In Part 1 of our exclusive interview series with theatric classic rocker Alice Cooper, we covered the infamous “chicken” incident and its repercussions, his reaction when he first heard one of his songs on the radio, his “Alice’s Attic” radio show and its recent addition of KLOS-FM in Los Angeles syndicated via Superadio, and his appearance on the cover of Forbes magazine in 1973. Following are more excerpts from a vastly entertaining phone conversation.
Jim Clash: When you first started out, did you consciously invent your over-the- top theatric image as a marketing tool, or was it just inherent in what you did?
Alice Cooper: It was what we did, and really we had no idea. We just knew we liked it, and it worked. We had a strange sense of humor, a dark one. When I was a kid, I enjoyed horror movies. I saw all of them. I might have been the only one laughing, but a horror movie really is a comedy. Some aren’t, though. “The Exorcist* was not a comedy. It’s about your soul, not your intellect, and that’s what made it scary. That could happen. You can write off Michael Myers in “Halloween,” “Friday The Thirteenth” and “The Boogeyman.”
So the silliness of horror movies just came into our music. All of the band was from that era. We wanted to be The Yardbirds, but the theatric urges just flowed through us. We couldn’t help it, to be honest [laughs].
But now I don’t think you see Alice in that sense. There are so many things out there that are dark. When you come to an Alice show, you’re coming to a real good Halloween party. The songs are still there, all of the hits. And I’ve got the best band I’ve ever worked with, too: Nita Strauss, Glen Sobel. People walk way – and I love this – talking more about the music and less about theatrics.
Clash: You all were doing theatrics and wearing makeup way before the likes of David Bowie and Kiss, correct?
Cooper: Bowie used to come to our shows when he was a mime artist. He told his band that [what we did] is what they had to do. He even mentioned it in one of his interviews. As for Kiss, we told them where to buy their makeup [laughs]. We were the band that broke down the barriers that you could be theatrical and have hit records.
Kiss did that very well, too. They blueprinted us. They were the four comic book characters. Bowie was the space guy. Alice Cooper was the phantom of the opera. Elton John was sort of a Liberace, only better. Everybody found a theatrical character to go to, and I never felt threatened by any of them because we were all doing different things.
Clash: Given all of your stage antics, can you give me a funny story from touring when that backfired, if you will?
Cooper: When I saw “Spinal Tap,” I thought for sure it was just about us. Because when you’re using the props we were, and all of the special effects, you know it can go wrong. We decided we were going to shoot Alice out of a cannon in Three Rivers Stadium in front of like, 50,000 people. So we bought this giant cannon. The trick was to put me in it, then I secretly get out. There was just a dummy in there to shoot across the stage. The cannon went “boom,” and the dummy comes out – but only halfway – and then flops over. What do you do at that point? You just go, “Okay, that didn’t work” [laughs]. The next day we sold the cannon to the Rolling Stones.
Clash: You’re 77 now, and still touring. Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane once told me that a person over 50 should not be singing rock-and-roll songs. Your reaction?
Cooper: We’re called lifers, those who will do what they do until they can’t. My wife has the greatest line about Keith Richards: “With all of the wars, with all of the disease, with all the death on this planet, what kind of world are we going to leave Keith?” Because he’ll be the only thing left – him and Twinkies and maybe cock roaches [laughs].