Alice Cooper Q and A – Monster of Rock Cruise

It was a great privilege to be front row at this q and a with Alice Cooper sitting on a blue leather high backed throne on the Monsters of Rock Cruise. It was supposed to be outside on the Pool Stage, it was raining and so it took place in a dark indoor theatre, perhaps more appropriately, as I couldn’t really imagine Alice in the sunshine. Questions were taken from all comers and this is a summary of the best bits.

 

Talking about his show on the cruise obviously Alice couldn’t bring his whole show so he said he was missing his usual vast Castle set, but the pared down approach reminded him of the early days when the band would make all its own props,  as on the cruise they had been busy making a wedding dress out of sheets for the second show on the Cruise for Cheryl as they did not have one. The rough irregular nature of these handmade items made the show more nightmarish or dreamlike which was a good thing. He did one cruise before that he hated, but the rock cruise was a whole different thing, this was really rock n roll and he would do another one if it came up. He liked to do things especially if they didn’t fit ie if they were invited to an old folks home on Valentine’s Day they’d do it.

 

There was general hilarity about the start of the first show the day before where the band came on and played ‘Feed My Frankenstein’ but there was no sound, but with in ear monitors the band did not realise and kept playing. Alice said he thought ‘this is the dead-est audience ever’, ‘did someone lace the audience with barbiturates’ and ‘if they don’t get this one then they’re gonna hate the rest of the show….’. He noticed everyone pointing to their ears and nodded back thinking ‘yeah it’s really good no?’. Finally someone said there was no sound and they left the stage till it was sorted. He joked he would have to play the missed track twice in the next show.

 

 

He was in the process of working on two records with Bob Ezrin with the touring band as he had not done one with the touring band yet. It was the best touring band ever. Nita Strauss was voted best guitar player of the decade. Tommy was in the Hollywood Vampires with him. Ryan Roxie is a great rock n roll player.  Glen was voted best drummer in rock n roll and Alice realised he needed to have him when all his previous drummers seemed to have had him as a teacher. Best thing about the band is they are all best friends, no ego or gripes, everyone’s laughing, on days off they all hang out together. Same thing with the Vampires, they had been together 7 years and Alice had never heard one argument.

 

When asked if he was missing golf Alice said he had been playing golf for a couple of days in Miami and got it out of his system. He said he brought golf into rock n roll. If you are on the road in Wichita, what were you gonna do otherwise, go to the mall? It was better to get outside and do something for four or five hours and he played in Iceland, Moscow, all over the world. Alice the character on stage hates golf, given a golf club he would see them only as weapons.

 

Back in the disco era the radio only wanted to play that genre, so the rock bands all did ballads to get some airplay they were not going soft, there was just usually one ballad on the record. They always tried to do something different with each record, extra percussion etc.

 

In LA they played at the Whisky where the Doors were the house band and on the sign it said  ‘Alice Cooper and Led Zeppelin’ and Alice wondered who they were. Then when they walked in Alice recognised Jimmy Page from The Yardbirds as they had opened for them before.

 

Bob Ezrin produced ‘Schools Out’ and ‘Another Brick in The Wall’ so those tracks just folded into each other at the end of Alice shows. Pink Floyd used to live with Alice in the early days in a tiny house in Venice Beach and one night they made brownies! (rest left to the imagination).

 

Another time Alice had no money and was living in a basement with the rats in Watts. Jimi Hendrix was living in the Landmark hotel and he met Alice’s manager (who became a manager to cover up having so much income from Marijuana to appear to have a job). Alice went to Frank Zappa’s house, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Hoplin, Jim Morrison were all there in clouds of smoke. They were told that Frank wanted to see them at 7, so they turned up at 7am in full Alice gear, Frank came in with a coffee saying he meant seven at night. Alice played for him, and when he said ‘I don’t get it’ Alice was not sure what that meant, but Frank said ‘Don’t worry I’m gonna sign you’, especially when he found out Alice was from Phoenix not Frisco and really did not get that.

Sid Barrett of Pink Floyd looked like a rock star and was so far gone, he was sitting there with a box of cornflakes giggling, as Alice said ‘how high do you have to have to be to see cornflakes dancing at 7 in the morning?’

The Alice Cooper Christmas Pudding charity show finances any kid that can come in and learn any instrument for free, literally any kid is welcome, it’s a very important thing for Alice and his wife Cheryl. Alice deliberately puts people that don’t belong together eg Pat Boone and Rob Zombie on stage at the same time.

 

When asked how many people had left the Alice band and how many were fired Alice said he had never fired anyone that they simply drifted away. He picked them from hanging out with them, they’re all great players but a big part was if they would fit into the show. Music comes first. Theatrics come easy, but they rehearse the songs forever, seven hours out of an eight hour rehearsal would be playing the music. There were a few people who in the middle of a tour became someone else and just drifted off. After a while the personality drifts to the top. He goes for the best players and tells them since he doesn’t pull an ego trip no one else is allowed to, “on stage you can reek of ego and be bigger than life, but when you step off stage you’re back to just being yourself, so I don’t expect ego from anyone offstage. When I play Alice I am not myself I am an arrogant, condescending Alan Rickman type villain. But when I get off stage Alan stays there.” When asked about his portrayal of Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar Alice said he believed the character should not be the roly poly dumb ass guy, but should be an egotistical king.

 

When asked if he had any backlash from abusing fans Alice said “no, people understand they are part of the show the ones in the front know they are in the blood seats”. Calico would sometimes play Cheryl’s parts wearing white with a chihuahua rigged so he would bite into her neck and the blood would spurt out. When this happened in the Hollywood Bowl the band looked out and Paris Hilton was sitting there. She thought it was great.

 

With regard to the famous chicken story, there were all these white feathers blown around by CO2, then Alice looked down and saw a chicken, which he knew he and his band had not brought, “someone obviously thought ‘I need my wallet and keys.. and a chicken’ and so they threw the chicken onstage. I’m from Detroit I’ve never been on a farm in my life. It had wings and feathers, it should fly, so I threw it back and the audience tore it to pieces and there was blood everywhere.” “Chickens don’t fly so much as plummet.” So the next day the paper said ‘Alice Cooper kills chicken’ so Frank Zappa called Alice to ask him if he had killed a chicken. When he said ‘no’ Frank said ‘Don’t tell anybody, they love it’. At that point Alice realised the audience wanted a villain, “because we had all these Peter Pans and no Captain Hook”, “so we started inventing the character that way”.

 

A lot of people made fun of the 80s but the bands then were party bands and nailed it, so much fun,  they looked great on video and were so good on stage and knew how to do a show. Alice missed that when Grunge came along, but the next generation always divorces itself from the previous generation. Alice was not as much of a fan of Grunge with all the grey flannel and depression even though they were great bands and he wanted to take the Grunge bands to Disneyland to cheer them up (but no heroine ha ha ).

 

One of the Ramones said he loved ‘I Love The Dead’. Alice told him not to tell his therapist that. The Ramones had character, Alice always said if they learned one more chord they would be done. But there was something powerful about them, like AC/DC the simplicity was powerful. Like The Stooges Iggy’s power was that it was in your face and the band never reacted to what he did, even if they played simple riffs for literally eight minutes, like in Detroit, as Iggy was standing on the audience (who were holding him up like a contortionist) covered in peanut butter and Alice thought “ok I have competition”. Kiss also had their own brand of theatre on stage. Someone commented that the Ramones could not leave their apartment in NY without wearing their stage gear and they always sat in the same seats on their bus. Alice said they knew who they were. Gotta give the audience it’s money’s worth, entertain them, not just play songs.

When asked who he would like to meet Alice said Errol Flynn, the sword he uses on stage was Errol Flynn’s sword from ‘Captain Blood’ “he was so good at what he did.” The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Elton John, Elvis “the nicest people were the guys on top who had nothing to prove and the guys who were the jerks were the guys on their way up as they did not know how to handle who they were.”

 

Alice’s Elvis story was in 1972 in Las Vegas Alice got a call that “Elvis wants to meet you”, and Alice went to the Hilton where Elvis had the entire top floor. Chubby Checker, Liza Minnelli and Linda Lovelace were also there to meet him. “Three left that night one stayed, I don’t know what Elvis and Chubby Checker did that night!” (Ha ha) Alice was checked for guns before he met Elvis which was silly as when you got up there, there were guns everywhere, so if you were going to shoot Elvis you had to do it with his own gun. So Elvis said “You’re the guy with the snake right, from Deee-troit” Alice said “yeah” and Elvis gave him a loaded Smith and Wesson 38 and said “I’m gonna show you how to take a loaded gun out of somebody’s hand.” Alice said “A little devil popped up and said ‘Shoot him’ a little angel popped up and said ‘don’t kill him, but shoot him’, but I didn’t get a chance as next minute the gun was out of my hand I was on the floor and Elvis had his boot on my head.” Next Elvis said he was going to show Alice his most prized possession which was an envelope with X-rays.  Three drunk cowboys wanted to fight Elvis so he fought all three of them and broke one guy’s ankle and collarbone, hence the X-rays of the broken bones. Alice realised it was Elvis’ only contact with the outside world as he was a prisoner of being Elvis. “If you take anyone and say you can have anything you want, drugs, alcohol, sex and the greatest mansion, but you cannot leave, one day you will kill yourself as you will overdo it. It’s not natural not to be able to go out and live. I said I never want to be this big, like Michael Jackson, anyone like that will find a way to leave the planet.”

 

Alice said he used to think that one day he would be thirty and it would all be over and 44 years later he was still touring!!

 

After doing a group photo he left to rapturous applause!!

 

Dawn Osborne