What Is Dennis Dunaway's Net Worth?
Dennis Dunaway is an American musician who has a net worth of $10 million. Dennis Dunaway is best known for being the original bass guitarist for the band Alice Cooper from 1969 to 1974. The band reunited in 1999, 2010, 2011, 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2021. Dunaway was responsible for co-writing some of Alice Cooper's biggest hits, including "School's Out" and "I'm Eighteen." On the band's first three studio albums, Dennis used a Gibson EB-0 short scale bass, which is now on loan to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Dunaway was part of the band Billion Dollar Babies that split from Alice Cooper in 1974 and released one album, "Battle Axe," in 1977. In 2011, Dennis and his Alice Cooper bandmates were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Dunaway has also played with the bands Blue Coupe, Ant-Bee, and 5th Avenue Vampires. His memoir "Snakes! Guillotines! Electric Chairs!" was published in 2015.
Early Life
Dennis Dunaway was born on December 9, 1946, in Cottage Grove, Oregon. When Dennis was four years old, his family moved to Phoenix, Arizona. While attending Cortez High School, Dunaway was a member of the track team. He met Vince Furnier (later known as Alice Cooper) in art class in 1962, and they performed as a Beatles spoof act at the school talent show, along with a fellow runner and a guitarist. They called the act Earwigs, and the audience loved them. Dunaway and Furnier decided that they wanted to learn to play music for real, so they bought instruments, and they learned how to play a few songs by the Beatles as well as the Rolling Stones. A few months after learning to play music, Dennis and Vince performed at a school dance.
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Career
By the mid-1960s, the band was called The Spiders, and in 1967, they changed the name to The Nazz after finding out that there was another band called The Spiders. They eventually began booking gigs at clubs in Los Angeles, where they shared bills with bands like the Doors and Buffalo Springfield. The band later decided to go by the name Alice Cooper and ended up becoming one of just a few glam rock bands to find mainstream success in the United States. They released their debut studio album, "Pretties for You," on June 25, 1969, and it peaked at #193 on the "Billboard" 200 chart. "Easy Action" followed in 1970, and their third album, 1971's "Love It to Death," was certified Platinum in the U.S. The album reached #35 on the "Billboard" 200 chart, #28 on the UK Albums Chart, and #39 on the "RPM" Canada Top Albums/CDs chart. Later that year, Alice Cooper released the album "Killer," which also went Platinum and did well on the "Billboard" 200, UK Albums, and "RPM" Canada Top Albums/CDs " charts, reaching #21, #27, and #11, respectively. "Love It to Death" featured the hit single "I'm Eighteen," which reached #21 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart and #7 on the Canadian "RPM" chart. "Killer" featured the singles "Under My Wheels" and "Be My Lover," which both reached the top 60 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart. The 1972 album "School's Out" reached the top 10 on the charts in several countries and made it to #1 in Canada and #2 in the U.S. The album was certified Platinum in the U.S. and Gold in Australia, and the title track became the band's biggest hit, reaching #1 in the U.K., #2 in Ireland, #3 in Canada, #5 in Germany, #6 in Norway, #7 in the U.S., and #9 in the Netherlands and New Zealand.
Alice Cooper's sixth studio album, 1973's "Billion Dollar Babies," topped the charts in the U.S., the U.K., the Netherlands, and Finland, and it went Platinum the U.S. and Gold in Australia and Canada. The singles "Elected," "Hello Hooray," and "No More Mr. Nice Guy" were top 10 hits on the UK Singles Chart. In 1973, the band also released the album, "Muscle of Love," which ended up being their final studio album before splitting up in 1974. "Muscle of Love" reached #10 on the "Billboard" 200 chart and #4 on the Canada Top Albums/CDs chart, and it was certified Gold in the U.S. After the split, Dunaway and two other members of the band formed the group Billion Dollar Babies, releasing the album "Battle Axe" in 1977. Dennis later performed on Cooper's solo albums "Welcome 2 My Nightmare" (2011), "Paranormal" (2017), and "Detroit Stories" (2021). He is a member of the band Blue Coupe and has released the albums "Tornado on the Tracks" (2010), "Million Miles More" (2013), and "Eleven Even" (2019) with them. Dunaway has also performed on the Deadringer album "Electrocution of the Heart" (1989), the Ant-Bee album "Lunar Muzik" (1997), and the 5th Avenue Vampires album "Drawing Blood" (2010) as well as the 2015 self-titled album by the supergroup Hollywood Vampires, which includes Alice Cooper, Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry, and actor Johnny Depp.
(Photo by Andrew Benge/Redferns)
Personal Life
Dunaway's wife, Cindy Smith, is the sister of Neal Smith, Alice Cooper's original drummer. Cindy was the band's original costume designer and was instrumental in creating the Shock Rock fashion style. Dennis and Cindy's daughter Renee is the frontwoman for the band Jetsetter, and their younger daughter, Chelsea, is a singer-songwriter.
Honors
In 2011, Dunaway and his fellow co-founders of the Alice Cooper band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Their song "School's Out" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2015.
