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Detroit Shock City

Returning with 'Welcome 2 My Nightmare', the inimitale ALICE COOPER talks to 'Spider' Hamalainen about sequels, the Beatles, alcoholism and the biggest gamble of his career.

Detroit Shock City Returning with 'Welcome 2 My Nightmare', the inimitale ALICE COOPER talks to 'Spider' Hamalainen about sequels, the Beatles, alcoholism and the biggest gamble of his career.

LITTLE could a preacher back in Detroit, ministering in the heart of the automotive industry, image that his son would become a snake wrangling, make-up smearing cultural icon that would bring grand theatrics into the world or rock 'n' roll. Vincent Damon Furnier would adopt the name Alice Cooper, which might have sounded like a folk singer, and turn it into the majestic villain in rock who would hang and behead the status quo. From chart topping hits to the depth of alcoholism, he's been to both heaven and hell. And he's still here, proving that his creative spark still strikes as hard as ever with new album 'Welcome 2 My Nightmare', the sequel to the groundbreaking 1975 record 'Welcome To My Nightmare'.

"I never planned to do anything other than to be in show business somewhere. I mightve been a commerical artist. I probably would have been really good on Wall Street. Not Wall Street, but doing ads for people," ponders Cooper, before confessing. "I've actually written a lot of commercials for people. Or I would've written movies or something like that. I don't think I ever would have ever had the common nine to five job - it was just never part of my makeup."

One of the most recognisable characters in music started his career almost as on accident when, in 1964, he got together with fellow cross-country teammates to appear on a local letterman's sport talent show as a sports-orientated version of the Beatles called the Earwigs.

"We were at the golden age - fifteen years old - and that's right when the Beatles came out, the Rolling Stones hit and the British Invasion happened. We never looked back. I was sixteen years old then and I'm still doing it."

The band rechristened themselves briefly as the Spiders before settling on the Alice Cooper Band. They moved to the decadent Lost Angeles and the City of Angels introduced elements of the hedonistic rock 'n' roll lifestyle into the equation.

"LA is designed to destroy any band," spits the frontman: "It's just a diversion. LA is just an ongoing party, pretty much at all times. I still say to young bands that if you want to stay together don't go to LA. Go to London or go to New York or some place else, but Los Angeles is just too much of a distraction. We moved to LA and the first people we met were The Doors, who were really nice to us and let us know what it was like to be in the studio and on tour, then Mothers Of Invention and Frank Zappa, but those were the only two bands that gave us the time of day."

The caffeine-fuelled Zappa was confused by the group and signed them to his Straight Records label. Their slightly shambolic 'Pretties For You' debut was released in 1969 and was a commercial failure, but in hindsight marked the death of the flower generation.

"We signed to Frank Zappa because we were turned down by every other label. Those labels back then weren't looking for anything that was as disturbing as us. They were looking for the next commercial bands. The bands that got those three-minute songs on the radio and we just weren't that. We wanted to be that three-minute band and everything like that, but that didn't happen to us until we met Bob Ezrin (producer of the likes of Lou Reed's 'Berlin' and Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'). Bob Ezrin got hold of us, turning out those hits for us. They were all our ideas, but Bob knew who to put them in order."

As the 1970s rolled in the band released their second album and relocated back to Alice's original stomping ground of Detroit where they would finally shape their own distinctive sound, working o the album that would bid goodbye to the hippies and include their first trademark song. Produced by Ezrin, 1971's 'Love It To Death' featured a more coherent presentation of the group and showcased the anthemic 'I'm Eighteen'.

"He was the one who knew how to take those songs and put them into a form that the radio would love. I really needed that guy. If you didn't have a guy like that you really didn't have a chance."

In regard to returning back to Detroit Alice explains: "We kind of looked at ourselves as a Detroit band because that's really the kind of music we played anyway - sort of Detroit street rock.

"It was really odd for people when people actually realised that Alice Cooper had hit singles. That was like opening the candy store, because generally people have to start listening to your and they have to take you seriously. So here we were, writing hit after hit after hit and all of a sudden this band with makeup and theatrics were a serious band.

"All the people who laughed at us before were now giving us accolades. They were saying 'This is the new wave in music now' and this new theatrical thing, it shocked a lot of people. At that time everybody stood there and just looked at their shoes and that's what theatrics was for everybody. We came along and changed the whole game."

Four albums later the original line-up has disbanded after releasing albums such as 'School's Out' and 'Billion Dollar Babies' and the twenty seven year old shock rocker put all his money on the table and gambled with an even more over the top production, 'Welcome To My Nightmare'. The 1975 release was his first solo album, which introduced the staple protagonist Steven, and was followed by an extensive tour.

"That is always the biggest gamble in your life, because there you are, successful with your original band. Everybody loves that, they're used to it, you're part of the landscape. Then the lead singer breaks away, which really didn't happen, the band just sort of dissolved into everybody wanting to do their own projects. We never had a bad break up.

"I wouldn't have probably done it if I had not had Bob Ezrin. It was a game. I put every penny I had into it and it cost a lot to do the show and a lot to do the album. Pretty much at the middle of rehearsals for that I was kind of flat broke. That's putting all your eggs in one basket and hoping that it's going to pay off. The album ended up being a classic Alice Cooper album.

"Everybody thought that 'Billion Dollar Babies' was going to be the biggest tour we ever did. I was thinking 'Let's do a project that will make 'Billion Dollar Babies' look small. Let's really take it to the limit now.' We hired directors from Broadway, we hired four dancers that were not just dancers, but professional dancers who could do ballet and jazz. We hired choreographers and we hired everything. We put together a show that was basically a Broadway show - except that is was Alice Cooper insanity. The music was not going to be watered down like Broadway is. And that tour went on for almost a year of non-stop playing. It was a huge success. We broke even our own record attendances at most places.

"I worked myself into alcoholism in order to keep up at that pace. I didn't depend on drugs - I drank a little bit more and drank a little bit more after that and a little bit more after that. And pretty soon by the end of that tour I was ready to go to the hospital."

In the beginning of the 1970s Alice was a part of a notorious drinking club known as the Hollywood Vampires, where he'd accompany the likes of John Lennon and the unpredictable prankster Keith Moon, who would drink until they collapsed. Alice went through what he famously described as "a blackout for about four albums" and would return sober in 1986, equipped with a leather codpiece and a body builder for a lead guitarist, effectively becoming a new wave heavy metaller with the release of 'Constrictor'. 'Trash' was taken out in 1989, resulting in one of his biggest albums to date with the hedonistic title track and the absolute killer 'Poison'.

"That was a big boost. Two things happened at the time. First I made as album with Desmond Child. He sort of had the finger on the pulse of all the new bands. He worked with Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, Aerosmith and Joan Jett and everything he touched was a hit. I said 'I want to do an Alice Cooper album with your touch to it, but it has got to be dark and it has got to be sexy. And that's where 'Poison' came from. And after we wrote 'Poison' we knew that everything in the album would be in that vein. After that 'Wayne's World' (1992 comedy directed by Penelope Spheers) came along, right next to that. Those two things together put Alice back on the map."

With the release of 'Welcome 2 My Nightmare' the Diet Coke thirsty golfer entered the studio with some of the original people behind the original classic album.

"We got back together for the [Rock 'N' Roll] Hall Of Fame and I knew that we had to do three songs - that was just part of the tradition. All of the guys could play really well - there was never a problem with that. We sounded exactly like we did in 1973. We were laughing and having a good time doing the whole thing and we got back up onstage and really nailed it. Then we did a couple more projects together and at that point I said, 'Why don't you guys write some songs with us, with Bob [Ezrin] and I and I'll put you guys on the album?'

"The three of the original guys from the album, I had Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, who played guitars on the original album and I had Bob Ezrin, so basically I could do another '...Nightmare' album, but i didn't want to do the same album. I wanted to do an album with fifteen new songs creating a brand new nightmare for Alice."

On the new album the much-debated Steven also returns for the lead role as Cooper discusses psychoanalysis and explains the newly discovered origins of the character and differences between the old and the new 'Nightmare' albums.

"I realise that Steven is sort of the seven year old boy that lives inside of us. It doesn't matter if you're seven years old or not - you still have that seven year old boy living inside you that wants to go on the scary ride and wants to see the scary movie. In this case it was written from this point of view that everything was scary - what was living under the bed at night and in the closet. I just let the imagination run wild as a little boy.

"The next nightmare was a little bit more like 'What is Alice's nightmare now?' Well, disco would be a nightmare for Alice, so we wrote 'Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever', which is of course going to destroy disco - even though it is a very good disco song. For 'Runaway Train' we're on a train that won't stop until it crashes and you can't get off as you're chained to the train. Psychiatrists would look at some of these things and say, 'Well, that means this and that means that', but I just tried to get Alice into a lot of situations that he had to deal with and then on top of it that little seven year old boy is still. It doesn't matter where you go - he is never going to die. In fact, my wife said something very interesting... She said: 'In every man there is this seven year old boy that will not grow up and that's what makes you adorable to us'."

Cooper had originally planned to make a sequel for 'Along Came A Spider', which he said would've finally explained who the killer was, but due to the anniversary of 'Welcome To My Nightmare' and the involvement of Bob Ezrin the project morphed into another '...Nightmare' album, but he still says that a sequel for 'Along Came A Spider' is "probably a future project". Also having a strong past in narrative storytelling and a passion for cinema he'd be interested in working in film, saying that having heard from the exhaustive industry through Rob Zombie that "I would like to write movies, but I don't know if I'd want to direct."

Cooper has already left an extensive legacy in music and mentions the more obvious followers such as Zombie, Marilyn Manson and Slipknot, but he reveals how Lady Gaga, who adopted Alice's hanging ritual for her live show, bears a strong artistic resemblance.

"Lady Gaga, although her music is more dance orientated, it's the same idea that I had. She created a character named Gaga, I created a character named Alice Cooper and then I wrote songs for Alice Cooper, she wrote songs for Lady Gaga. In all honesty, she probably might be more close to what I did than everybody else." VLR

'Welcome 2 My Nightmare' is out now on Spinefarm