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Alice Cooper's Weird Wonderland

Maybe he's not the greatest — but he's certainly the wildest! The 'hard rock' school of pop has thrown up some pretty crazy characters — but ALICE COOPER stands out as the weirdest of them all. He's as far out as the last Moon Shot!

Alice In Wonderland

"Curiouser and curiouser!" That, you'll probably remember, was what Lewis Carroll's 'Alice' said about the strange 'Wonderland' in which she found herself. But nothing in Carroll's famous book is quite as strange as the Alice Cooper story. And like all good stories it begin...

One upon a time... there was a boy named 'Vince' who lived in Phoenix, Arizona, USA.

Like a lot of kids in the early 1960's, Vince and his friends were 'rock' fans, so it was no surprise when they decided to form their own group. And no surprise, either, when no one seemed very anxious to hear their music. After all, there were so many groups around — all sounding very much the same.

So "The Spiders"—their names in those early days included "Husky Babies" and "The Nazz"—decided that they needed a gimmick. The first idea was for lead-singer Vince to spend his on-stage time in a bath-tub — and soon the group's strange antics began to attract a lot of notice.

One thing more was needed: Vince decided to change his name to fit the group's new image. It had to be something odd, unusual... like, maybe, a girl's name?

And so ALICE COOPER was born!

Among all the sensational publicity, what seems to get overlooked is Alice Cooper's music. After all, the main purpose of a group is to play music... isn't it?

Alice claims: "Our music is as strong as our visual impact." And record sales, since single "Eighteen" first rocketed up the American charts in 1971, seem to bear him out.

"We are a third-generation rock band," says Alice, "and we want to bring back some of the earthiness, the honesty, of rock's origins."

On the other hand, Alice has also complained: "Some people take out music far too seriously. After all, the whole idea of rock music is to have fun!"

But whatever you think of Alice Cooper — and he's a performer who demands that you 'take sides', for or against — you certainly can't quarrel with the fact that he's original if nothing else.

As he says: "We keep away from all other groups; we keep right away. That way what we come with couldn't be anybody but us!"

Snakes Alive!

"We seem to be a vehicle for people's exaggeration and fantasy. They'll say that they saw us doing things on the stage that we didn't do at all!"

That's Alice's explanation for some of the wilder tales about what he and his musicians get up to on stage. It just isn't true, he claims, that his act encourages violence and brings out the worst in his young fans.

Alice and his band are likely to appear in costumes ranging from top-hats and tail-coats (with maybe the odd set of 'Dracula' fangs to brighten up the outfit!) to sequin-studded cat-suits. The way they use make-up makes David Bowie look like Tarzan by comparison.

Apart from his famous sequence in which tears a doll to pieces and hurls it into the audience, Alice has also bombarded his fans with live chickens, feathers blown from a vacuum machine, water melons, balloons and footballs. He has even been known to throw money into the audience (up to £100 at one performance, it is said) — and that should bring in the customers if nothing else will!

Alice has been hung on the gallows (almost for real once, when the equipment went wrong!) strapped into an electric chair, and has even made place to be fired from a cannon! And, of course, he's notorious for the act he performs with his pet snake; 'Yvonne', his present boa-constrictor, replaced the eleven-foot-long 'Galise', who got lost down a drain!

(Originally published in the UK publication, Look-In, March 17, 1973; No. 12)