[Susan Foreman]

Meanwhile, in Bizzaroland...

Toronto children’s music duo Splash ‘N Boots collaborate with Alice Cooper / The Toronto Star

"It turns out that hard hearted Alice isn’t so hard hearted after all.

How else can you explain hard rock legend Alice Cooper singing on the title track of children’s entertainer duo Splash ‘N Boots’ latest album “Heart Parade,” out Nov. 20?

Two words: Bob Ezrin.

The Toronto-born-and-sometimes-based production legend (Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”, Peter Gabriel’s eponymous debut and Lou Reed’s “Berlin” to name a few) has been in shock rock king Cooper’s corner since 1971’s “Love It To Death” and has helped him enjoy some of his biggest successes, including the 1975 Cooper gem “Welcome To My Nightmare.”

It turns out that Taes Leavitt – Boots – met Ezrin through business partner and ex-Prairie Oyster manager Alan Kates while on vacation in The Bahamas.

Kates and Leavitt met each other at a restaurant there, and before long Kates agreed to manage the duo, which includes Nick Adams a.k.a. Splash.

And the Cooper connection?

Canadian kids entertainers Splash 'N Boots have a surprise for their audience on their new album "Heart Parade," out November 20: a duet with the king of shock rock, Alice Cooper.

“It’s Alan’s fault,” Ezrin jokes over the line from his Nashville home. “At a point he contacted me about what Splash ‘N Boots were doing and I fell in love with the two of them. They’re Torontonians, they’re great people and they’re doing really good work for children, so there’s all good reasons for wanting to support them and see them succeed. We’ve been involved with them for about a year.

“I think it was Nick who said, ‘Do you think we could ever get Alice Cooper to sing on the album?’ And I said, ‘I’m quite sure he would be happy to do so because he’s not-so-quietly and unashamedly a guy who is all about kids. He has his own Solid Rock Foundation in Arizona where kids from Phoenix can come to a large facility where they can learn to play music, learn to dance and learn to paint, making it possible for them to find themselves through the arts.”

Coincidentally, Ezrin was working on the vocals for the new Cooper album “Detroit Stories” when he received the request.

Using an idea borrowed from Cooper’s 1973 hit “Hello, Hooray,” Adams and company dashed the song off overnight.

Ezrin said Cooper took to the song immediately.

“It sounded very ‘Cooperish,’” recalls Ezrin, who also mixed the track for the album. “He and I kind of looked at each other and said, ‘Well, this is pretty good.’ I said to him, why don’t we try having you sing on it and he was very happy to do so. He got it really quickly – and it sounds good. And there you go – that’s ‘Heart Parade.’”

Nick Adams still finds the whole episode “surreal.”

“I couldn’t believe it,” says Adams. “I was thinking about watching ‘Wayne’s World’ and all of that stuff comes flying into my head as a teenage Nick. And I just couldn’t believe that now Alice’s voice is being sent to us from Arizona on the song we just wrote for Alice Cooper and he said yes.

“We’re like, ‘what?’ How did this happen?’ So, it was pretty magical.”

Adams jests that the duo may be looking to hit up Ezrin to involve some of his other connections for future projects.

“We’re looking at Bob to hook us up with Pink Floyd, KISS…who else has he worked with?” Adams jokes. “We couldn’t be more stoked.”

The blue-and-yellow-garbed duo, known for songs like “Big Yellow Boot,” “Charlie the Dog,” “Keys” and appearances before millions on Treehouse TV, Disney Jr. Canada, Kidoodle.TV and their own YouTube Channel, are also stoked that “Heart Parade” is their 13th album and a worthy follow-up to 2019’s Juno Award-winning “You, Me and the Sea.”

It’s also their first album to feature multiple guests, ranging from Cooper and homegrown country stars Brett Kissel and Johnny Reid to singer Jill Barber and The Strumbellas’ Simon Ward to Peter Katz and iskwë.

They coaxed Sharon and Bram out of retirement to join them on “Hey Dum Diddley Dum” – the first song that Splash ‘N Boots ever sang together while attending Queen’s University in Kingston – and even have a track with the superstars of children’s entertainment, Australia’s The Wiggles.

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In fact, Adams is something of an honorary Wiggle.

“We started connecting with The Wiggles a couple years back,” says Adams. “Just because of their relationship with Treehouse and we’re on Treehouse as well, so we opened for them at the Budweiser Stage. We became friends – I went on tour with them for a bit last year because Anthony – the Blue Wiggle – he had to potentially go home for a funeral, so I was kind of his understudy.

“So, over the years, we’ve gotten to know them. Over in Newfoundland last year, I got to co-write a song with Lucky – the Purple Wiggle – and that song made it onto their album.

“It’s been a great relationship and we often laugh about it because about 15 years ago, Taes and I bought tickets to the SkyDome and we – without children – went to the concert, sat in the back row and watched this sold-out show.

“Taes and Emma (the Yellow Wiggle) now have a great friendship so it’s really cool actually.”

Of course, Splash ‘N Boots miss performing live concerts – they’ve done over 5,000 of them in North America and as far away as Australia, the Middle East, the Caribbean and Europe, but Leavitt is hoping to reconnect with audiences soon, especially children on the autism spectrum.

The duo has been spearheading their own Lucas’ Letters, a global pen pal program that connects children with autism and others of all ages and abilities – and Leavitt says they make special audience considerations for their shows.

“We found that we have a large audience of kids on the spectrum,” Leavitt explains.

“We were doing a lot of meet-and-greets with children and we started offering parents of kids on the spectrum meet-and-greets beforehand so we could make it a quieter environment. They don’t have to wait, and we could give them a little bit more time.

“From that, we’ve just gotten into spending time with these kids and finding ways to reconnect with them and supporting their families. It’s one of the really important mandates for us with the work that we do; being able to work with the community and provide all of the support we can for the families and for their children.

“We’ve done lots of outreach with them in classrooms and also at Queen’s Park, standing up for their funding and making sure, in any way that we can, we are there to support them.”

Leavitt says that when touring resumes, Splash N’ Boots will add a “sensory tour” element to their performances.

“We’ll create that space where the music is quieter,” she said. “We’ve done one at the Rose Theatre in Brampton, where it was a smaller room and everybody sat on mats on the floor and it was really an intimate, feeling performance and it was honestly one of our most favourite shows ever that we’ve done.

“Ultimately, if we do a show in the regular theatre and there’s another space available to be used, we’d like to do two shows a day – one set offered in more of a sensory capacity.

“I do think it’s so important. We do get parents saying a regular show is a bit too overwhelming, which is why we meet them beforehand.”

As for the album “Heart Parade,” there is one additional artist who is making her singing debut on “Great Day” – and Nick Adams said there’s a reason you may not recognize the name Rebecca Tesfagiorgis.

“That’s my fiancée,’” Adams explains. “One of our mandates is to give opportunities: it’s a gospel song and she has that exact voice. She only had her church choir experience, but man, she nailed it. It really wasn’t planned when we wrote the song, but she killed it.”"