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Alice Cooper

Of course, the phenomenal Alice Cooper needs no introduction, especially to the Gothic world. In a career spanning 5 decades, he has spearheaded individuality in image, as well as being the father of Horror-Rock, blending the best of Theatre and Music for his shows. He's set to unleash a new concept album, Along Came A Spider about a serial killer, along with a heavy touring schedule and his syndicated radio shows, "Nights With Alice Cooper" (which airs 5 hours a night, 5 nights a week!). He's also a connoisseur of Gothic fashion!

Gothic Beauty caught up with Alice by phone to find out more about the new album and other news from his unique world. Granted, Alice was surprised to find a "perky" voice on the other end of the phone line....

Alice: You know, I'm stunned a little bit. With the nature of the magazine, I thought you would be more morose.

GB: Well, the Gothic world now is a like a kaleidoscope. There are SO many different facets to it!

Alice: I saw your magazine just recently, by the way, in Germany. It was very nicely laid out! It's such a fashion statement!

GB: Thank you! But you helped start the whole genre!

Alice: Yeah, but it's become very high fashion, which is really interesting. If anything, it's kind-of took Middle America and gave it a style.

GB: Definitely! But you're a forerunner for the whole scene.

Alice: I think before Alice — in London, I know when we first went to London we were banned, of course. The first thing they did was ban us. Then, of course, they had to let us in. After we played Wembley (the School's Out show and everything), the NEXT DAY there were kids on the street with black make-up and top hats. They were already like overnight gone Goth! It was all of a sudden like Charles Dickens, I kind-of thought. But it was a cool style!

GB: Very cool! I can't wait to hear your new album, Along Came A Spider!

Alice: It a story about a serial killer, even though it's a love story. It's about a serial killer who takes his cue from spiders where he leaves his victims wrapped in silk — of course, really nice silk that matches their eyes — and he takes a leg. So there are 8 victims with 8 legs missings. That's, of course, him building a spider. When you're writing something like this, I don't get really specific until I start seeing a pattern going with this guy and how he thinks of what he does. Then you start going on that. Being a lyricist, I get to go back and psychoanalyze this guy a little bit ands start finding neat things about him that I can keep bringing up in other songs. Creating this guy was kind-of fun!

GB: OK. It sounds like it could translate to being very visual. Are you going to tell the story onstage or even go back to comics or what?

Alice: Yeah! I mean, this thing could be anything! When we did "Last Temptation", it was a Marvel Comic. Neil Gaiman came in and did the comic book — a 3-part comic because it had such a good, strong story. I though very seriously about this, too — about maybe doing that again with Neil and Marvel Comics. Everytime Alice comes up with a story like this, we take it to Neil to just do a series of album-related comic books. So I don't know yet. We'll see if that becomes part of the package. Anything that you do like that... of course, I'm already thinking about what the stage would like like, what songs would fit in, how we're going to do those songs. And being the lyricist, I get to cheat towards the stage since I get to direct the show, too. That's like having your cake and eating it, too!

GB: Definitely! So, you're doing some fo the European festivals this summer?

Alice: Yeah. That's something that has sort-of become a staple diet for us — going out and doing these big festivals. The cool thing about that is you're always on festivals with friends of yours; with people you have known forever. All of a sudden, you'll say, "Who's on the one tomorrow?" And they'll said "Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Arthur Brown and Love." You go, "WHAT?!" There's no common link to these bands! But that's what makes it great! Those are all people that you've run into over the years and have sort-of a relationship with.

GB: Yeah! And how about your upcoming North American tour?

Alice: That comes up a little bit later on. The album probably won't be out until August or September. So I'm not going to be able to totally rewrite the new show until probably next year. So the American tour will be a continuation of "Psychodrama". Then when that tour ends in December, the next tour that goes out in the Spring will be the "Spider" tour.

GB: Very cool! I can't wait to see it!

Alice: Yeah, it will be fun! Now, where are you?

GB: I'm midway between Baltimore and Washington. Our magazine is based in Portland.

Alice: OK, well that's Edgar Allen Poe territory.

GB: Yeah! And we always have a celebration for him here on his birthday.

Alice: Do you know who's actually supposed to play Edgar Allen Poe in the movies? Who owns the rights? Sylvester Stallone.

GB: You're kidding?!

Alice: No!

GB: I can't picture him as Poe!

Alice: I can't either.

GB: No, your radio show. None of the stations in my area carry it. Thank god for Podcasts!

Alice: We're on 110 stations. That's all around the United States and in some really odd places like Perth, Australia or London or Istanbul or Copenhagen. Really odd places to have picked up the show. The great thing about it is I get to play everybody I want to play. In other words, I can play Iggy & The Stooges then Frank Zappa and then really just about anybody I want to play. My playlist is 3,500 songs where as most playlists are only about 300.

GB: And you choose your own interviews? Like you're doing Slash this week?

Alice: Oh yeah! Absolutely! I've got Slash this week. What it is it's like anything that comes up — like Wes Craven has a new movie coming out, I'll call up Wes Craven. If Elvira's doing something, I'll call Elvira. I really kind-of keep it wide open so that anybody could really be on that show.

GB: Yeah, and you have some really interesting topics. Like "Cranberries" this week?!

Alice: Yeah, Cranberries. I do a thing called "Freaky Facts." Actually these are true facts about cranberries or that turtles can't fart underwater, things like that. There are things you don't really need to know, but you should know.

GB: OK, and how far in advance do you think up these topics?

Alice: Well, I tape the shows 10 days in advance. You know, you sit around and you're watching TV or you're doing something else and all of a sudden you start thinking, "Probably most of my audience (or a lot of my audience) — if they're staying up from 7 to midnight they're not watching TV. So who would they be?! Probably in jail or in mental institutions. So why not cater to those people?! So I do a thing called "Lock Down Rock Down" where I play songs for guys in jail. "The Quiet Room" is for people that are in mental institutions. I just try to find songs that refer to insanity or songs that refer to being incarcerated. But it's fun! I definitely attract the lunatic fringe.

GB: OK! I really loved your guest appearance on the Avantasia album, too!

Alice: You know what? That was a very interesting thing! Eric Singer brought that to me, and he said, "You should really hear this. The guy (Tobias Sammet) wants you to do this song." I remember I was recording. They brought it in and I did it. Then I forgot about it. Totally forgot about it. Then I was listening to the radio and somebody said, "Here's Avantasia featuring Alice Cooper." I said, "WHAT?!" I don't remember doing that. OH! I remember that. That was that great, Gothic German piece that guy did." It really sounded good! I had forgot all about how cool that was. I didn't hear the whole album, but now I'm really interested in hearing the whole thing.

GB: Yeah! That song fit into the overall storyline absolutely perfectly. And nobody could have pulled it off the way you did!

Alice: Well, when he told me what it was about and how it all worked, I said, "OK. I definitely know where you're going with this. So let me at it!" I did a couple things like that with Rob Zombie, where Rob called me up — I think it was half-time during the Super Bowl. He said, "Hey, I've got this song that we should do. It's for the X Files, and this and that." I rushed over there, we did the vocals together. IF it's something like that, it's pretty easy to come off, because that's kind-of my backyard — to do that type of song.

GB: I know your time is short here — I could talk to you all night about your restaurant, the new album, your radio show, and even your book. But what do you want to tell Gothic Beauty readers that I didn't ask?

Alice: I always admire the fact that people take that much time to look fashionable. You meet very few people that are religiously Gothic. I think people just like the idea of dressing Gothic because in some way it really kind-of shows that you are not part of the Establishment — that you definitely have your own way of thinking. Then at the same time, you spend a lot of time on detail. I've noticed in Gothic Beauty magazine that a lot (especially the ladies) are very detailed-orientated about stuff. I think that's great that you would spend 4 hours working on your hair, or to put a birdcage in your hair, things like that. I appreciate that. When you go to London, there used to be a place called Kensington Market where the Vampires were there every day. The girls would get up at 2 in the morning to start getting ready because it took that long to get ready to go to Kensington Market at 10 in the morning and look really smashing! The dedication is what I really appreciate — the detail.

(Originally published in Gothic Beauty magazine, issue #26)