Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper is an American singer, songwriter and actor whose career spans over five decades. With his distinctive raspy voice and a stage show that features guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, deadly snakes, baby dolls, and dueling swords, Cooper is considered by music journalists and peers alike to be "The Godfather of Shock Rock". He has drawn equally from horror films, vaudeville, and garage rock to pioneer a macabre and theatrical brand of rock designed to shock people...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth4 February 1948
CityDetroit, MI
CountryUnited States of America
And you'd be right to do that. But the funny thing is I haven't watered down Alice. Alice the character on stage is just as dastardly as ever. If you sit in the first 20 rows of my show, you're covered in fake blood. The attitude behind it is totally for fun. The audience in the '70s was so easy to shock. Now I can't be as shocking as CNN.
Pull my trigger, I get bigger, then I'm lots of fun. I'm your gun, I'm your gun, gun, gun.
All sliced up and sealed tight in baggies. Guess love makes you do funny things.
That's like making fun of a maniac because his brain isn't completely right, because he isn't in the norm.
I have never made fun of religion. Religion is something I don't even want to mess with, because I am really afraid of the clouds opening up and my being struck by lightning.
Why be boring? Have some fun. Rock shows should be like movies: I don't go to a movie hoping it'll change my life.
That's the fun audience, ... Everybody is there to have fun.
We don't mind that, that's making them accept more, making fun that we accept that. The thing is this is the way we are. We think it's a gas.
The age of the audience has dropped 10-15 years, maybe more. All of the audiences through Spain, Italy through Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavia are like 15-16 through 25. It's like 1972 again.
I'm on in 80 cities. Madison was the first place we went No. 1 in the ratings.
I've got a crew that has been with me for quite a while, ... They know how to break down the disappearing coffin trick. They know how to break down the guillotine.
They coincide with each other but they don't at the same time. So what it is, is when people come to see us the first time, they see this.
We identified with Frank. We were of course influenced - when everybody hears Zappa, they're influenced by him, just like The Beatles.
There is so much great rock from the '60s, '70s, a little thinner in the '80s. I can't believe that there are only 40 songs that get played. There is such a variety of music from that era. There are just so many bands that never get played.