Article Database

The Nightmare Continues

Veteran shock-rocker Alice Cooper shares his thoughts on terrorism, the afterlife, morality — and Elvis

Few artists can boast as turbulent a career as the 50-something Vincent Furnier, who has survived alcoholism, the wrath of the Christian right wing and the horror that was 80s hair-metal with equal aplomb.

Decades have passed since his creepily strung-out Alice Cooper persona was the scourge of America's conservative populace, however, nowadays he seems to have settled down into a kind of loveable, python-wielding old rogue. His on-stage antics and anthemic, no-brainer tunes continue to command a loyal fanbase, of course, and the quality of his music has never dipped: last year saw the release of the successful Brutal Planet album, which saw Alice addressing social issues with no-punches-pulled honesty.

2001 saw the return of the grizzled Wayne's World icon with Brutal Planet's sequel, the grimly-titled Dragontown. Predictably, it's a melodic, fists-in-the-air effort, but this time round Alice has gone for some very Noughties touches such as downtuned guitars — has he been listening to nu-metal?

RC spoke to the affable corpse painted crooner from his office in America, a country still reeling in shock at the time of writing from the terrorist attacks on New York — about which Cooper has much to say...

There's a lot of social commentary on the new album.

I think so. It's always fun. I've found myself at the point where I really don't write 'angst' songs any more. I had my period of writing teenage angst anthems, and I wish I could keep writing those, except for the fact that I'm not that age anymore. It's not fair for me to try to write for them. Now it's more my job to observe it and report on it, and give my ideas of what's going on.

Well, there's plenty of teenage angst in the world.

Yes, and I think I can sit back and not try to pretend I'm one of them. Let the Offspring and all these other bands talk about that.

Some of the commentary is serious — for example, you talk about 'African genocide' on the album.

You know, when you're talking about the 'brutal planet', you've got to talk about what's actually going on. When I first started doing these interviews I was saying, we're very safe here in America — until last week. Normally in America, if two people get killed in your town, it's a huge deal. In Africa they have tribal wars, and 300,000 people will die in one day in a machete war. And to us it doesn't even matter — we just go (bored voice) 'Oh yeah...'.

It was ridiculous that President Bush said that America was fighting the first war of the 21st Century, when in fact there are several wars going in Africa.

Absolutely. There are 72 wars going on right now — this is just the first one we're involved in. But this is a major thing, believe me — it's gonna change everything.

Did you know anyone who was caught up in the attacks?

You know, I had friends at the American Express office right at the top floor — in fact, my wife Sheryl and I had lunch there a couple of years ago, right on the top floor. They were about to retire at the time. Hopefully, they did.

On one of the new songs, 'The Sentinel', you mention a bomber.

Yes. He's a self-proclaimed cleanser of mankind. I think this guy wants to be a terrorist — he's one of those loners that wants to be the avenger. But he says right up front that he's not a Muslim.

In 'Disgraceland' you tell the sad story of Elvis' gluttony, addiction and death, but it's clear that he's one of your heroes.

Oh, absolutely. To me Elvis was the ultimate rock star, and he was such a fallen hero. He didn't die the way he should have died. He was the greatest-looking guy, with all the class. I met him when he looked really good.

Was he a friend?

Sure. I visited his place, and he showed me some karate and the police reports where he got in fights with people and all this, and I really liked the guy. It was one of those moments in my life — I went wow, this is Elvis Presley! You know, I'd met the Beatles and the Stones and Elvis and Sinatra and Dylan... these were the guys that made you just go, wow.

But when Elvis died, he died fat, bloated and drugged-out, in a toilet. And to me that's not the way Elvis Presley should have died. That's what I'm saying in the song — he didn't die in a state of grace, he died in a state of disgrace. I think he would have at least enjoyed my impersonation of him. I tried very hard to get it right.

In fact, Paul McCartney was in the next studio: I went over and I came close to saying, “Hey Paul — you do a pretty good impression. You wanna do an Elvis on this song?” But I thought, well, I don't want to impose on him (chuckles).

I imagine you could have had any guests you liked on this album?

Yes, but I stayed away from guests on the last two albums. These albums were so Alice, I didn't wanna jump in there and do it. Paul would have been the only guy, if I'd have asked him. The guy's still got the best voice in the business.

'It's Too Late' is a John Lennon tribute, isn't it?

Yes, I tried to write that to sound like a John Lennon song. There is so much Beatles stuff going on there. To me it was very obvious, I did it very much on purpose. It had that (sings, 'Girl'-type vocal) la la la lala... sort of Rubber Soul, Revoled kind of feel to it. The line 'The road is littered with nice guys with good intentions' just sounded like a Lennon line.

Do you spend much time thinking about religion?

Well, when you're a rock 'n' roll artist you write a lot of boy-girl songs, or songs about cars, y'know. And I'm getting to the point where I'm so tired of that. I think Alice at this point is gonna pose some questions and be a little more edgy.

People say it's not politically correct to talk about religion, but I'm not talking about religion, I’m talking about morality. That's more personal, because before you pick your religion and your politics you're still stuck with your conscience and your morality.

I am a Christian, I don't think that's a shock to anybody, I've talked about that for quite a while. I believe in the classic Christian idiom of heaven and hell and salvation and everything, so I have my definite beliefs. But on this album I'm saying that there are too many people who believe you just die and that's it. I believe that when you die you've got consequences, and that puts an edge on everything, because then you're under some kind of rules. You're accountable for your actions.

So is the world a good place or a bad place, Alice?

Well, the world is full of humans, and humans can go either way. There's a lot of good — I mean, I've never seen America more united than it is right now. I've never seen more patriotism and unity. When you get the Democrats and the Republicans eating breakfast together and agreeing on everything, that's unbelievable.

I think there's a log of good in the world. I think if you go over the Afghanistan you're not going to find a lot of terrorists there. Y'know, I look at Osama bin Laden and his followers basically as a very small sect of criminals.

One of the ironies is that the CIA funded what became the Taliban during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

We also supported Iran (laughs), and Iran took the hostages! Those political ties, they go back and they blow in the wind — you never know if the person you're supporting this week is gonna turn on you next week.

Are you nervous about the current situation?

Oh no. I'm not worried about it. I think they're gonna resolve this thing. I don't think Americans are afraid of this guy. I think they just wanna get rid of him.

But once you get rid of him, you've still got the issue of terrorism itself to confront.

Sure. But I think that's what this war is gonna be about. It's gonna be about everybody uniting and fighting all these guys. It's basically like the Justice Department trying to get rid of the Mafia — they're very widespread, and it's gonna take a long time. You might not get rid of them, but we can definitely cripple them to the point where they can't do anything.

Changing the subject completely, I saw you on stage last year with Roger Daltrey.

Oh, you did? You know, when I wrote 'No More Mr. Nice Guy', I did that as a tribute to 'Substitute'. Really — listen to the chords on that. And when they did the tribute album to Alice, Daltrey did 'No More Mr. Nice Guy'! And I said to him, that is so ironic, and told him that the song was written as a Who song.

Did you hear Megadeth's cover version?

Yes. Out of all those metal bands. I think Megadeth is really one of the best. They really are very thoughtful about what they're saying and the arrangements. One of the better bands.

When you look around at the metal scene, are you impressed by Korn and Slipknot and the rest of them?

I'm impressed by their energy. I like the way that Slipknot are going out of their way to create characters. If there's anything about rock 'n' roll, it's that it should be very character-driven. I think if you're a rock 'n' roll star you should strive for a look which is all yours — then you can have an action figure (laughs). If you're in Journey, you're never gonna gte an action figure &mdash Journey, Kansas, and all those bands all look exactly the same. But Kiss, Alice Cooper, Ozzy, Rob Zombie — they're characters right out of cartoons.

Are you always going to stick with your current style of music?

Well, y'know, I try to do good stage songs. I think when you strip away the glitter and glitz of an Alice Cooper record, what you've got is a pretty good Yardbirds album (laughs). And it's got some Who involved in it, and I find that our chord structure goes right back to Chuck Berry. Alice has graduated now to a different level — you know, the wise old man. And I don't mind that role.