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The master of horror and shock-rock is back: Alice Cooper

He slashed baby dolls, had scary monsters dancing on the stage, got his head cut off by a guillotine and wrapped live snakes around his neck: Alice Cooper was the first musician who caused quite a stir with his bizarre and brutal horror show. Now he's back after 4 years of absence. His brand new single is called "He's Back", the new album is going to be released soon. The 38 year old bogey of the middle classes is back with a vengeance.

The super star of the 70's is talking about his comeback: "Everybody knows the rock-legend Alice Cooper but lots of younger folks have never had the chance to watch him live. Most of them only listened to his records or know him from hearsay. They will get to know to my brilliant horror show with a lot of brand new effects and some straight action. I just don't know if the public authorities are going to stop me."

Alice often had problems with censorship: Couple of month ago he did a video with "head nurse" Dee Snider (from Twisted Sister) which was banned by MPAA because of its violent content. Dee and Alice are shown as zombies, creeping around eating raw human flesh. Alice was happy about the prohibition: "This is the first video in ten years what was banned - I love it!"

Poltergeist for education!

Even in his private life Alice, the father of two kids enjoys horror. "I've recently watched the movie 'Poltergeist' with my five-year-old daughter Calico! Calico wasn't afraid - the apple doesn't fall far from the tree" Alice laughs. But don't take him too serious: "My show is a kind of Halloween-party, but most of the young Heavy Metal bands like W.A.S.P. take it too serious and that's ridiculous, furthermore they copy me. David Lee Roth does it right for example; from his point of view the whole business is an oversized playground."

"I looked into the mirror... and my eyes were bleeding!"

Several years have passed since Alice's brilliant performances and hit records - for obvious reasons: Alice had a long fight with alcohol and drug abuse. "One day I woke up, looked into the mirror and realized my eyes were bleeding! These days I always look scary whether I wear my make-up or not. That was the day I knew I had to stop it. Drugs draw on your resources. If you drink too much, you might wake up with a hangover the next day. The worse thing about drugs is that you always feel good - it keeps killing you slow but steady. That's why it's so difficult to make it clear to drug addicts that they are killing themselves. I'm so glad to get rid of that addiction and today I'm feeling better and younger than I did ten years ago.

Kindly translated June 2010 by Rado

(Originally published in Bugle American, June 13-20, 1973; Vol. 4, No. 20; No. 118)