You may think Johnny Depp had lost a step after a failed marriage, getting dragged over the coals of an abusive scandal and the general wear and tear of a career filled with pirates, guyliner and hand-rolled cigarettes, but we promise you, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
After recently getting dumped by Disney, the Captain recently returned to our loving embrace on Jimmy Kimmel with his Hollywood Vampires, still loaded with tattoos, skulls and other pirate accoutrements, to celebrate the late great David Bowie with a cover of “Heroes.” The Vampires, which includes Alice Cooper and Joe Perry as well, are celebrating the release of their sophomore album, Rise, which from the looks of it, is a theme akin to Depp himself at the moment. After giving everyone a scare, the once-gaunt (it was a “for a role”) Depp now appears to look well again (and maybe even a little happy).
Go deeper with Depp: Johnny Depp Doesn’t Need Makeup to Shine in His Best Movies
After a self-titled debut in 2015 of all covers celebrating dead, drunk rockers, which included three originals explaining what the band was all about, the new record by default had become all original Vampires music. While the band covers Bowie, they also recorded the new music in the same studio he once recorded in. The cover performed on Kimmel was the band’s first late-night TV appearance after guitarist Joe Perry collapsed onstage the night before the band was set to appear on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in 2016.
So not only is Depp the world’s biggest movie star (and all-around coolest dude ever), now he’s the lead singer of one of the coolest old school band on the block. All this to say: Is Captain Jack back? Hell yeah. After enough failed movies, you might say the music is saving him.
Get the new Hollywood Vampires album Rise right here.
Cover: RB/Bauer-Griffin (Getty Images)
