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A New Nightmare Begins!
36 years after Steven, and listeners through him, were scared out of their wits with Welcome to My Nightmare, Alice Cooper once again chooses to open up his twisted and terrifying dream world where anything can happen. Welcome to another nightmare.
Alice Cooper. Few can claim not to have an opinion of him, and no one can deny his huge influence on the rock and metal scene. The imprint of his innovative and shockingly theatrical shock rock of the 70s is evident everywhere you look or listen, and the likes of Rob Zombie or Marilyn Manson would never be what they are today without him. With his black hair still long and his face classically painted with black lines down from his eyes, Alice Cooper is still today, at the age of 63, an unwavering godfather of the music world.
A Long Awaited Nightmare
But it's a far cry from the Alice Cooper you see on stage surrounded by torture devices and the Alice Cooper who's a golfing Christian-turned-family man in everyday life. Married for 35 years to the same woman, three children and a dog whose bark is clearly heard over the phone before Alice Cooper has it muzzled.
"I have a small dog with a big ego and he always goes crazy as soon as the doorbell rings or the phone rings," he apologizes.
Due to his long career and distinctive style, Alice Cooper has long been an icon for musicians of all genres. He currently sees a lot of himself in Lady Gaga, who has also been quoted several times citing Alice Cooper as an influence.
"I've always said that if you're going to do something well, you have to set the standard. It's nice to know that's what I've done. What Lady Gaga is doing today with the character Lady Gaga is exactly the same as what I have done with the character Alice Cooper. She's created her own monster with Lady Gaga, but when you meet her off stage, she's very sweet and smart and exciting and nothing like her character. It's the same with me. I'm nothing like the character Alice in real life. Alice would never be married for 35 years. Alice would never go to church. Alice would never play golf. His job is to go on stage and be the master of ceremonies up there," explains Alice Cooper.
Back when Alice Cooper was still Vincent Furnier, Alice Cooper started out as a band. Between 1969 and 1973, the band released seven albums, including hits such as 'Eighteen', 'School's Out' and 'Billion Dollar Babies'. In 1975, however, Alice Cooper took the first step towards becoming Alice himself with his first solo album, the now classic concept album Welcome to My Nightmare, which told the story of Steven and his horrific nightmare. The album was a huge success and kick-started the solo career that Alice Cooper still has today. After more than 35 years, Alice Cooper has finally found the time to let the nightmare continue with Welcome 2 My Nightmare, which once again draws the listener into Alice Cooper's terrifying dream world.
"I went to Nashville to start working with Bob Ezrin on a new album and we got to talking about Welcome to My Nightmare and whether Alice should have a new nightmare. So we started writing for it and ended up with one of the best albums I've ever made," says Alice Cooper. One of the special things about Welcome 2 My Nightmare is that the original Alice Cooper band is featured on several of the tracks. The catalyst for this was something as absurd as the band Alice Cooper's long overdue inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which finally happened in March 2011.
"We played a few times together after that, so I thought it would be fun to have them on the album. It was a great thing. It tied up some loose ends and the record ended up being one of the most creative things I've ever made. It's funny, it's scary, it's provocative. It's a lot of different sides of Alice's personality."
The Essence of Alice
Although Welcome 2 My Nightmare is a sequel to Welcome to My Nightmare and thus a concept album, there is a crucial connection between the two stories. This is what the music does.
"I didn't go back to the original album to borrow from the story, but I have used several of the old themes. My goal was to take some of the old piano themes that Bob Ezrin created on the first album and bring them back on the new album and create a connection. For example, you could be listening to a new song and all of a sudden the Steven theme pops up and surprises you. It's a pure sonic hallucination. It takes people back to the old album and it's a great way to make the connection," explains Alice Cooper.
It's a long way from the sound Alice Cooper first introduced to the world with Pretties For You from 1969 to the sound of Welcome 2 My Nightmare. Meanwhile, the multi-artist has also had commercial successes like Trash and Hey Stoopid, and later enjoyed a more metallic period with Brutal Planet and Dragontown and a more raw rock n' roll style with Eyes of Alice Cooper and Dirty Diamonds, before Along Came A Spider laid the groundwork for what is now Welcome 2 My Nightmare. The versatility has always been there, but there was never any doubt that it was 100% Alice Cooper.
"I think I can take any song — let it be 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' or 'Happy Birthday' — and turn it into an Alice Cooper song, as long as I put Alice's voice and attitude into it. I don't write songs for myself, I write them for Alice. He sings in a different way, he has a different personality and a different sense of humor, and it's only the songs that really reflect that attitude and have Alice's signature on them that end up getting released, Alice Cooper emphasizes, explaining further what creates the variety in his music.
When you start writing a song, it's easy to hear that it has its own personality. If you try to change that personality, you'll ruin the song. Take a song like 'I'll Bite Your Face Off' from Welcome 2 My Nightmare. From the start it had a very early Rolling Stones feel to it, so I decided to continue with that. Why should we change it too? The Rolling Stones are part of Alice's background, so it's a tip of the hat to them. When I was in high school we tried to write songs like the Rolling Stones and they were a great role model. So now that I have the opportunity, I want to do a tribute to them," says Alice Cooper.
A consistent feature of Alice Cooper's music is the humor that is always present on stage and on record. This is also evident in Welcome 2 My Nightmare, which contains several atypical tracks.
"For example, there's a song like 'Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever'. I laughed all the way through it because it was so funny that Alice, who hates disco so much, was doing a disco song. There's also 'Ghouls Gone Wild', which has a Beach Boys feel to it. It's just Alice driving the car and zombies having a beach party. It's important to keep the humor in it, otherwise a lot of things don't work. Yes, we're a rock band with roots in music like The Yardbirds and The Who, but we're not afraid to throw in a little West Side Story or a little James Bond and some classic horror riffs. We're not afraid of humor."
The Many Facets
The fact that Alice Cooper comes from a Christian family, where his father was a priest, has never been reflected in his music, style and, not least, his live shows with blood, violence and lots of different ways to kill the character Alice Cooper. Fortunately, this is still the case, but the man behind the character Alice Cooper has himself rediscovered his faith in recent years. The closest it has come to being reflected in the music was on the socially critical albums. Brutal Planet and Dragontown, which are also two of Alice Cooper's hardest albums.
"I had a really good band at the time that played very straightforward rock 'n' roll, so I suggested we try writing a song in the morning, rehearse it in the afternoon, record it in the evening and then do nothing more with it. There were no overdubs and we sounded like a real rock band. That band was so everyone could see what we could do live in the studio. It sounded like a really good garage band. That's how we did Eyes of Alice Cooper and Dirty Diamonds. It wasn't overproduced in any way. We kept it simple rock songs instead of going in and transforming it all into Steely Dan," laughs Alice Cooper.
Over the years, Alice Cooper's most regular producer collaborator has been Bob Ezrin, the man behind both the original Welcome to My Nightmare and the new album. Over the years, however, Alice Cooper has also worked with the likes of Desmond Child, David Foster and Roy Thomas Baker, which has helped to create the diversity of his now 26 albums, either solo or with the band.
"Every producer has their own style, so it's up to me to get Alice into that style. It shouldn't be a Bob Ezrin album or a David Foster album, it should be their version of an Alice Cooper album. So I have to be the main character and the driving force in the albums," Alice Cooper emphasizes.
The Classic Death in Focus
Going to an Alice Cooper concert has always been a piece apart. The closest comparison is probably a performance of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, but even that doesn't do Alice Cooper's show justice. Over the years, the concerts have featured everything from two-headed babies, murdered Britney Spears clones, snake confetti — well, everything your heart can desire and your head can't imagine. The only certainty is that Alice Cooper will be killed during the concert. At least once. A few years ago, death by hanging was reintroduced to the show, which had been shelved since a nasty accident in the 1980s when Alice Cooper almost died in real life, but otherwise the most popular stunt is the guillotine, where Alice Cooper's head is chopped off.
"It's not that we've run out of ideas, but just as our fans absolutely want to hear the classic songs like 'School's Out', they also expect to see the classic executions. I think a lot of people would be disappointed if they didn't chop my head off. On the last tour, however, we chose to kill Alice in four or five different ways, including hanging, decapitation, a trip to the electric chair and stabbing him with a giant needle. We want to move away from just doing the medieval executions, but also come up with new ways to kill Alice. It has to be classic, but also fresh," says Alice Cooper. Talking about execution methods doesn't seem any more distant to him than talking about what to have for dinner. In fact, it's probably the other way around.
It's not long until Alice Cooper's 50th anniversary as a performing musician, and with a birth certificate that puts his age at 63, it's impressive to say the least that he's still going strong. In addition to his music career and soon-to-be-famous fanaticism on the golf course, Alice Cooper also has his own radio show, Nights with Alice Cooper, as well as still appearing in movies and TV shows from time to time and owning the Cooperstown restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona.
"Crucially, my health is much better than most people at 63. I've never smoked in my life and I stopped drinking 30 years ago. I've gotten rid of the things that stressed me out, so I'm much healthier and much more active than many people. I only sleep four hours a night and then I get up early, play golf, do my work, do this and that, go to the movies, maybe a concert at night and all that. And I feel great. It's when I have the lazy days that I start to feel old. When I'm just working, I still feel 30 years old," laughs Alice Cooper, raising hopes that he will continue for many years to come. There's certainly still plenty of shock in the old rocker.
(Translated from the original Danish language publication, November 2023)
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