Article Database

Alice Cooper continues his lock on shock rock

Author: Robert K. Oermann

Before there was Twisted Sister, Ozzy Osbourne, Kiss, W.AS.P., Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, or any other metal madmen, there was Alice Cooper.

And now he's back, promising more outrage than ever.

"Everything I pick up and read about these new bands seems to have my name on it," the father of shock rock said during a telephone interview last week. "That makes me feel that what I was doing was correct, and gave me the energy to want to go out on tour again.

"And this tour has the most energy we've ever had: Every show has been a sell-out.

"We're more cinematic. If Edgar Allan Poe were alive today, this is the show he'd be doing.

"I look forward to the concert every night.

"There are parts of this show that are pretty bloody. When we chop off a head with the guillotine, it's more anatomically correct than it used to be. I advise anybody in the first few rows to wear blood bibs or rain­coats."

Alice Cooper made his reputation with ghoul makeup, loud music and gory props in the 1970s. In his on-stage heyday he simulated executions, wrapped himself in live boa constrictors, chopped up baby dolls and ran amuck with giant spiders.

In addition to having rock's most bizarre image, he wrote and performed some of his era's biggest hit anthems, 1971's Eighteen, 1972's School's Out and Elected and 1973's Hello Hurray and No More Mr. Nice Guy.

He blazed new trails in pop packaging. The School's Out LP jacket unfolded into a desktop and its record was wrapped in panties. Killer contained an Alice Cooper calendar. Billion Dollar Babies was in the shape of a snakeskin wallet containing a giant greenback. Muscle of Love was sold in a grease-stained cardboard box.

Welcome to My Nightmare is sometimes cited as rock's first long­form rock video. And few would dispute Alice Cooper's influence on punk fashion.

In the late 1970s he turned to ballads like I Never Cry and Only Women Bleed.

He sat out the early 1980s.

"I took time away from 'Alice,' and I stopped drinking."

His real name is Vincent Damon Furnier, a minister's son who was born in Detroit on Feb. 4, 1948. He was raised in Phoenix and gained rock fame after Frank Zappa discovered him in the late 1960s in Los Angeles.

Initially "Alice Cooper" was the name of the band, not the man. But gradually, Furnier adopted the moniker, as well as its notorious theatricality.

"They've been saying music is gonna warp people's minds through all time. There's always some splinter group attacking Sinatra, Elvis, The Beatles, The Stones.

"There is nothing really frightening about a Halloween party. There is no satanism in my show. It's a rock 'n' roll sick Halloween party, and that's the way Alice Cooper has always been.

"My little girl is five years old and she's seen the show and thought it was hysterical. I've always taught her not to be afraid of anything you see on film. There's nothing wrong with the vicarious thrill of being startled. It's the news you should be afraid of.

"Chopping up a toy doll is not reality. Kids know that. Anybody that cuts up a real child ought to be guillotined."

Cooper's creepy show still features the guillotine, as well as his live snake.

He's been having some problems with the latter. "Mistress," the snake who inspired his new Constrictor LP, fell ill just before the start of the current "The Nightmare Returns" tour. "Mistress II," who began the tour instead, was replaced last week in Baltimore.

The Constrictor comeback album was produced by Beau Hill of Ratt fame. It includes He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask), Cooper's theme song for the movie Friday the 13th, Part 6 — Jason Lives.

This album sounds like Killer and School's Out drop-kicked into the '80s. I'm really happy with it. This'll be our sound from now on. And this is the best band I've ever had."

He says he'll be playing "70% old stuff, but updated, and 30% stuff from the new LP" in concert at Municipal Auditorium Friday night. The opening act is the hard-rocking fugitive from Kiss, Vinnie Vincent, and his band Vinnie Vincent's Invasion. Tickets are $12.50 at CentraTik locations.