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Coop's back!!!

It's the afternoon of Alice Cooper's appearance on WMMS' "Classic Rock Saturday Night" show, and a subdued looking Alice is sprawled out on his bed at the Sheraton Hopkins watching the Detroit Tigers play the Minnesota Twins in the third game of the American League Playoffs. A staunch Tiger fan, Alice keeps one eye on the game and the other eye on the interviewer, as the game progresses.

RAISE YOUR FIST AND YELL has just been released, and Alice appears in the latest John Carpenter film, PRINCE OF DARKNESS. A self-confessed horror flick freak. Alice is as excited about his performance in PRINCE OF DARKNESS as he is about RAISE YOUR FIST AND YELL, which he calls "My favorite album we've ever done."

The Tigers jump out to an early lead, and Alice is already pumped up. "I told the people at 'MMs that the whole complexion of the show tonight depends on whether the Tigers win or not, so if the Tigers win, I'm going to be in really good shape."

Always a top-drawing live act, Alice Cooper has had a tough time selling records in recent years. Last year's CONSTRICTOR album and tour sold well, but commmerical radio's resistence to Alice Cooper material has put him in the category of a hard touring but low selling recording act. Thus, it made sense that Alice would consent to do a guest disc jockey spot on Cleveland's most powerful radio station.

"Cleveland, Detroit," Alice explains. "There are certain Midwest cities where I would do that. I wouldn't do it in Miami or a lot of other cities, but I think the Midwest is where I really do well.

"This is a hard rock city," he continues. "This is a heavy metal city. I would balk at doing it in any otehr place other than the Midwest.

"I see Detroit and Cleveland as being the same area. It's like the blue collar/working class thing which is really the heavy metal audience. That's the kind of audience I like to play for. I hate sophisticated audiences. L.A. and New York have seen everything. They're kinda going, 'Impress me.' That's really not fun. You get to these areas, and is there to have fun. That's really important."

As usual, ALice will be pulling out all the stops for his live appearance at Public Hall this Saturday (Nov. 14) night. He has resurrected the gallows and the 13-foot black widow spider from the NIGHTMARE tour in addition to "lots of hydraulics." The previous night's dress rehearsal was "like Christmas morning" for him because he got to see all of the special effects at work for the very first time.

As a veteran rocker, Alice feels the current crop of hard bands on the road make it more competitive for everyone. Both Kiss and Aerosmith are on tour, and Alice knows the members of both bands, having collaborated with Aerosmith's Steven Tyler on a couple of unreleased tunes.

"It has a lot to do with the fact that I'm a very competitive person," Alice explains, "and one of the reasons why I'm back doing this is that I love competition. I love to see what the other bands are doing.

"I think," he continues, "we're in a whole different league when it comes to the kind of production we do, but what we have to do is get some things together. If we had as much record sales as we had ticket sales, we'd be in really great shape.

"A lot of people take us at face value, that we're a great show band, and they forget to listen to the albums. The new album, RAISE YOUR FIST AND YELL, is my favorite album we've ever done. It's like the hardest rock album we've ever done. We used Michael Wagener, who's produced just about every heavy metal band in the world. I think it's the most intereting album we've every done, and I'm real proud of it."

The Tigers go up 5-0, and Alice cracks open another can of Diet Coke. No sugar for this rock star.

"Oh,yeah," he yells. "A double! This could be a triple! The guy can't pick it up!"

The Tigers go on to win their first and only game of the playoffs, losing to the eventual World Champs four games to one. But at least for that afternoon and later on at the WMMS studios, Alice Cooper is a happy Tigers fan. And this from a man who professes a love of slasher flicks of the low budget kind.

"I watch three horror movies a day," Alice says. "I go to certain video stores, and they say, 'Are you back again?' I just tell them, 'It's research.'"

Kane Roberts' Rambo Rock

At first sight it is immediately noticeable that Kane Roberts is not your ordinary guitar hero. With his Rambo­like physique and attire one is at first inclined to discount any other talent Roberts might possess just because of the stigma built up around such appearances. But don't let appearances fool you. One listen and it's apparent that he has more weight to throw around than that which is just purely physical. With ten years of hard-core experience on the hard rock scene and session work which includes the likes of Rod Stewart's and Berlin's latest albums, Roberts proves that talent isn't just skin deep.

Coming into his own, Roberts has recently released his first solo project which he has written himself as well as playing lead guitar and singing lead vocals. But Roberts is best known for his work with Alice Cooper as lead guitarist and co-writer of CONSTRICTOR and RAISE YOUR FIST AND YELL. The tale of Roberts' and Coopers' first encounter with each other is as intriguing as any rock and roll story could be.

"A tape of mine somehow ended up in Bob Ezrin's hand (Alice's old producer)," Roberts begins. "I had a band called Criminal Justice, and we were playing in and around the East Coast in all the little rock dungeons, the places where all they have is a little Schlitz sign as a window and the club owner says 'I'll throw a little dirt on the floor to get ready for everyone.' The tape we made was Steve Steele, Victor Ruzzo and myself. We'd been playing these tunes in all those clubs kind of working the songs out. Bob received a tape and Alice came to see the band on a night I kind of got into a fight.

"It was weird," Roberts continues, "the only time it ever happened. There was no stage in this place or most of the places we played. They're usually like strip joints where 'Tonight Is Rock Night.' We were eye-to-eye with these people and trading blood, sweat and spit with them. It's the kind of classic rock scene which, in my mind, is essential in every band's development. Anyway, these guys came in, not into rock, definitely into drinking, and they started a fight with some of the kids that were up front and because they might have been two feet away from me I got kind of involved in the fight. "So, Alice kind of walked in during the melee when there was equipment tipped over and feedback, it was a mess. He called me the next day and said, 'I saw your band last night.' No one knew he was there, so I said, 'Oh yeah, who is this?' and he answered, 'Alice Cooper.' History tells the rest of the story.

"It's funny," Roberts continues, "because it didn't bother him at all. He'd heard the tape and liked it, and he wanted to write with somebody. He couldn't believe that I was the guitar player until he put two and two together because he'd never seen me. He thought I might have been the bouncer or some guy who got out of prison who started the fight. He didn't know I was the guitar player."

The collaboration between Roberts and Cooper is nothing less than magic as the success of Cooper's "The Nightmare Returns Tour" proves. Even in talking with Roberts about Cooper one can sense a genuine affection and admiration that exists between the two. This is particularly apparent when Roberts discusses the workings of putting together Cooper's latest vinyl, RAISE YOUR FIST AND YELL.

"This particular record," Roberts recalls, "had as close to what Alice and I can have to a strategy kind of a meeting. We sat down, and my suggestion was that we look at the stuff that was going on at the time when he was having the most fun. In other words, let Alice be influenced by Alice. We checked out songs like 'Elected' and 'Under My Wheels' where, in my opinion, he was really kicking butt.

"We just got into the whole thing and as it turns out you can really hear it on the album. We'd play 'Elected' before he'd sing 'Freedom.' We were going at it that way, and I said 'Alice, let's not look at the other bands who are having success now. Let's look at you. You're the guy who started so much stuff. You've influenced so many lives. Why not influence yourself.' Because he influenced me and ultimately it ended up to be Alice's vision. You can really hear how it's really him. When you're going to write with somebody, especially somebody who's kind of a legend, somebody who meant a lot in your formative years, you don't want to walk in from left field as an influence. You want to be somebody who instigates someone in another direction. I think that's what we ended up doing."

With success coming seemingly easy these days, it would be easy for Roberts to cop an attitude, but he is quick to dispel any of those ideas.

"Someone asked me the other day," he concludes, "what would I be doing if none of this happened. My answer to them was that I'd still be strapping on my guitar and playing in those little clubs, chasing women after the show and lifting weights during the day, and I'd be really happy. I'm still aware of where I've come from. I'm fresh off the street, and I'm aware that any minute I could be right back there. So you can't worry about too many things. You've just got to keep playing."

Published in Scene Entertainment Weekly in Cleveland, Ohio on 12th November 1987.