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Future Shock: Down Home on Alice Cooper's Brutal Planet

Over the past 30 years, Alice Cooper has evolved from a Ouija board figment into one of rock's most revered icons. Part of the reason for Cooper's longevity is the crafty charisma the singer cultivated — a kind of P.T. Barnum for the rock set. The other key to Cooper's enduring appeal is the fact that the music he's made as a band-leader and a solo artist tramples over so many boundaries. Hits like "No More Mr. Nice Guy'' rely on hummable hooks as much as hard rock punch, and the sardonic sentiments of songs like "I'm Eighteen" and "School's Out" foreshadowed the eruption of punk. Indeed, the story of young John Lydon auditioning for the Sex Pistols by miming along with "I'm Eighteen" on a jukebox in a London pub in the opening anecdote in the liner notes Lydon wrote the last year's box set, The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper. And then there were the concerts.

Onstage, Cooper and company (in 1975 Alice Cooper metamorphosed from a band to a solo artist) brought the songs to lurid life with creep-show tactics. The theatrical guillotine executions, the mangled baby dolls, the very real boa constrictor and all the other nightmarish images were a vital link that managed to connect elements of surrealist performance art and the voodoo world of Screamin' Jay Hawkins with the rise of Kiss, Iron Maiden, Skinny Puppy, Marilyn Manson, White Zombie, Gwar and a host of other artful horror rockers.

Having been boxed by Rhino and having authored a very colorful chapter in the annals of music history, Cooper could well afford to rest on his laurels, but the godfather of shock rock (and enterprising restaurateur) isn't ready to rest his case just yet. On June 6, Cooper's 21st album, Brutal Planet, hits the streets — six years after The Last Temptation. It's the first time he's collaborated with executive producer Bob Ezrin since 1983's Dada, and the results are unmistakably Alice, but Alice for a new millennium — harder, louder and armed to the teeth with apocalyptic visions that also server a cautionary tales. From his home base in Phoenix, Cooper offers a guided tour of Brutal Planet and beyond.

The new album is heavy.

"It's by far the heaviest album I've ever done. I got to the point where I think you can't just put out 12 songs that are just songs anymore. There's a glut of music out there, so unless you really have something to say — don't put an album out. When we put The Last Temptation out it was a production, with a storyline and a comic book that went with it. When Stephen King puts a book out, it's an event, and I want my albums to be like that."

So it's a concept album.

"It's a concept album because it's going to be a production. There's going to be a stage production and everything. The concept is, this is the way Alice sees the future. Now, I don't necessarily see the future that way, but Alice does. I mean, I'm very optimistic about things. Alice is very pessimistic. But I think his point of view is probably much more interesting than mine because his is much more theatrical."

But there's a tension between the two things — sometimes dark imagery can convey a positive message.

"I know what you mean, and I went out of my way to get Gothic on this. This was much more sci-fi. The people doing the stage show are known for their Gothic imagery — you know, statues and stuff — and I said 'None of this. I want this to be post-nuclear [laughs]. I want this place to be like it's already been hit by the bomb and these are the survivors.' But at the same time I try not to make depressing albums. I think there's a lof of humor in my albums, and even the rockers that have a heavy feel are really 'up' songs."

Hard rock is the perfect medium for overstatement. The opening of "Eat Some More" is so over the top — that image of piles of rotting meat is on a par with Mr. Creosote sketch in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.

"That was definitely one song where I went over the top, because I think you have to point out the things that happen in this society that are totally insane. Billions of tons of rotting meat and people starving — how can that be possible? Whereas that doesn't really bother me as much as a guy talking behind me in the movie theatre."

It must be frustrating when people misinterpret the overstatement and sarcasm as this evil satanic thing.

"Yeah. My message is the absolute opposite. A song like 'Gimme' or 'Vicious Young Man'... I mean, here's a song about a guy that's out there, already with us, and what it's doing is warning you about him. What we're saying on that song is it's not the movies, it's not the games he plays, it's not the records he listens to. He's just a vicious, wicked, evil young man and he's out there. These monsters are already among us. In fact the two heaviest songs on the album — 'Pick Up the Bones' and 'Blow Me A Kiss' — have already happened. 'Blow Me A Kiss' is about senseless killing, like those kids at Columbine High School. They just at random killed anybody they didn't like. With 'Pick Up the Bones' I was actually writing another song, and I always have the TV on when I write — even if the sound is down. CNN was on and I'm watching this guy coming back into his village in Kosovo. He had a big Hefty bad and he was picking up a skull and putting it in the bag, and then he'd pick up a leg bone and put it in. I said, "What is this?' And I turned up the volume. He had picked up a rib cage and a spine and he says, 'This is my uncle,' and he puts it in there and he says, 'This is my brother.' He was collecting his family. And I went, 'This is pure horror.' This is more horrific than anything Stephen King could write. And this didn't happen 50 years ago in Germany. This happened last week!"

But your comments on these things are often lost on people. You can't blame events like Columbine on TV or movies or videos games — the problem goes far beyond that — but a constant stream of violent imagery does kind of desensitize kids.

"That's that scariest thing. They just had a mass suicide or murder in Africa where [hundreds of] people died and that was a minor story. We didn't care that much. To watch CNN scares me to death because every day we're getting used to it that it's not even bothering us anymore."

That and it becomes very abstracted. Virtual activity starts taking the place of actual activity and human interaction.

"Absolutely. I do not want to shop on the internet. I want to go to the store. What we don't want to lose is the interaction mdash; actually having to stand in line is something important... I think the album is pointing towards the absurdity of all this. Alice has never been the voice of reason. I think that this is maybe the first time that Alice has ever spoken out against anything or gotten satirical. But he always includes himself in the insanity and all of the bad things. He says 'That's me too.'"

So you feel this is more satirical than something like "No More Mr. Nice Guy?"

"'No More Mr. Nice Guy' was effective because it was a pop song and it reached a lot of people. The same with 'School's Out' and 'Elected.' Those were played on the AM radio and they were big Top 40 hits, so I think that satire got to a lot more people. This is more directed to the hard rock audience, and Alice has got a pretty good base audience out there. And the funny thing is, I never know what to expect. When I start writing an album, I almost have to go to a psychiatrist afterwards and say, 'Okay, now what did I mean?' Because a lot of this is right off the top of my head."

Did you write all the songs at once or did they accumulate over time?

"When I had the concept of what it was, I started writing with Bob Marlette and we wrote basically the whole thing together. I'm not one of those guys that's an inspired writer. I have to say, 'Okay, from 5-9am I'm writing. From 6-12 tonight I'm writing.' When I put myself in the position of, 'Okay, it's time to write,' then I get a lot done. All the stuff that I was thinking about during the day suddenly comes out. I am not one of those guys that'll get an inspiration in the middle of a grocery store and then run home and write it. I'll get an idea and keep it in my head. If it's a good enough idea it stays there. If it's a flimsy idea it'll go away. That's how I figure out if it's a good idea or not. I've written five different versions of 'Take It Like A Woman' for five different albums and it never ever made it on any of the other albums 'cause it just wasn't right. I'd put it on the back burner until the next album and then it would come up again and I'd write it again. This is the first time it worked. It's sort of the ultimate feminist statement. It's not 'take it like a man,' because women can take more pain than men can."

A lot of this album actually reminded me of bands that you probably inspired. Does that bother you or inspire you?

"I've always looked at rock & roll as being a fraternity of guys that make the big league; as being very competitive. And I like the competition. So if a new band comes out and they look good and they do a good show and they do great music — all that does is it kicks me in the butt and says, 'Let's go!' It does inspire me. I like the idea of somebody coming along and sort of upping the ante. I've seen Rob Zombie come along — I saw his show and I went, 'Yeah! This guy is good!' But for every good one there's 25 where you just go, 'Oh, well — that's gonna last for 12 minutes.' I would say I'm like the old gunslinger, and there's always some punk that thinks he's faster."

Are you going high-tech with the stage show?

"I've always prided myself in being low-tech. I mean, it's easy to go out and buy pyrotechnics and lasers and stuff, so I've always stayed away from that. I've got more of a vaudeville, maybe a circus background, where everybody is in the show. If you're a guitar player or a tech backstage, you actually have two or three parts in the show. I've always like the idea that's it's a very human show. This show will have some special effects that we haven't done before. I like using illusions on stage. I like for an audience to be in the middle of an Alice classic and all of a sudden go, 'Hey, wait a minute. How did he get over there?' I don't like to broadcast the fact that there's a trick coming. The best part of the trick is when you're sucked into it and don't realize it 'til it's too late."

Speaking of illusion and trippy effects, I remember reading somewhere that you were once in a film by the great surrealist painter Salvador Dali.

"It's a 360-degree moving hologram in the St. Petersburg Salvador Dali Museum. You can walk around and actually put your hand through it. I'm singing into this Venus De Milo that looks like a microphone. It's the first 360-degree hologram ever made, and Dali wanted me to be the subject of it, which was great, because he was one of my biggest heroes. What I learned from Dali is to bombard the audience with images without necessarily giving them a story line and let them create their own. If you look at a Salvador Dali painting there's maybe 10 images going on in there and you put your own values on them. Like, what does the melting clock mean to you? What does a crutch on a giraffe mean to you? And you get all these different stories. The same with an Alice Cooper show. The snake may be sexual to one person, it may be frightening to one person, it maybe be funny to another person. The crutches or the baby dolls or the guillotine — everybody's going to give those different values. And at the end of the show you go out and ask anybody what they saw and they'll tell you 10 different stories. That's good. That means I attacked their imagination and made them use it. If you can back that up with great music, then you've got something."

Unfortunately, excessive stage shows often cover up musical weakness.

"Exactly. I used to explain that we spent 90% of our time on the music and about 10% of our time on the theater. The theater was very easy for us. But in those days if you made a record there were 40 spots on the Top 40 and you were up against The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, The Supremes, Simon & Garfunkel — everybody that could make a record. So you'd better have a good record if you're going to knock them off the chart. So we spent much more time on the music than the theater and finally we became a really good band, but it took a while. I started out being a pretty dumb songwriter and I think I've written enough songs to where I've carved a certain Alice Cooper sound that people like. But it took a lot of bad songs that I threw away to get to the good ones."

Music has become so genrefied. Once upon a time you would be up against all those artists you mentioned, but now there are countless charts and categories.

"Yeah. I don't like the splintered thing. When this album comes out I know it'll be on the same wavelength as, say, Rage Against The Machine and Korn and Limp Bizkit. Then you'll say, 'Yeah, but it's also classic Alice. So, let's put it on classic-modern-dah-dah-dah.' And I'm going, 'But it's just a record. Put it on the radio.'"

I guess the music business has changed a lot over the course of your career.

"When we did School's Out and Billion Dollar Babies and all those records, the executives from Warner Bros. would come down to the studio and sit there for six hours and we'd talk about lyrics. We would talk about, 'What do you think about this guitar here?' They were so involved in the record making. They were involved in the career. They cared about every single thing that happened on that record, whereas now a big record company will get 15 tracks, listen to them and go, 'I like that, don't like that, okay move on.' I think record companies have got to start building careers and stop going for the short term hits. If you've got a band like The Wallflowers, develop them! Think about doing 15 albums with these guys, not two. I don't think a lot of new bands get the chance to have a long-term career. That's the big difference between the '70s and now."

How's your restaurant, Cooper’stown?

"It's been a huge smash — all-American Midwest food, rock & roll and sports. It's the only place where you can go at noon and see business guys mixed up with rock — roll guys having tuna-noodle casserole while the Mothers of Invention is blasting."

Are you a pretty hands-on restaurateur?

"Yeah. I'm down there three nights a week. I don't cook, but I have a lot to say. I'll come in and go, 'Hey let's do beef stew!,' or 'Let's get this band in here.' We have a stage outside so we have bands that play. We had Warren Zevon come in the other night and I kind of keep it open that it can also be like the young bands' jam place. THere's a lot of local bands here in Phoenix and we invite them to come in and play. We just won Best Theme Restaurant in the United States by the Nightclub and Bar Magazine and it was all based on the food — not what's hanging on the walls."

Would you consider franchising?

"Only if it were one at a time. Maybe we'd open one restaurant every two years, and only if we were really sure that everything about it was the same quality as the Phoenix one — 'cause I don't want 500 of these. Maybe 10 really good ones."

Were you ever tempted to call it...

"Alice's Restaurant?"

Yeah.

"The reason I like it was, the Cooper'stown play on words connected to sports and rock & roll immediately — and I loved that."

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REVIEWS

SONG: "Blow Me A Kiss"
FROM THE RELEASE: Brutal Planet
LABEL: Spitfire
MEMBERS: Alice Cooper (vocals); Eric Singer (drums); China (guitar); Phil X (guitar); Ryan Roxie (guitar); Bob Marlette (bass, keys).
PRODUCED BY: Bob Ezrin & Bob Marlette
ORIGIN: Phoenix
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: He's back... and if you're scared, then that's just the way Alice likes it. Alice Cooper is one of the pioneers (if not the founder) of "shock rock" and he's been doing it for over 30 years. Now, with "Blow Me A Kiss," the first single from Brutal Planet, his first album in four years, Alice returns to the stage from the kitchen (he owns a very popular bar and grill in Phoenix). With its chunky guitar and at times php-tinged melodies, "Blow Me A Kiss" shows why Alice has been able to maintain a 30-year career. For the entire story on Alice, check out the interview in this very mag — and while you're at it, lob the TuneUp in your player and blast track #2.