The World According to… Alice Cooper

Alice Cooper is the original makeup-ed metaller, and there are no substitutions. Taking from heavy metal, vaudeville and symphonic rock, the “School’s Out” rocker built his legacy on mixing haunting musical sounds with horrific onstage theatrics – everything from bright red blood to mile-long syringes to electric chairs. The result? The Coop always paints a picture of horror in his concertgoers’ minds.

Along the way, Alice Cooper has developed a somehow lovable persona, making him rock’s favorite villain to date. In the following choice quotes, Alice talks about hitting rock-bottom during his struggle with substance addiction, touring with fellow horror rocker Rob Zombie, finding a Christian faith and getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Rock on, Alice!

On finally getting inducted into the Hall of Fame, as told to USA Today in 2011:

We were Susan Lucci for quite a long time – or Pete Rose, whichever way you look at it! … I went, ‘That’s kind of cool. Every year, it’s this new outrage.’ I was sitting there, going, ‘Calm down. Don’t worry. Our time will come.’”

On staying excited about music 30-plus years later, as told to Horror Garage:

You know, it's funny, ’cause I think that if it’s in your blood, you never get tired of it. I’m still a rock ’n’ roll fan. I have a 19-year-old and a 15-year-old, and I’m probably the only dad in the world that bangs on their door and says, ‘Turn that up!’ If it’s good rock ’n’ roll, I’m the first one to turn it up. Like anything else: there’s great rock ’n’ roll, there’s crappy rock ’n’ roll. And I’m not real prejudiced. As much as I’m not a big rap fan, I love Eminem. I think Eminem is very funny.

On Lady Gaga, as told to the Washington Post in 2011:

Lady Gaga is the female Alice Cooper. She created a character named Lady Gaga. She wrote songs for Lady Gaga. Not for herself – for Lady Gaga. I write for Alice; I don’t write for me… And she produced those songs on stage for Lady Gaga. Now there’s a Lady Gaga nation out there, and if you meet her off stage, she’s nothing like that person on stage. [Laughs] It’s like, me either. I’m nothing like Alice. But we created a character that belongs to rock and roll.

On touring with fellow horror rocker Rob Zombie, as told to the Gannett Lansing State Journal in 2010:

You know, Rob is one of my very best friends in the business, so it’s great to be out with him. The shows are funny, because my show is so Alice in that it’s got a sense of humor to it, and so does Rob’s, only his is a whole different kind of thing… We’re much more of an opera than anybody else. When Alice says, ‘Welcome to My Nightmare,’ he gives you the nightmare. Everything about the lyrics tells us what to do theatrically with the song.

Regarding how his Christianity and art work together, as told to HM Magazine in 2011:

You know, first of all, I do mostly the secular rock. But I think … My pastor feels the same way. I am not necessarily praise rock. I’m not Christian praise music. I think that I go to a different place. And I think that Christianity needs to go much more into the secular arts. I think that we need to be heard not just by Christians. I mean, it’s nice ... bands like Creed, P.O.D. There’s some bands out there that are saying some pretty good things. And then there’s a lot of really good praise rock bands. I’ve just never felt... I do that in church. I do that in prayer. I do that, but I think that my message is more of a warning. I don’t mind being the prophet of doom. I think that that’s more fitted for what Alice is.

I feel that, if God is going to use Alice Cooper, it’s going to be more on a level of a warning. It’s not going to be on a level of, ‘Isn’t everything great? Isn’t everything good? Aren’t we all wonderful?’ Alice is going to be more like, ‘Be careful! Satan is not a myth. Don’t sit around pretending like Satan is just a joke.’ Because I have a lot of friends that do believe that. I think my job is to warn about Satan.

On the cost of a Cooper show, as recorded by Rock Around the World in their 1970s archives:

Just the stage alone cost around $400,000. But with 43 people working and with rehearsals and everything I would say you’ve got to be spending ... boy, I’m the worst at figures ... but you’ve got to be spending at least a quarter of a million dollars a month just on maintaining everybody. Probably more than that. I’m not really sure ’cause I don’t do any business at all I’m the worst businessman.

On hitting rock bottom, as told to Reuters in 2007:

But it got to the point where I was drinking so much that I was throwing up blood in the morning. Guys in my business – like Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison – usually lasted until the age of 27. I watched them drink themselves to death. And I was pretty much on my way there.

On his love for golf and how it helped save him from substance abuse, as told to Billboard:

I traded one bad habit for another habit, only this habit [golf] was a lot healthier. Golf ended up being a good trade-off. The thing about this book [Cooper’s memoir Alice Cooper, Golf Monster: A Rock 'n' Roller's 12 Steps to Becoming a Golf Addict], is that when I look at the whole juxtaposition of who Alice Cooper is, the golf addiction and the music addiction, still, it’s pretty interesting how they can co-exist.

Regarding his popular radio show, Nights with Alice Cooper, as told to the Gannett Local Music Beat in 2010:

The Dick Clark organization came to me. Everybody was going into satellite radio, and Dick Clark said to me, ‘If you had a radio show, what would it be?’ And I said, ‘I would go back to what I remember FM radio to be: where the DJ played what he or she wanted and it wasn’t a corporate decision.’ You know, ‘These are the most popular songs by demographics for 20 to 35-year-olds’ – I hate that. That kills the whole idea of rock and roll. So, I said, ‘I’ll play bands I like and tell stories about them, because everybody I play, I’m going to know.’ So, I might play songs from The Kinks, Frank Zappa and Iggy and tell stories.

On what horror movies give Alice Cooper the willies, as told to the Concert Livewire in 2001:

There are a couple of horror movies that I think hold up as being scary, and the reason that they are scary is that they're based on real things. I think that when you get into things like Nightmare on Elm Street you're talking about things that just don't happen. But when you're talking about The Exorcist, that's based on truth. That happens a lot. Demon possession and exorcisms really do happen. That’s not just me or anybody saying that, it’s documented on medical record. So it’s very hard to not explain that. I think that anytime you get into the occult you have a realization that this stuff does exist. Probably not as graphic as they do in the movies, but there’s something creepy in the fact that it does exist…

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The World According to … Jimi Hendrix

Though Jimi Hendrix was just 27 when he died in September 1970, he managed to secure the near-unanimous public opinion that he’s the best guitarist who ever lived. Last year, Gibson.com readers voted Hendrix No. 1 in our Top 50 Guitarists of All Time poll, and he’s topped similar lists by Rolling Stone and other music publications. Those that saw him play live say that Hendrix was even more magical and arresting in person than he is on his records and in film. In interviews, however, he had a soft-spoken, wry manner that can be difficult to reconcile with his loud stage presence. Hendrix didn’t grant many interviews, but the ones he did reveal him to be obsessed with his craft, frustrated with and stifled by the music industry, and surprisingly self-depreciating and hilarious. Here are some choice quotes from Hendrix.

On rock and roll, as reported in the 1970 book Rock: A World Bold as Love

“Rock is so much fun. That’s what it’s all about — filling up the chest cavities and empty kneecaps and elbows.”

On his various identities, as told to radio interviewer in 1970.

“All I write is just what I feel … I don’t round it off too good. I just keep it almost naked … what I was trying to do was doing three things at a time, which is my nature … I hate to be in one corner. I hate to be put as only a guitar player, or either only as a songwriter, or only as a tap dancer. I like to move around.”

On his musical intentions, as said on The Dick Cavett Show in 1969.

“We’re playing for our sound to go inside the soul of the person and see if they can awaken some kind of thing in their mind. There are so many sleeping people.”

 

On how he writes a song, as told to Rolling Stone in 1970.

“Most of the time I can’t [write] it on the guitar, you know? Most of the time I’m just lying around daydreaming and hearing all this music. And you can’t, if you go to the guitar and try to play it, it spoils the whole thing, you know? — I just can’t play guitar that well, to get all this music together.”

On Bob Dylan, as told to rock journalist Steve Barker in 1967.

“I saw him one time, but both of us were stoned out of our minds. I remember it vaguely. It was at this place called The Kettle of Fish in the Village. We were both stoned there, and we just hung around laughing — yeah, we just laughed. People have always got to put him down. I really dig him, though. I like that Highway 61 Revisited album and especially ‘Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.’ He doesn’t inspire me actually, because I could never write the kind of words he does.”

On what he’s aiming for when making a record, as told to rock journalist Steve Barker in 1967.

“We quite naturally want people to like it — that’s the reason for putting the record out. You see, I have no taste. I couldn’t say what’s a good record and what’s a bad one, really. We play records at the flat sometimes and say, ‘This is great,’ and then somebody will say, ‘Oh, yeah, but it’s something else.’ Then they say, ‘That’s terrible,’ and I’d say, ‘That’s great — the tremolos, for instance.’ So I don’t have no feeling about commercial records. I don’t know what a commercial record really is. So what we do is write and try to get it together as best as possible for anybody who’d really dig it. It doesn’t make any difference who.”

On the record industry, as said on The Dick Cavett Show in 1969

“Money is getting to be out of hand now. Musicians, especially young cats, they get a chance to make all this money and they say, ‘Wow, this is fantastic,’ and they lose themselves and they forget about the music itself. They forget about their talents; they forget about the other half of them … The more money you make the more blues you can sing.”

On women and sex, as told to an interviewer in 1967

“If you’re not used to [groupies] it can kill you really. [Sex is] just another way of communication. That’s why a lot of people can’t understand and say, ‘Damn, why you with so many people?’ … It’s a part of you, it’s nature, I just can’t help it, that’s all. Some people just communicate better by not even knowing each other’s name, by just saying, ‘Hey, hi, why don’t you come with me here for a minute?’ We can be the best of friends then. Some even get married after that. It was worse before [I was famous] because I used to be on the block starving. Girls used to really help me. Girls are some of my best friends. Ever since then, that’s why I say to myself, ‘Any girl I meet now I’m going to try to show her my appreciation for what they did for me before.’ [Laughs.]”

On his ideal lifestyle, when asked if he has enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life, as spoken in a 1970 interview with New Musical Express

“Not the way I’d like to live. I want to get up in the morning and just roll over in my bed into the indoor swimming pool and then swim to the breakfast table, come up for air and get a drink of orange juice. Then just flop over from the chair into the swimming pool and swim into the bathroom and shave and whatever.”

On the transformative power of the electric guitar, as reported in the 1970 book Rock: A World Bold as Love

“I wish they’d had electric guitars in cotton fields back in the good old days. A whole lot of things would've been straightened out. Not just only for the black and the white, but I mean for the cause!”

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