Neal Smith and Dennis Dunaway on 'The Ghost Of Brian Jones'. Also on the album are previous bosses Leslie West of Mountain, and Ace Frehley of Kiss.
Finally, in 2011 Dennis and Richie form '5th Avenue Vampires' and release their 'Drawing Blood' album. The band play a few shows around the NY/New England area, including a show opening for Alice, but seemed to just fall apart shortly afterwards.