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All Hail the godfather and undisputed king of shock rock

When I was nine I was playing on the floor with my GI Joes while my parents were watching this TV show called The People's Court, when suddenly a commercial flashed up on the screen: 'This Saturday — Alice Cooper at The Coliseum'. It showed all these clips of Alice with the snake, teh electric chair and the guillotine, and I was just mesmerised by it. I froze and thought: "Who the hell is this guy?" then I heard my mom go: "Oh, that's the guy that bites the heads of chickens." And when she said that I went: "Really?" So I called my buddy up and said: "Have you ever heard of this guy or whatever it is named Alice Cooper?" And my buddy goes: "Yeah! My uncle has all of his records."

So for the weekend we made a plan: he was going to bring all these Alice Cooper cassettes over to the house. So we snuck them in and spent the whole weekend listening to Welcome To My Nightmare and all these old records in my bedroom. And it was really scary, almost like watching a horror movie, because our parents had told us how scary he was — that he was like the Devil. So we thought that we were really doing something wrong by listening to it. From that point I was totally hooked into it.

I'd got all of the Kiss dolls for my birthday when I was about six, but discovered Alice became the true inspiration for what I do now. From a visual, musical and lyrical standpoint certainly, but also in that Alice always had a sense of humour, and that is something that I really hold close to what I do. It's not all shock value with Alice, either, he's always had really great songs, his ballads included.

On the first couple of occasions that I talked to Alice I was really nervous, but when I did his radio show he was so calm and cool that I almost forgot that I was talking to Alice and we were able to relate really easily. We've done shows together now, so it becomes even easier. I still get excited about being around Alice, but he's cool enough to make even his biggest fans feel comfortable around him.

I've grown to know a lot about the guy and, while I don't go out of my way to be exactly like him, I've learnt a lot from him — like he doesn't have to be Alice Cooper 24/7; when he walks offstage he turns it off and can be a person as well. And that's something that I've definitely learned from him.

Wednesday 13's new solo album Fang Bang is out now on Rykodisc; a Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13 boxset called Little Box Of Horrors is out now on People Like You.