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His Satanic Majesty Requests

Andy McConnell's Mum warned her pink peekaboo, fresh out of nappies son that the Crown Prince of Transylvania Towers was one of the most foul, dangerous perverts on earth. But Andy still went up amongst the vampire bats and into the tower where this being lay. As he entered he heard the eerie voice say...

HIS SATANIC Majesty lay quietly on the couch, head propped up on the arm-rest, a can of dire elixir in hand. Ture to folk-lore of old, the being I watched exists by deceit and deception. It's apparent that his current incarnation as a rock and roll star is just a wafer-thin veneer to disguise his true self.

Emma Peel launched into her hapless oriental foe on the television. He feigned interest to give the illusion of being a regular guy. I knew better.

"Are we playing tomorrow?" queried a stunted Rumanian. Though he spoke in a mock-English accent, the truth was plain to see; Les is in dark reality, the warlock's Igor.

"Dave's calling ten different courses now. I'm sure we'll get a gang in somewhere. I'm going through withdrawals; not the blues, I'm having the greens." He considered his pun for a split-second. "Yeah, I'm having the greens," he repeated with a spine-chilling cackle.

It was very obvious to me; the fiend was trying to lighten the dark gloom hanging heavy in the air. Though they were pretending to talk golf, I knew the wicked dissemblers were plotting their next midnight sortie into local graveyards.

I was fully prepared. My Mum has warned me in advance. She had recited the text from a newspaper clipping: "A co-defendant in a Canadian murder trial is said by her mother to have been driven to the deed by Alice Cooper. 'She became depressed and took to remaining in her room playing terrible Alice Cooper records,' she told the court. 'They were records from the devil'."

"Behind that sweet smile lurks the brain of the most foul, dangerous pervert on earth," warned Mum, her face wracked by fear and revulsion. She knew her pink peekaboo, fresh out of nappies and protected from the world by her warm and loving arms for so long, would soon come face-to-face with the Crown Prince of Transylvania Towers. He lives protected from the legal consequences of his baby-chopping deeds by his legion of vampire bats and once-innocent groupies now ensnared into a world of unspeakable depravity.

"Wanna beer?" offered the tempter.

Off-guard, I accepted. Tearing the ring-pull from the red and white can labelled 'Budweiser', a pungent aroma filled my nostrils, the brown liquid was strangely bitter, yet enticingly refreshing.

Getting right to the heart of my fact-finding mission, I meticulously steered the conversation towards this Satan's flagrant on-stage encouragement of death and mutilation. "I've got to say that ninety percent of our audiences know it's only a show. The kids are smarter than their parents. The parents take it seriously but the kids go 'aaw, come on!' " His words were clear, his meaning imprecise. "Going to see our show is like going to see Christopher Lee in 'The Vampire'; it's a movie. People don't go home and bite their wives in the throat afterwards."

"But do you bite Cindy's throat?" I pressed,catching Cooper's chic assistant, Cindy De VIl in the corner of my left eye.

"Oh yeah," he drooled. "She has huge scars."

It's rumoured that when the Rev and Mrs Furnier's child Vincent was born, he was already 17-years-old. An accident whilst playing in a Detroit cemetery left him with frightful black scars trailing from the corners of his mouth and eyes. As he talked, the Clearasil covering the hideous marks cracked ever so slightly. Additionally, the accident destroyed sections of his brain and since that fateful day, Vincent has lived under the misapprehension that his real name is Alice.

Under meticulous direction from his mentor, the gruesome Shep Gordon, the deformed demon was put on the road was the climax of a musical freak show, backed by Neal Smith on drums, guitarists Glen Buxton and Mike Bruce and bassist Dennis Dunawy (four kids permanently disfigured with Vincent in amongst the Detroit tombstones).

Together they perpetrated their evil designs through long-playing records which proved addictive to souls unfortunate enough to overhear them. The albums soared to pinnacles of commercial success; "School's Out" and "Billion Dollar Babies" made Number One in the American album charts, supplemented by a steady crop of hit singles and a stage show that knew no bounds of depravity or bad taste.

Mum says that at different stages of his crusade against decency, Alice — as he has become known — drank blood from live chickens, made love to a boa constrictor, guillotined members of the clergy and dismembered little babies born to him by his harem of entranced groupies, with a circular saw.

His tuneless war cries against humanity, known to his hoards of zomboid disciples as 'hymns', simply reflect the perversion and slaughter surrounding his diabolical existence...

'I love the dead
Before they're cold,
Their bluing flesh
For me to hold.'

Yet Cooper is not satisfied with simply despatching the souls of his pitiful followers into Hades: his blue-print of death includes the ruination of the financial structure of the civilised world. His last trans-continental pilgrimage — the Billion Dollar Babies Tour, 1973 — sapped the world's economies by $17 million… every single cent being poured into Cooper's professional coffers, naturally. Obtained by a devious system of extortion, the money was raised by bartering worthless concert tickets, records, T-shirts and programmes for little children's hard-saved pocket money.

Cooper now talks of that tour as if it were ten years ago. Even he, a powerhouse of debauchery, was left drained by his all-out assault on common decency. "I couldn't have worn those leopard skin boots one more night. I don't mind the boots, but not those same ones and not that uniform," he groans. "I had to get away from it.

"I very nearly cracked up on that last tour. We went out and did 56 cities in 62 nights, had two weeks off, then had to go out and do another 15 cities over Christmas. We were really getting our teeth as we went out to do those last dates.

"We were doing material we'd done for three months straight, every night. I was tired of doing what I was doing on stage because it was the sort of thing that I couldn't change very much: the lighting had to be so together. Everybody depended on me being in a certain place at a certain time. It got to being a job," he says shaking his head in recollection.

The events of those last 15 days, the Alice Cooper Christmas Tour, were chronicled by Chicago journalist Bob Greene who played the part of Santa Claus in the stage act. In his book, 'The Billion Dollar Baby', Greene portrays the tour as a form of decadent Billy Smart's Circus, with Cooper being the least depraved of all. It was plainly a propaganda document from start to finish. Alice Cooper a normal person? Who are they trying to kid?

Cooper emerged from the book as America's one-and-only Republican rock and roll star; rarely leaving his hotel, imparting favourable words on Richard Nixon, occasionally venturing onto a golf course, never giving the most beautiful of groupies a second glance, and avid television freak. Lies, all lies... surely?

"I'll watch anything that's on," says the demon glancing away from the silver screen. "Everybody projects themselves into the characters. I was Elliot Nees for ages, then Zorro and Robin Hood for a long time. It was total relaxation."

Greene took great pains discussing the band and their relationship with the star of the show; the man who'd started as their equal partner but under Gordon's direction, had grown apart. Special arrangements, press conferences and body guards were provided for Alice, but not the others. Although Alice Cooper was the name of the band, one-fifth had come to dominate, take the glory.

There was no mistaking the fact that Alice's old buddies had been relegated to the role of back-up musicians in the public eye. "Sure my feelings got hurt," said Dennis Dunaway, the least assuming member. "We overlooked one things; we gave the public too much credit. We expected them to realise that Alice was both things, the person and the group, but they didn't realise it."

"Alice isn't like me," he told Greene humbly. "He can talk to anybody, it seems. Even in high school Alice was unusual. He'd sit around and people would listen to him talk. They wouldn't listen to me."

In contrast, the other three were more bitter at their increasingly minor role. Mike Bruce said, "For years we went without Alice being the front man, he was just Vince, one of the five of us. Now that he's a big star he's going round telling us how bored he is with it and how much he'd rather be doing something else. He wants to be a movie star."

Indeed, Alice has made little secret of his feelings about the show; "Now that I can do it, I want to stop. It's boring me," he said during the tour. "I'd like to get the chance to get well-rounded. After I master comedy, I'd like to be a romantic and make everybody fall in love with me. Don't they (the audience) see it's become a joke to me. I don't even like being on stage anymore. I've had enough of this sordid stuff."

Back at Chateau Cooper, Coop ‐ as he now prefers to be called — flashed on Greene's book. "He's a good journalist, but he was extremely out of context. I'm not backing out of anything. I said everything in there, he reported everything they said but we're not inhuman, you know. We never said we were."

Not inhuman? Could Mum be wrong? Visions of Cooper as the Spectre of Darkness were evaporating fast. I considered the possibility that I'd been duped. I struck up a Marlboro.

Out of context or not, within week's of the tour's completion Alice ditched his pals from way back. 'Alice Cooper' was the band, as Mike Bruce pointed out, and the disintegration of a band of Cooper's stature would have normally been greeted by wild headlines and a day of national mourning. However, Shep Gordon's media overkill to project Alice as an individual had worked so well that the split hardly caused a single eye-brow to be raised. Few even knew Alice had a regular band, let alone one that had been together for ten years. 'Neal Smith? Never 'eard of 'em.'

Coop is reluctant to discuss details, but insists they weren't fired; "Oh no, it wasn't anything like that," he demands adamantly. "We'd been together for ten years and it just got very dry. When you're working with the same people that long it's very possible to draw everything… you want out of them. LIke if you and I worked together for ten years we'd pick each other's brains out of ideas.

"Then if you go to work with somebody else you'll be getting millions of new ideas. The tensions and jealousies grew over a period of time. I don't think it could have happened the other way.

"We parted ways on the level of 'well, we're gonna get together again, but let's cool off and get away from it for a while'. It was actually my idea," he concedes, admitting the obvious.

Mike Bruce has a solo album due for release featuring Alice on vocals while Neal Smith's first single is already recorded.

The prospects of heavy legal wrangles against Alice by the other members is very real in this and of the 'sue me, sue you' mentality. Under American law, Mike, Neal, Dennis and Glen could claim they each own one fifth of the Alice Cooper name, demand enormous sums of money in compensation, and have a strong case.

Alice insists they're all still good friends and there's no mention of legal proceedings, but a great deal depends on how their individual projects are received, both critically and commercially. All four are still under Shep Gordon's management wing. Unless their solo ventures gain substantial success, it's hard to see Gordon — who admits to being more interested in money than music — concentrating too much time away from Alice to help their personal careers.

"You're right," admits Alice. "It's an extremely touchy subject. We built the personality around Alice Cooper. When they see my face they say, 'that's Alice Cooper'. When they see Mike, they certainly don't say he's Alice.

It's widely regarded that Shep Gordon, Alice's manager for the past nine years has been instrumental in creating much of the Alice Cooper mystique; the way that a desert boy from Phoenix, Arizona, with a something less than virtuoso voice has become one of rock 'n' roll's few truly household names, along with Elton John, Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

Alice affectionately refers to him as the 'Henry Kissinger of Rock and Roll', a tribute to his incredible sense of diplomacy and tact. "I'd say Shep and John Reid (Elton John's boss) are the best managers in the business. Shep has got so much scope. He's a total diplomat; he knows exactly how to win people over by persuasion and logic. In the end he always gets what he wants."

Even outside their role as manager/artist, Shep and Alice's friendship is a rarity. To this day, they still have no contract binding them together. "I asked him if we should have one and he said 'no', if we had to sign something it would mean we had no faith in each other. He said to me 'if you want something in writing, okay, we'll do it, but I don't want one'. That was alright by me, but it takes a lot of trust. He said, 'I'm not into making any deals with you. The only thing is that I think I can do things for you… all you have to do is do the best job you can in providing the entertainment'. That's the way we work. The normal artist/manager relationship is like a marriage."

In those terms, Alice and Shep are just living together.

When the band finally broke up, the first task was to find a new one Alice and Shep to Bob Ezrin, the 25-year-old Canadian co-producer of their third album 'Love It To Death' and producer of 'Killer', 'School's Out' and 'Billion Dollar Babies'.

Together they narrowed down five lists with ten musicians on each; two guitar, bass, drums and keyboards to five individuals. With emphasis on experience and professionalism, they came up with axemen Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter (who were two of Lou Reed's 'Rock 'n' Roll Animals') a Finnish drummer Whitey Glan, Canadian keyboardsman Joey Chirowski and Indian bassist Prakash John.

Wagner spent the summer in Los Angeles at Cooper's Laurel Canyon home working out the theme for the next Cooper show.

Originally they hit on the idea of centering it on a psychopath with a fetish for fresh meat, entitled 'Cold Cuts', but: "It would have worked for about ten minutes and then got very boring," explains Coop. "We kept thinking and thinking about it, then, all of a sudden we struck on the idea of a nightmare; Welcome To My Nightmare… just think of the possibilities, the vastness, the images, the demons… phew!" he says, almost squealing with delight at the thought of it.

They took their semi-completed songs to Ezrin who blended them together with streamlined arrangements. "100,000 dollars went on producing the album," he says lifting the beer to his lips. "I didn't want to say 'okay, here's 20,000 dollars, let'd do it, we'll make a nice chunk of money and we'll all go home feeling great'. I wanted to go in and make my premier album, no kidding around. So I spent the 100,000 dollars, did it, and it's the best album I ever did. It was so easy to work with these new handpicked people.

"In the old band we used to go through this whole thing of 'I'm gonna do exactly what I want, 'no matter what the fuck you say' and 'oh yeah! Fuck you, you stick to you own instrument and I'll stick to mine'. I did it myself a lot, it did nothing except blow off steam. Look, we recorded this album in two weeks, they learnt the songs they'd never heard before in their lives and had the basic tracks laid down in one day.

"If Dick says to Steve 'why don't you try playing that a couple of bars longer and ending up on this note', Steve says okay and tries it. The album went so smoothly there must have been something wrong. It was terrific!" he exclaims with wild enthusiasm.

Whether it's his best ever album, well… ummm. Much of the distinctive rawness of old has gone; perhaps it was too easy. Alice's voice has a quality never heard before, but that doesn't necessarily improve the music. After all, it's that unique vocal abrasiveness that's proved such an essential ingredient to the overall sound.

"I was off for eight months which gave me time to rest my larynx," he explains. "At the end of the last tour I had nodes in my throat. It was so bad I could hardly talk. I was having to blast away every night. By the time we reached the studio it was in good shape. I think I relaxed a lot more this time too, the type of material involved called for me to sing instead of shout.

'Welcome To My Nightmare' tour comprises Cooper/Wagner/Ezrin cuts, three by Alice and Dick, with Shep, Kelley Jay and Kim Fowley adding their talents to the remainder.

With the musician side of affairs settled, Alice set to work on the visuals.

He admits that in the past there have been strong opinions from certain quarters, especially from the press corps, that 'it's great visually, but they can't play it'. He disagrees, naturally, and insists there's no separation between the music and stage show. "I don't care what anybody says, an album doesn't sell unless it's a good album. I'd put the guys up against anybody musically.

"I've always said that you could take Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead or anybody that's considered a great musical band, put them in green costumes, direct them to do crazy things and they'd still be able to play just as well. I don't see why costumes detract from the music.

"When I go out I always have thought that it's the best rock and roll show anybody ever saw; musically and visually. There's absolutely no separation between the two," he says point-blank. "The day I cease to believe it's the best I'm gonna blow it."

Operating on a budget of 200,000 dollars, he formulated ze Master Plan, and took it to Gordon to consider its feasibility; could it be erected quickly by a team of rock and roll roadies? Could it be transported with ease?

"I'm the general writer," he says, explaining the mechanics of how the show was formulated. "I take the idea to Shep and he says he needs this guy for props, this guy to stage manage, this guy for effects. Then he gets them all together. It's very much like staging an old Broadway play. I just sit back and listen to what they all say."

'Welcome To My Nightmare' was continually modified at its embryonic stage to ensure Alice's motions and actions will suit his stage persona. General meetings of costuming, booking, timing, props, choreography and road crew departments are held every six days to facilitate total coordination. "It's very exciting to see it all coming together, says the ring master himself.

The Cooper Organisation is renowned for the meticulous care and thought put into its shows. Although the road trips don't reap huge profits, they are essential to promote the albums. "The money we make on the road is deluxe; the jam on the sandwich," says Alice.

"It just has to be the best," he continues. "Everybody says 'hell, you're making so much money, 70 or 80,000 dollars a night' but they don't realise how much we put back in to make it bigger. As it is now this show's enormous. You'll have to see it to understand just how gigantic it is. Then you sit back and go, 'wow, all these people have to be paid'."

After the 'Killer' show in which Alice was hanged as a climax audiences and critics alike asked what he could do to better it. They asked the same after 'Billion Dollar Babies'. Now he's back with his new 200,000 dollar extravaganza.

"I'm very competitive," he smiles while considering the steadily escalating scale of operations. "I expect Elton John and David Bowie to go out saying, 'I can do something better than Alice'. I love the sort of thing, it's extremely important".

"I love to say... 'beat this'," throwing down an invisible gauntlet. "If they beat it, great. I'll just go out and do something better. I don't want to say, 'okay, here's the show. Let's have your money and we can all go home'. You've got to have that drive to make you show the best."

The tour opens on April 1 and will last eight months. Bearing the strains of that last effort in mind, this time around the pace will be much slower; two or three days rest between each show. It will take in 65 US cities in the opening three months, then head for England, Europe, Australia, Japan and Brazil. Brazil? "Yeah, we turned up there on the last tour and set the world record for the largest number of people ever to attend a single event. WE had 140,000. It's in the Guinness Book of Records," he beams proudly.

From the early days in hick town bars, dives and spit-pits, the Alice Cooper Show, whatever its theme, has been something to behold. THere's no doubt that his splendid sense of outrage and the bizarre has sired a new dimension in rock and roll. Alice arrived at a time when stage dynamics were restricted to jumping up and down, swirling microphones and smashing the occasional guitar. He opened the door to a flood of imitators. Yet to start with he was universally treated as a bad joke.

"People were afraid of anything new. IF they don't immediately understand it they're afraid to touch it and even ridicule it. It's only human. When Bob Dylan came out I laughed at him, the same with the Beatles; I didn't like them because I was a Beach Boys fan and they were just a bunch of English fruits."

"So when Alice Cooper came out in '66 doing what we were doing, boy, people just absolutely hated us. We were ready to be tarred, featured and thrown out of town, but no matter what anybody said, it was entertainment. That's been the premise I've worked on ever since. I sit down and wonder what the kids in the audience would like to see. The only thing I go on is whether it's entertaining or not."

As for the 'Nightmare' itself, it's safe to say it'll be the most lavish rock and roll show ever staged. A produced nightmare, with all the elements of eerie afterdark. There are four professional dancers playing roles ranging from black widow spiders to evil demons; a nine foot tall cyclops, a range of hydraulic lifts, ramps and beds, a gargantuan stage and no specific storyline.

What is probable however, is that the out-and-out violence that's marked his previous expeditions will be toned down. Alice is quietly, yet deliberately making strides towards changing his image. There's a distinct difference between hacking a baby doll with an axe and having four spiders dancing across the stage; between seeing live humans hanged and guillotined and watching a vaguely comical nine foot cyclops beheaded. Don't forget Alice's telling words from Greene's book. "I'm tired of all this sordid stuff" and "I want to be a romantic ad have everybody fall in love with me."

"This show's gonna be a wet dream for some, a funny nightmare to others. Different people will take it in different ways," he says. "I'm depending on the audience to fantasies on all the images. I got tired of all the old songs, the guillotine. This time there's gonna be a lot of high energy because it's so new."

'Welcome to my nightmare,
I think you're gonna like it
I think you're gonna feel that you belong
A nocturnal vacation
Unnecessary sedation
I want you to feel at home
'Cause you belong
Welcome to my nightmare.'

Mum, you're all wrong.