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Alice Cooper

There are three essential things in life: sex, violence and money. Whatever you do, if it has something to do with one of these three things, you will have success with it...

The above statement certainly applies to the Alice Cooper phenomenon. Everything he does contains a portion of sex and a portion of violence. The result: dollars and more dollars. “A Billion Dollars, Baby!” Alice Cooper has achieved success because people today are only interested in violence and sex. “They enjoy being a witness to disasters, rape, war, and murder. They are glued to their T.V. watching it.” Alice Cooper gives people what they want. He likes to scare people and does it on stage in such a way that there is a sexual bond between him and the audience.

All action on the stage; total theater. A swirling rock show, music bursting with energy, absurd situations: sex, excitement and sensation. Alice frees himself from a straitjacket. Alice makes love with a boa constrictor. Alice dangles from the gallows. Alice sits on the electric chair. Alice blows bubbles at the audience. Alice throws handfuls of banknotes into the hall. But above all, Alice plays his audience like an underground Jagger.

The beginning looked a bit poorer. There were days when Alice walked twenty miles to borrow a dollar from his manager. They rehearsed from early in the morning until late at night above an incense and bubbles shop.

That 700 bucks for an evening performance seemed to be the main prize in the competition. An offer to play for 1500 bucks in Detroit seemed like it came from heaven, and sounded so impressive that the group decided right away to go and live in Detroit. Flashy, complicated pop then reigned. Music that impressed Zappa. The Mothers already produced complicated sounds, but this was great. Alice Cooper got a record deal from Frank and made two long players, “Pretties For You” and “Easy Action”. Hard repelling songs, which helped contribute to everyone hating Alice and his group. People would walk out and say: “You have to see that, the worst of all time; you had to see it to believe it." It was "in" to go to an Alice concert just to be able to walk out before the end.

“We tried to entertain people, but the only thing we did was bore them. When we realized that, we became more boring and ... they fell for it." A change took place in the life of Alice Cooper, he became Alice from then on. Alice Cooper is what people expected after all the horrifying stories about him. Cooper and his group no longer played entertainment music, they started to shock people. One could choose: laugh about it or leave while puking. Anti-entertainment. Just as Barend Napkin became the "anti-me" of Toon Hermans, Alice became the "anti-me" of the Partridge Family. A symbol for all the negative things that live in the young people of fourteen, fifteen years old. Negative elements that are gradually replacing all positive things. Rebellion, mischief, revolution, and noise.

In 1964 the Stones made that connection. All adults were scared that Jagger et al. would have a bad influence on their children. And the children started to identify with the Stones, or with a song like "My Generation". The youth referred to their generation as “Cold War Babies”, children of the cold war. Who themselves identify similarly with the Alice Cooper phenomenon.

The new Alice, with extravaganza negative energy, gave birth to a hot album, “Love It To Death”. It’s the most negative album you can imagine - the cover alone, in pure black / white, without even a splash of gray. Alice had become aware of his hypnotic power and made use of it. Finally they had found someone who could help them with that. Producer Bob Ezrin, who began to figure out ideas that Alice didn't know what to do with, managed to extract the true essence from Alice's image and bring it to the plate. He was largely responsible for songs like "Eighteen", which made Cooper big. Sing-along songs, that could sell on the words.

After "Eighteen" the group started to focus on the whole. Not only did they express themselves in sounds and words, gestures were added. Sketches, dramas. The trinity of sex, violence, and money. And within that trinity there is the characteristic of the glam rock...

“The average American man thinks he is 100% male. While human biology has both male and female elements. Man must be aware of all aspects of himself. The masculine represents the power. The feminine, the wisdom. And the childlike, the faith. On stage, three elements are highlighted: powerful, raw, masculine music - the feminine image - and, for the childlike, the "toy" that is used on the stage.”

A successful formula that brought glam rock to the top in 1972. Exactly a decade after the "Merseybeat", the long-haired Yeah-Yeah sensation of the Beatles. Exactly twenty years after the start of "Rock‘ n Roll”. Alice Cooper became the world's most popular band, scoring hit after hit with "18" — "Under My Wheels" — "School's Out" — "Elected" — "Hello Hooray" and released a number of distinguished LPs, which rolled out of the press in a million print runs. The tours, designed to promote the LPs, were true goldmines. Beatlemania struck again. Bodyguards have to be used to accompany Alice safely to the hotel afterwards. "First we confuse the public, then we whip them into total ecstasy and end it with a hit like "School's Out", which sends them home satisfied."

The members of Alice Cooper do not exist. They are almost nameless parts of a machine, subordinate to the whole. That is why they should be mentioned here. Neal Smith, drums, rock hard and swinging. Behind the solid bass: Dennis Dunaway. Michael Bruce, organ, piano, guitar. The ripping guitar sounds come from Glen Buxton. And then of course there is Alice himself. His real name no longer matters. Some say that he does not want it to be known so as not to embarrass his father — a minister. Alice says: "I am Alice Cooper, three people with one name. My father and mother have come to know me as such — even they call me Alice."

Alice Cooper has a number of great albums, which have a clear line to "Cinematographic Pop". Music that evokes movies in your mind with the spectacles that the group performs on stage. "Love It To Death", then "Killer", "School's Out" and finally "Billion Dollar Babies". Alice Cooper is already working on a new LP, but this time an accompanying film is also in the pipeline. "It won't be like ‘Gimme Shelter’, we go one step further with our act and image, people will start to shake again." "Billion Dollar Babies" was created during the group's last tour of European. They were widely regarded as, indeed, Billion Dollar Babies. Money makers of the highest order. Those dollars have enabled the group to break free from their environment, to finally be themselves on the record. Most of the basic tracks were ready before departure for Europe, but there was no theme yet. In Europe, the theme was picked up and brought to the plate during extensive sessions. On the eve of the "Tommy" premiere (early December in the London Rainbow), Alice and company came into contact with the Tommy team. During the party that followed, Nillson and Donovan were pulled in and the foundation stone was laid for The Super Session of All Time, the title track of "Billion Dollar Babies". In the Morgan Studios, fantastic material was recorded for an hour with Keith Moon on drums, bass player Rick Grech, Marc Bolan as solo guitarist, vocals from Donovan, Harry Nillson, Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman (The Phlorescent Eddie & Leech) plus Alice himself. In fact, only the song "Billion Dollar Babies" was usable, but that immediately became the face of the LP. The rest of those recordings, Alice says with a laugh, "we will release them if we ever make a comedy album!"

Alice used to be busy with a Broadway Show; however, that project was cancelled. It was a dream that could not be realized. "Billion Dollar Babies" could now almost be seen as a Broadway Show. Half of it is rock in its purest form, half is even a musical. The album even has a real opening track, the only one that was not penned by the group: “Hello Hooray, let the show begin, let the lights go dim, roll out with your circus freaks and hula hoops, God I feel so strong! " An absolute highlight is "Elected". A wonderful parody of Richard Nixon's election campaign last year. Hands full of money go into the room, "Choose me, choose me, hallelujah comrades, I want to be chosen by everyone in the United States."

Opinions differ on Nixon, he was by no means elected unanimously. There are fewer doubts about Alice Cooper. They are the most sensational Show Band in the world, and for the time being Alice Cooper will stay that way for a while.

(Translated from the Dutch language publication, February 2020)