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Alice Cooper

ALICE COOPER and his friend BERNIE TAUPIN are sitting side by side on a rose-covered sofa in the Savoy Hotel just like LAUREL and HARDY or ABBOTT and COSTELLO, maybe even RAOUL DUKE and DR. GOZO... Occasionally one or the other of them glances across at the view outside — 'It was so thoughtful of the staff to place the Thames right next to the suite' — Meanwhile, further down the hall, Room Service are anticipating their 21st call of the day from 'The Coop'. They know that when it comes it will almost certainly be for 'More coffee, LOTS more coffee...' It would seem that ALICE has taken to that particular beverage with all the enthusiasm he used to reserve for beer...

AC: This is my favourite hotel in the world, I love the Savv-oy, it's great, and you know we've driven Room Service nuts, I'm not kidding — it's these little buttons on the wall, we can't stop pressing them at the end of the trip, we're getting our two waiters roller-skates...

BT: Yeah, Room Service here is very good, they were so punctual this morning, calling me at 5 am to tell me that you'd ordered dinner.

AC: (laughing) That's right, anyone who can put up with us couldn't be all that bad, although I think we're worth putting up with — at least we don't take things too seriously.

RR: Oh? Dinner at 5 am sounds like quite a serious business to me.

AC: Well, we'd just spent the night at LIZA's (MINELLI) party.

RR: Did you enjoy it?

AC: In the end, because that's when her friends showed up — BILL WYMAN and all those people — but when we arrived there, it was very stuffy, you know, lots of heads of companies dressed up in tuxedos and things. We were all attired in black leather so it was a bit like being pork chops at a Jewish wedding.

BT: You should have seen us!

AC: I asked the waiter there for some coffee and the guy says, "Coffee?" so I replied, "Ow coffee, no buttered scones for me, I want to play the grande piano!"

BT: (shrilly) Everything, he wants to play EVERYTHING.

RR: Such as, I mean what else have you been up to, so far?

AC: Non-stop interviews, I found myself practising with the lamp yesterday pretending that I was a wimp reporter from Sounds, "Tell me, I wheezed, where did you get your shades?" No, really, it's great because we're over here to promote the new album 'From the Inside' which is very important to us because it's our first project together and what with all the success that BERNIE has had with ELTON and with the ALICE COOPER thing, it's really exciting to come up with something and hear it being played on the radio — the two of us are just like little kids again.

RR: Right. Have you changed much physically, always imagined you to be a little heavier?

AC: Well I lost a lot of weight when I stopped drinking, I used to have a little beer belly and two smaller beer bellies on either side of my face — BERNIE's lost a lot of weight too.

BT: About 25 lbs.

RR: Did you give up drinking also?

AC: No, his brain shrunk.

BT: I gave up drinking a while back but I really lost the weight when I started working in the studio, although since we've been here the food has been so incredible that —

AC: God, that's another reason why this hotel has got to be the best in the world, the food... I just love it and I'm not the type of person to eat all the time but &mdah; we must order 25 times a day here.

BT: I can't wait to see the bill.

AC: The last time, when we came over to do the MUPPET show, the bill for 4 of us was something like 7 thousand pounds in 5 days — it wasn't the alcohol either because I don't drink and neither does my wife, SHERYL — it was just ridiculous amounts of getting the munchies at 5 am and ordering things — but hell, why not?

RR: I agree. WAS there any one incident which made you decide to give up drinking?

AC: Sure, 1977 — the whole year was one incident which kept going on and on. You know those days when nothing goes right? Well 1977 was a year when nothing went right. I couldn't sit back and blame myself for it so instead I blamed the booze. After that it took 3 months in hospital to beat the problem — it had to be a total commitment to stopping...

RR: Were there excruciating hangovers?

AC: That's the thing, I never had a hangover but I began to feel depressed and I'm not the sort of person who ever gets depressed or even highly strung and so when I found these things happening to me I knew that something was wrong. At the time I was drinking two quarts of whisky a day but the really scarey part was that I wasn't drunk — it was just a normal existence for me to drink that much.

RR: What kind of hospital did you go into — a sanitarium?

AC: That's right but I mean I was locked in, it wasn't the kind of place where you just walked around. I was locked in for 3 months.

RR: My God, did you get claustrophobia?

AC: Well yes because I've never been locked in anywhere. The idea of them taking your only security away which is your bottle and for me, putting me in a hospital, I mean one of my most hated things in the world is doctors. I hate doctors with a passion but it was all very necessary for me to be in there in order to clean my whole brain out. I had to digest everything which I'd done in the last ten years and now I think that it's an experience that everyone should be made to go through. Like every 5 years you should be made to go in for 3 months, it would really be a lot healthier.

RR: Were you allowed to take anything with you?

AC: No.

BT: They wouldn't even let him take me.

AC: I said, "Yes I'm going into the hospital, can I take BERNIE?" At least he laughs at my jokes.

RR: ALICE I'd like to ask you something different now, what made you decide to help out with the Hollywood sign?

BT: The first one!

AC: Yeah, very good, you're the first interviewer to ask me about that so you've just become my favourite.

RR: Gee thanks ALICE.

AC: See, our only landmark in Hollywood is the Hollywood sign, in London you have the Big Ben and in Paris, it's the Eiffel Tower but in Hollywood there's only Graumans' Chinese theatre, which is not that big a deal and the Hollywood sign. You know, that sign had been up for 53 years but when they first built it in 1923 it was only designed to stay up for 2 years. Anyway, every time when I used to fly into Hollywood I'd look at that sign and it would really piss me off, I thought 'That's not representative of where I live,' I mean, Hollywood is the movie capital of the world, it's the music capital of the world and contrary to some belief around the world, it's not decaying. So I went out and discovered that the sign would cost $240,000 to build but as the city didn't own the sign — it didn't have any responsibility for the new sign, the money would have to come from individual contributions. Finally, we broke it down to how much each letter would cost and I said, "Well I'll buy the O and dedicate it to GROUCHO, that cost me $40,000 and then everyone started jumping on the bandwagon — which was great.

RR: Did you really drop the O from your name?

AC: Yes but only for a couple of days I said that I would drop it until we got the sign paid for and then people started coming out — WARNER BROS bought a letter and JEAN AUTREY bought a letter, it became a real community effort.

RR: Why did you dedicate the O to GROUCHO, was he a good friend of yours?

AC: Yeah, he was a very good friend of mine. He was one of the few people in the world that I always wanted to meet when I was a little kid and I got to be very good friends with him. He said in an interview one time that ALICE COOPER is the last hope for Vaudeville. This is before I ever met him and so it was such a compliment, after that I just had to meet him.

RR: Where did it finally happen?

AC: On his 84th birthday in the Polo lounge in Beverly Hills &mdash that guy at 84 years old could just destroy you if he wanted to, he was so quick — not senile at all.

BT: He was a LITTLE senile at the end.

AC: At the end, at the VERY end he was on drugs for pain but when I met him he wasn't senile. He was sharp.

BT: Well he used to drift in and out of it...

AC: I think that he was probably like that all his life though, I have a feeling that he was a little bit of a time traveller...

BT: But you know when I used to have that house in Malibu, he'd go down there quite a bit and I mean he'd drift into a senility type of thing.

AC: Oh, listen to this, this is GROUCHO MARX the first time I met him, right? We were sitting in the Polo lounge which is... phew! one of those real... I mean I don't usually go there because it's too poshy.

BT: Yeah, you have to wear a jacket.

AC: Anyway, everybody's sitting there, every important person — KISSINGER and people like that and it's his birthday — so the waiter comes up and says, "Mr. MARX, what would you like for lunch?" GROUCHO looks at the menu, then he asks, "Ya got any dope?" It was really wild, I tried to pretend that I hadn't heard and the waiter said, "Pardon me?" GROUCHO looks him right in the eye ‐ "DOPE, do you have any dope?"

BT: He used to eat at the Polo lounge every day. Because I...

AC: EVERY day.

BT: ...because I used to go to luncheons there and I remember one day the waiter came up and said, "Can I get you something Mr. MARX?" and GROUCHO said, "Yeah, get me another waiter."

AC: (laughing) And he used to do this, he used to get up and...

BT: He used to kill the waiters, DESTROY them.

AC: Oh I KNOW, he'd use them as PUNCHING BAGS and they'd just sit there and have to take it because it was GROUCHO, you know, and he'd get up and say, "Pardon me, I have to go and insult the doorman."

RR: Did he still do that walk?

AC: Oh yeah, he'd do that all the way over to the guy then he'd say something like (imitating GROUCHO) "Pardon me — but you're the most ridiculous person that I've EVER seen."

RR: Would you tell me the worst thing he ever said to vou?

AC: Sure but he used to insult me so much it was incredible. He'd say, "Why don't you drink that glass of cherry pop, wear a white suit and you'll look like a thermometer." This was because I was so thin.

RR: Did he help you with your stage act?

AC: No he never did but he knew every bit of the show, I think he had a videotape of it you know — to him it was Vaudeville and I guess that in essence, it's a burlesque type of Vaudeville only we have rock music and we do it on a revue kind of level. Then instead of having a guy come on stage we have a 12 foot cyclops because we're not playing to just 500 people, we're playing to 20,000.

RR: So GROUCHO was right. What was all that business in court just a little while before he died?

AC: Well, let's put it this way, I'd better not say anything... That's one part of his life that was just too bad, everything else about him was so positive and I'd even go so far as to say 'elegant'. He was one of the world's greatest letter writers and he was also one of the world's greatest people, as far as personality goes. And as a statesman — he was respected — people in high places in the government would come to him for advice, not a lot of people knew that but I mean GROUCHO would be asked for an opinion on political events because he was so aware. He was a WILL ROGERS kind of character, an American public conscience — so when politicians were going to do something drastic they always wanted a feedback of what GROUCHO thought. You see, he was everybody's favourite comedian and when you're in that position you control more people than politicians do.

BT: I remember GROUCHO coming over to my house in Malibu one time during the elections and staying up all night long in front of the TV, waiting for the results. He was a big McGOVERN fanatic.

AC: GROUCHO was very well respected but when he came to the end, money got in the way and suddenly it became so sordid, nobody wanted to see that. I mean when the whole court thing got into the papers, everybody said, "Stop, don't prostitute this whole thing because we want to remember GROUCHO as he was... don't start digging this sort of stuff out on him." So they stopped writing about the case, it was sort of like, 'You're tampering with a national treasure, so lay off.'

Halfway through this conversation ALICE's wife SHERYL had walked in — Physically, she's just as slim as her husband, in fact the two of them could easily resemble a different race of people with a much smaller bone structure than the rest of us. ALICE made all the introductions, then:

MRS. AC: I'm going shopping, is there anything you want?

AC: How about some sweaters.

BT: Yeah sweaters.

AC: And could you get BERNIE a rabies shot?

SC: Sure. (Walks out the door.)

RR: ALICE, I've heard that you just bought a customised car —

AC: That's right a 57 Chevy.

BT: She's good, she's hitting the questions.

AC: You're hitting us with every question we haven't been hit With. I love it.

RR: Me too. So tell me, is this the only customised car you have?

AC: Yeah but it's the kind of thing where all my life I've wanted a 57 Chevy, it's like a toy I promised myself a long time ago and it's great. I put $15,000 to make it like a brand new 57 Chevy then Hot Rod magazine were interested in it. They said, "We'd just like to customise it a little bit more for the front cover put a different hood on it but don't worry we'll keep the original one safe." Anyway I get to the place where they were going to do this picture and there were two 50 calibre machine guns mounted onto the hood of my car, you know, with the bullet belts that go down the side? My immediate reaction was, "My God, what have you done? " And the problem was that I had to drive it home afterwards.

BT: Yes and you made me drive with you. I hid under the seat.

AC: The cops kept stopping me and saying "Maybe you haven't noticed but there's two machine guns sticking out of your car." I said, "Well officers, you know, the traffic at around this time everyday — it's SO bad, this is the only way I can get through."

RR: That sounds like something out of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". I think you'd make a perfect DOCTOR GONZO.

AC: Isn't that a great book? I love that book, HUNTER THOMPSON is really out there. But it sure is going to be a weird movie when they make it.

RR: The weirdest.

AC: I mean, REALLY disgusting but you know HUNTER THOMPSON is a very, very interesting writer. I think he's one of America's real pioneers when it comes to that kind of thing. I mean, GONZO can't really be doing that, nobody could be doing that many drugs and still be in any way useful. I don't think you can be human and take that many drugs... You know, I couldn't stop reading that book until I'd finished it but I don't know how they're going to put it into a movie.

BT: They won't be able to do it — it's a bit like —

AC: Catcher in the Rye?

BT: No, what's that other VONNEGUT book?

AC: Breakfast of Champions?

BT: Yeah, they've got that property but they don't know what to do with that either.

AC: I was supposed to make Breakfast of Champions, ALTMANN, who we saw last night, has had that property for maybe 5 or 6 years now and he wanted me to play BONNY HOOPER — the Holiday Inn Piano Player. If he ever does make that film I can't wait to do it, I told him, "Anytime you want to do it, I'll stop whatever I'm doing. Even if it's 20 years from now and you still want to make that film, I'll be available." I'm a VONNEGUT fan forever — but the thing is with Fear and Loathing, how do you get that kind of insanity across and still make it a commercial success?

RR: Are you very squeamish when it comes to violence?

AC: In some areas I am, I didn't like that part in Slaughterhouse 5 where they were drilling through his head that much. We saw it last night and me and him were covering up our eyes and saying "Aghh, we don't want to see it." But we like things like the Toolbox Murders or the Texas Chainsaw Massacre because they're as camp as hell. They're so badly done that they're well done. But yeah, I guess. I am pretty squeamish, I can't watch people getting shot and anytime I see a needle I feel sick.

RR: And yet your stage shows are quite violent.

AC: Ah, but that's different, when I'm controlling them I know what I'm going to do, it's like driving with someone in a Ferrari and they're going 150 miles an hour, you're very scared but if you're driving 150 miles an hour, you know you have control so it's not as scarey.

RR: So you're saying it's the suspense build up that gets to you?

AC: Sure but if I have control of my theatrics I know when to stop. I mean there's a certain place where I know I have to stop in order to get the point across. As soon as my head falls off, then I know — we stop there.

RR: How about your snakes, do you still have them?

BT: They've got the room down the hall.

AC: Yeah with room service too. (Mimicking a snakey high pitched voice) "Bring me two rats, rat salad, rat sorbe and some spam." Nah, it's ok, I didn't bring them with me this trip.

RR: What sort of snakes do you have?

AC: Boa Constrictors and also one rattlesnake.

BT: You'd love them. Don't you like snakes or something, is that why you keep squirming around on that chair?

RR: I hate snakes.

AC: Well I have got this one rattle snake that you just can't take anywhere because he's so mean.

BT: You mean Happy? Happy died.

AC: Oh, that's right.

BT: Happy and Fuzzy had a fight and killed each other.

AC: We caught this big tarantula and put it in with this baby rattlesnake, and they killed each other. We figured that the rattle snake would kill the tarantula, that's what they eat, you know, they're a delicacy but they eat them. Anyway I came out the next morning and Happy and Fuzzy were both dead. There was a little package of... no I can't say that on the tape.

BT: Right, let's not get into that one.

AC: That wasn't on the tape.

Laughter all round, well not quite all round. A little package of? What? I ask myself.

AC: In every tragedy there is something funny.

RR: It's a bit like that party you threw to celebrate the release of an album which was culled from your experiences in the sanitarium.

AC: Oh, that was great, you should have been there. We had big vats of food with a sign in front saying, 'No Sharp Instruments' — so everybody wore those transparent hospital gloves and had to eat with their hands. It was such bad taste, like we had tongue depressors laid out on legs of ham.

RR: Who went?

AC: Everybody, people like DEBBIE BOOTH, TIMOTHY LEARY...

RR: What was he like?

AC: Well I never knew him before so he really was an interesting guy to talk to.

BT: Yeah, very interesting, he once spent all night at my place talking to the jukebox.

AC: OK but he didn't get a date with it, did he? No, TIMOTHY LEARY is a fascinating person, especially when you consider his past, he was almost the high priest of LSD. At the party I said to him, "You know TIMOTHY, we've never really met before" and he said, "Yes but we've known each other for a long time."

BT: There's actually a small fragment of his brain still working.

AC: Come on, he's fun, he's real fun.

RR: It seems as though he took to LSD the way you took to booze, does it look like he's been through a lot?

AC: Well he certainly wasn't burnt out at all, I can tell you that, in fact he's got more energy than anybody I've ever seen. Some people can pull out from a habit like that, I've known heroin addicts to have been cured for 5 or 6 years, and they're so sharp and bright because it never got to the point where it totally ate their brain away. On the other hand, I've talked to 20 year old alcoholics who are finished and forever more, even if they live to be 80, they'll always be the same. Can you imagine being finished at 20 from alcohol? See everybody's metabolism seems to react to these things differently — for example, all those years of drinking didn't really affect me, it didn't even hurt my liver. The doctor who checked my liver told me that it's slightly swollen but that's it. There's no scar tissue and no damage to speak of.

RR: You were very lucky.

AC: Well that's the way I look at it, I guess I'm just a very, very lucky guy...