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Song Hits
November 1980
Pop Star of the Month
Late afternoon. Inspiration surrounds us. This is no cold, congealed publicist's office, no smarmy press party replete with fatuous gladhanding and stale finger sandwiches, no baronial mansion or sun-dappled pool side. It's not even the back of a limo or the game room of a tour jet. This is no standard scenario, in other words, for conducting our interview, no place for a cut and dried Q&A. We'll get our answers alright, all in good time. This is, after all, Alice's place.
We can pick up a lot by looking around, as the dusky light settles on this overbrimming palace of memorabilia, this emporium of oddness, this World According to Cooper. The place is dominated, of course, by one of those huge TV screens where periodically a camera pans across Cal Worthington's acres of new and used bargains. A stuffed goat lurks by the pool table ... the critter's got skates on with wrap-around sunglasses hiding what is undoubtedly a glint in its glassy eye. Eight or ten oscilloscopes stacked atop each other pulse languidly in the twilight and give the place the momentary look of a Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea set. It's a fleeting impression, however, as our eyes fall next on a kind of ominous icon surmounted by an ayatollah dartboard, festooned with feathered darts. Everywhere gold records catch the fading light: School's Out, Billion Dollar Babies, Killer, Love It To Death, read some of the little engraved plaques while clustered around, a myriad of glossy 8xlO's rustle in the gentle breeze. Yes, here's Alice with Hugh Hefner, and Peter Sellers, and Mae West... and here he is with Fred Astaire and yes, of course, there's Ringo. Everywhere is evidenced the passion of a twisted connoisseur for vintage strangeness. Secrets spill from every shelf, stories tumble from the walls. Just the place for a heart-to-heart.
"I like being a specialist," says Alice himself. sitting and smiling smack in the middle of this bizarre museum. Behind him the evening news is reflected in monolithic proportions on the convex screen; volcanoes in Washington State and day one-hundred-and-something-or-other of the hostage crisis. Even with the sound off, things look grim.
Alice, on the other hand, has never looked better. Fit, tan and trim, he's kind of excited about something. He slaps it on the turntable, hidden from sight by stacks of souvenirs and, from speakers secretly concealed, "Flush The Fashion
As the last track fades, we begin to understand. Alice is a specialist; and, on Flush The Fashion, he's specializing. It's got all the solid resonance of innovation, all the sure touches of complete control. No wonder he's smiling... "I'm focused right into the '80s,'' Alice asserts. "I feel a whole new thing coming, music that's fresh and alive, and this lp is right in there. It's a lot less slick and produced." Strange words from a man who pioneered the Wagnerian studio techniques of an entire decade, with such thundering productions as Billion Dollar Babies and it's magnificent edifice of sound. "I liked it when it was slick," Alice explains, "but it got to be ridiculous. It was a fad, how much money you could spend on a given album. We did this record in four weeks." "We," in this case, includes producer Roy Thomas Baker, the knob-meister who streamlined the Cars, crowned Queen and ushered a score of other artists inot the major leagues, as well as Davey Johnstone, guitarist and co-writer of Flush The Fashion's ten tunes. Johnstone's sure melodic touch was a formative element in the best of Elton's material, and together with keyboardist Fred Mandel he brought a lean, spare and muscular profile to Alice's new musical persona. "I knew exactly what I wanted," Alice continues, sipping a Coca Cola as shadows lengthen over the room. "The concept was in the sound, a kind of cleanness. It really is just one band, all the way through. It's functional. The title, for instance, came out of the sessions. I was trying to say, 'get rid of the crap,' the fills and the overdubs, you know, flush the fashion." It's an lp that possibly contains more pure Alice than any other of his career. "I had my hand in it from the beginning," he says. "I designed the lp cover, developed the sound and, of course, wrote the lyrics. That's going to extend to the stage show. In the past I was known for my horror show dramatics... when Alice came to town it was an extra Halloween. Now I'd like to try for a more Hitchcockian approach. I've developed my sense of pacing and dramatics. I want to make the audience feel insecure first, then devastate them." Continuing on the subject of innovation and exploration, Alice offers; "I love what's been happening in music the past few years. It's really what I've been involved in all along. When I listen to Devo and then go back to Pretties For You, there's very little difference." Shadows presage the night as Alice smiles from the dusky recesses of his hideaway. "Alice is going to be around for a long time... the character is ageless..." Eerie, this second person discussion of himself; eerie also when Alice turns to talk of his budding film career. "Alice plays himself in Roadie, of course," he remarks, evoking the star-studded film that stars Meat Loaf, Blondie and a host of other musical notables "and one day I hope to do some more acting. I'm much more comfortable as the villain, though. I want to be the Basil Rathbone of my generation." Again the smile. It's hard to see him now in this murky twilight. Shapes are beginning to emerge from the shadows, faces from the corners and crevices. "Alice has a lot to say in the next ten years," he concludes, "this is just the beginning."
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