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Alice Cooper — Making It As A Sadist Drag-Queen Singer

Alice Cooper's definition of entertainment:

Throwing a stuffed rabbit out into an audience, to the accompaniment of raucous rock music, and wildly urging fans to "kill it, kill it!"

Dismembering a golden-haired baby doll before a packed house (until a deep red, blood-like fluid runs from the doll's neck) while singing a song called "Dead Babies."

Rolling a "gallows" onto the stage and recreating a hanging, again to a hearty black of rock 'n' roll.

This is entertainment?

"It certainly is," said Alice, who happens to be a 24-year-old MALE, a former high school athlete from Phoenix, Ariz., who has been dressed as a woman for the past several years.

Alice Cooper is also the name of the rock group that he-she leads. And the five-person group, with its shocking stage performances and recordings, has become a very big hit in North American entertainment.

"A lot of people are into tenderness these days," said Alice. "We're not — and we're not into ecology or anything else humanitarian.

"Sexuality, violence, death, perversion — that's our bag. That's what audiences really want to see these days, so we're giving it to them in big doses. What's more, they gobble it up!

"Sure, I've been called a sadistic drag queen. Some critics have said that our performance makes them want to throw up.

"But we wouldn't be getting rich and famous if there weren't something deeply appealing about what we do."

Alice Cooper had a number that ended with the group throwing live chickens out at the audience. After complaints poured in from certain humane quarters, though, they stopped the practice.

"Now we throw feathers," said Alice. "The music builds, the audience starts getting hysterical. They are panting and writhing and moaning and screaming... then, in a big burst, come the features.

"The effect is like a giant orgasm!"

Alice, who has long dark hair and appears publicly in the sort of sinister female attire often associated with sadomasochistic fetishism, claims that the group's rather unusual approach stems from the members' having grown up watching violence-ridden TV shows.

"In fact," he-she said, "that's all we do when we're not performing or rehearsing; we sit around drinking beer and watching television.

"If cruelty and bloodshed are your thing, there's no better place to get new ideas."