Alice Cooper: “Today you can no longer really shock anyone”
“I am a fairy tale; I am really satisfied to how the concert in Bologna went; the audience was fantastic,” Alice Cooper tells us a few days after the concert that on 8 July saw him perform at the Red Carabri Park in Bologna, the only Italian date. Vincent Fournier – this is his real name. He told us about the repatriation with the old members of the Alice Cooper Band – hence the new album ‘The Revenge of Alice Cooper’ -, of his meetings with Jim Morrison, Elvis and Beatles, but also of his passion for Dario Argento.
By now you are in the sector of six decades: your job “loved it to die for”, to mention your historical album (‘Love it to Death’).
It is absolutely so. I never get tired of composing music; I never get tired of going on tour; I never get tired of moving on a stage. I still feel like I was thirty!
For your new album, produced by Bob Ezrin, you wanted to collect the old companions of the Alice Cooper Band. Was it a way to celebrate a part of your past, or more simply to close a circle?
I have always found stimulating the fact of working to make somewhat extravagant choices, aimed at amaze. The question with the original members of the Alice Cooper Band had always remained a little pending, and even when we initially separated, we did it without grudges and in the most natural way possible. Basically I have never stopped staying in touch with Dennis (Dunaway, bass) or Neal (Smith, drums), regardless of whether we had all taken different paths with their respective projects. I probably felt that sooner or later I would have contacted them to propose to them to make a new album, and when I did it it was touched by learning that none of them would ever expect to receive such a request for me. Finally, after the three and Mike (Michael Bruce, guitar and keyboards) had the ready -made material, Bob Ezrin has come forward to produce it. The interesting thing is that none of us knew what to really expect from this new union, but in the end we got a recording as a result that really sounds like an album released in 1975.
‘The Revenge of Alice Cooper’, this is the title, is in fact uniform work.
At times it may seem a little frivolous, but certainly reflects that “Sense of humor” which has always been a fundamental feature of the Alice Cooper project.
“Black Mamba”, the first single, sees the participation of Robby Krieger of the Doors, the same with which strings, you and your companions, once they arrived in Los Angeles from Detroit. I know you happened to spend some evenings in the company of Jim Morrison. What is your most intimate memory of him?
Well, Jim was a tortured poet, and he really was. At the same time, however, he was also a great rock singer and was part of what I personally believed to be the most original band of all the United States of America. Yes, the doors had that a little “jazzy” sound that was well married to Jim’s mystical personality. Robby Krieger was equipped with an incredible, inimitable style. Nobody played like him, just as nobody had the caliber of a Ray Manzarek. But Jim Morrison, well: Jim Morrison was “the voice”. I did not remain much surprised when I was told that he had passed away – at the age of twenty -seven, such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and all the others. And I was not surprised by the simple fact that he was a clearly self -destructive person, an aspect of his personality, after all, who was part of his being a poet. If you read the texts he wrote, you will see that concepts as end and death appear frequently: “The End”, “When the Music’s Over” and more. And an incontrovertible fact, then, is that at the Doors concerts, every girl present ended up going into ecstasy in front of Jim Morrison. As I said, however, it never surprised me that that boy had abandoned his life so young.
You are a pioneer in the use of theatricality and make-up in rock music. But I believe that the most important thing about the Alice Cooper project, in particular in the seventies, has always been the music and the peculiarity of the songs.
It is absolutely so. Due to the particularly theatrical component of our show, people did not understand that in reality those two elements, music and theater, went hand in hand. In Broadway more or less the same thing happened, as in the staging of ‘West Side Story’, for which music was prepared before and so only at a later time it was thought of acting. In our case, if we had six hours of rehearsals, five we would have dedicated them to music and only an hour to the stage question. Instead the general idea, on the side of public opinion, was that we did exactly the opposite. See, when composing an album there is no theater that holds, because the music you do must be enabled to speak for themselves: it must be central to your project, because people will buy that album for the taste to listen to it.
One of the most important works relating to the name Alice Cooper is “killer”, which has influenced many rock styles to come thanks to complex songs such as “Dead Babies” or “Halo of Flies”. Can you briefly tell me about your genesis?
The album that launched the career of Alice Cooper Band was ‘Love it to Death’, where songs such as “I’m eighteen” and “Ballad of Dwight Fry” were located inside. ‘Love it to Death’ served to communicate to the world who we were. When you make a disc that is successful, anxiety grows for what you will produce later, because people are subject to thinking that you will not be able to replicate their quality. But ‘killer’ went to materialize spontaneously. I remember that previously a journalist had said that although we were skilled in bringing a convincing show on stage, or in making individuals for three minutes, we were not as much in playing more complex stuff. “Halo of Flies” was a response to that ciallare. He served to deny those who thought that we could never get out of excellent excellent looking at a genre like prog. However, I am referring to a peculiar prog only to us, certainly not to the most classic one of the Emerson, Lake & Palmer, or the Yes or King Crimson. It is not surprising, in fact, that among all the albums that see me the protagonist, ‘Killer’ is often indicated as the favorite of critics.
In the seventies, the idea that your fans wished to attend your concerts caused terror in their parents. The rock was truly “shock”, in those days. Today it seems that people are used to everything and no longer feel amazement in front of anything. Do you agree?
Of course, today you can no longer truly shock any audience, because what is disclosed by the news is largely more shocking than anything, Marilyn Manson or the like we could never visually produce. In the seventies, however, the question was decidedly different; The idea that I was a man in make-up, who showed me with snakes or that staged the beheading on stage, would have been sufficient to completely disappear anyone. Fans went crazy for these things, but today nobody remains shocked for the number of the guillotine at my concerts. The patrons are amused about it, of course, but if they are waiting for it because they know that it is part of a tradition that concerns the Alice Cooper universe. So what I still do today, therefore, is no longer aimed at shocking people as it once happened.
The name Alice Cooper, in addition to being the same as a seventeenth century witch, would have suddenly peeked, while you and your old colleagues consult an Ouija table. Did he really go like this?
It is one of the greatest inaccuracies that have ever been told about Alice Cooper’s account. When we started taking the first steps, our name was The Nazz, but then we discovered that there was already another band, in which Todd Rundgren played, which was called that. We therefore had to think of an alternative solution, but instead of resorting to the typical names of the time – such as Black Sabbath, so much so to speak -, I thought it would be more interesting to get something different. We began to think of a female name that could refer to the stereotyped figure of the old American lady who sells the biscuits she prepared in her shop. So it was that “Alice Cooper” jumped out, who was imprinted for us for days and that we finally decided to adopt as the name for the band. But the matter of the Ouija table, no, is pure invention …
Strangely several articles, as well as the documentary ‘Super Duper Alice Cooper’, still support the theory of the Taist Ouija …
I think I know the reason. I remember that one of the boys we worked at at the time, playing with an Ouija with his mother, asked the table who was Alice Cooper. According to what he claimed, he was replied that it was an old witch of the seventeenth century. However, that’s not the reason we chose to call us that, even if I understand that some please think about it.
COnsideri Elvis Presley one of your heroes. You believe in the story he told that an alien would have passed away from him telepathically a future vision of him as a big one, in the artist version, wearing the famous white suit with which he would have gone down in history.
No, I don’t believe it … but it seems to me a nice story. You see, I think that certain stories relating to the world of rock ‘n’ roll, the myths related to it, let’s say, have as its main purpose to entertain, and so they would be to be understood. It is different when you create rumors that can create damage to the subjects to whom they are addressed – and when this is the case, then it is not good at all. In general, however, there is often this idea that the characters of the world of rock are beings from other planets, as if for ordinary people we were not truly real. I understand it, at least in part, but see, when I met Elvis I struck in finding him particularly affable as a person. The same happened when I met the Beatles. I remember that in that circumstance I thought: “Wow, they represent the utmost inspiration for all of us, and they are the individuals more in the hand that I have ever met”. And I realized that that kindness could even find it by giving up on characters like Frank Sinatra. And that’s how it should always be, from my point of view. I mean that the more you are famous, the more you should show you friendly towards your neighbor.
You starred in ‘Nightmare 6’ in the role of Freddy Krueger’s father, and you also recited with John Carpenter. You are a horror enthusiast and I know that ‘Suspiria’ is among your favorite films. What do you think, instead, of that other equally popular film of silver, ‘deep red’?
‘Suspiria’ really struck me for his strangely singular side. It was something completely different from any American horror movie I could have seen. And the same could say of ‘Deep Red’, of course yes. Silver has created horror films that have no equal, but I believe that a feature film like ‘Suspiria’ has that extra element. Even today, if you look at it, it is able to leave you strange for certain its scenes. I think Dario Argento is simply a genius.
