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Alice Unchained

Vincent Furnier is good at being himself, but he's always been at his best when playing Alice Cooper, a role he's been starring in for over twenty years. Long before Gene Simmons spit out his first drop of blood, long before Motley Crue shouted at the devil, long before Blackie Lawless strapped on his first exploding codpiece, long before King Diamond learned to shatter glass, there was Alice. When he arrived on the scene back in the late '60's, he was the epitome of the rock 'n roll nightmare. His live shows were part circus, part rock 'n roll, incorporating such non-rock gimmicks as guillotines and electric chairs, while Alice, clad in make-up and outlandish costumes, stalked around the stage with a live, twenty foot boa constrictor wrapped around his neck. It would have all been a really bad joke if Cooper didn't have the songs to back it all up... but he did.

Songs like "Eighteen," "School's Out," "Hello Hurray," "Billion Dollar Babies" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy" established Alice Cooper as a great rock band first, and something weird to look at second.

Twentysomething years later, Alice is still killing audiences around the world with new album The Last Temptation, (the first single is "Unholy War," guest starring Chris Cornell) a concept album he created with famed comic book writer Neil Gaiman. Foundations caught up with Alice and welcomed him to our night­mare...

How did you get Neil Gaiman involved in writing for The Last Temptation?

The idea was to write the concept first. We wrote the storyline first before we wrote any songs. We knew how it was going to start and how it was going to end, we just had to fill in the rest of the story. We have a villain, a hero, a love interest, that kind of thing. Then we decided that if everything was going to revolve around this story, we might as well make a comic book also. That way people can read it while they're listening to it. That's why we got Neil involved.

What's the storyline?

The concept is based on 1990's temptation. Temptation never gets old, it's been going on for six or seven thousand years. As long as humans have been around there have been temptations. And what it's saying is that you don't have to give in to temptation. The old character, the Showman, represents temptation and the kid, Steven, is the one being tempted. In a situation like that, the kid would normally be tempted, but he isn't. The rest of it you'll have to see and hear in its entire context to find out what's going on. This isn't just another rock album with twelve songs on it. It can be taken on for the top level, or you can look a little deeper and find another meaning. I didn't want to write a one-dimensional, here's a dumb rock song album.

Is the live show going to be a full-blown theatrical interpretation of the record?

We'll see, it takes a lot of preparation. Our tours are a lot harder to do than most people's tours.

How do you feel about rock's new minimalist approach? The theatrics are gone.

Well, I think the Seattle bands kind of came along and said, 'Okay, here we are, this is us.' But that's not Alice. Alice isn't from Seattle. Alice doesn't have that attitude. If Alice has a show, Alice will always do a show. And I think that's why people want to see Alice. I would never go onstage and just do a show barebones. Let the Seattle bands do what they do, I like what they do. But that's not what Alice would do.

I know you're a horror fan - what do you think about this new generation of horror movies. They leave nothing to the imagination, it's all splattergore.

I haven't seen a good horror movie in a long time. Like you said, there's no tension to them. If you want to see a scary movie, see The Haunting. There's no monster, you never see anything, but at the end you think, 'Wow that was scary.' I like the splatter movies for the comedy of them.

Have you ever seen Mystery Science Theater 3000?

Oh sure. I watch it all the time. But you should be able to watch a good Italian horror movie where even if you don't understand a thing they're saying, and still be able to laugh all the way through it. That to me is a good movie.

Was there a performer you saw as a kid that made you say 'that's what I want to do?'

I saw Elvis when I was five or six years old and I started combing my hair like his immediately. Then when the Beatles came along, I was 15 at the time, it was perfect because I thought 'this is great, I'm going to do whatever they do.' Then when the Stones along, I thought, 'wow, now I don't have to wear suits, I can grow my hair long and wear gruffy clothes.' And pretty soon, we said, 'okay it's time for us to make a contribution, let's put Alice out there and make Alice an American Frankenstein nightmare.'

The whole Alice persona was just so drastically different from anything anyone else was doing back then.

Everyone hated us.

Was it hard to get the rest of the band to go along with the idea?

No, they loved it. It was one of those things where we realized we were just out there. We were in competition with bands like The Doors and all these great bands. But we decided that we were gonna do something where even if people hated us, they were never gonna forget us. We could've been Gwar, except for the fact that we had the music to back it up. We spent 85-90% of our time on the music. The show came easy, but we were concentrating on getting people's attention musically first.

Do you remember your first American tour?

Oh yeah, we were out with Frank Zappa and since it was his audience, they loved us because we were so bizarre. But when we went out on our own and played with groups like The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, we got quite a shocking response.

How different were the reactions in other parts of the world like Japan or Europe?

Well we never got to Japan until about six years ago. The Europeans loved it because it was exotic and it was American. But not just plain American, it was like the ultimate American. We were sex, death and money all combined. We were everything they associated with America. We were the most American band there ever was. We were the American nightmare. To this day, we still sell more records in Europe than we do in America.

What did your parents say the first time they saw your show?

Well, they grew up with it. They used to come into the garage and take a look at what we we're doing. They probably didn't see how science fiction it was going to get or anything like that. But they didn't mind any of it.

What did they do for a living?

My dad was a preacher and my mom was a hit man for the CIA (laughs) My dad was very cool, he didn't see rock 'n roll being the dastardly communist plot that a lot of other preachers thought.

Were you ever afraid that your shows would take the audience too far?

No, because the audience never had a chance to do anything. The only thing the audience was responsible for was watching us. Usually there was so much going on onstage that they didn't have time to do anything. We had very little violence at our shows because if someone looked away from the stage to fight, they'd miss the show.

Did things ever get carried away onstage?

Onstage was a different thing. You could get hurt onstage. If you didn't know where to go on that stage at the right time you could get cut, you could get hurt, you could get knocked into the audience because it was all very choreographed.

Were there every any serious accidents?

Sure. There was one time in Vancouver where I fell 12 feet into the audience and broke all my ribs and got a gash on my head...

That's called stage diving now.

You're right (laughs).

Why do you always refer to Alice in the third person?

Because I'm not him. I play him. I write for him. But when it comes down to it, I wouldn't want to be him, I don't think anyone would want to be Alice. I think it's more important to create a character and then put him on, go on and play him for two hours and then walk away. He was the character that I invented. He was my baby.

It must be great to do anything you want and say, 'Hey, it wasn't me, it was Alice.'

That's right. (laughs) Everybody should have one.

Did you ever feel like recreating Alice? Bowie for example, kept going through various stages. There was Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane...

Alice went through changes, but he always kept the same attitude. It wasn't Alice's responsibility to change with the times since he was a timeless character.

What scares you the most?

Well (pause), you know what I really don't like? I really don't like death metal.

Why?

Because it's glorifying death, whereas Alice made fun of death. They're making death an alternative and I'm not into that. I'm not into the whole satanic thing or death thing at all.

They could just say that they're taking what you started to a whole new level.

But they're not. I would never take any credit for any satanic band or anybody that plays death metal. I don't find any humor or cleverness in it.

I'm sure that there were people who said the same thing about you when you were starting out.

Probably. But I think that once they took time out to listen to the songs and understood that there was a sense of humor behind it, they could see that I wasn't condoning it. Now you have bands that are saying, hey if you get pissed off at your parents kill yourself. And I'm saying 'I don't think so.'

Not to mention that when you go home at the end of the night, the show's over.

Exactly. Plus I never said anything to condone someone killing themselves. That's the last thing you'd wanna do. If they did that, they wouldn't be able to buy the record (laughs).

What has twenty plus years in the music business taught you?

That if you don't stay on top of your game, somebody will bury you.