Alice Cooper
By Steven Patrick
Sometimes the planets align and fate grants you with one perfect moment in time. For me, that one perfect moment was Alice Cooper calling me on my cell phone to do an interview. The rock legend has just started his obligatory autumn tour in the US, and is also touring behind his strongest album in years, "Along Came a Spider." So rather than go into an extended diatribe concerning Cooper's eternal place among the pantheon of rock, I thought it best to simply let the man speak for himself:
Hey Steve.
UW: Hey Alice, how're you doing?
Congratulations on being…Ohio State already being up there in 2nd or 3rd, even though I'm from Ann Arbor. Well, we're going to have a quarterback problem this year, so you know…four quarterbacks and none of them have ever started a game. But I think we'll beat Appalachian State. [laughs]
UW: With any luck… [laughs] So, how's the tour going?
The tour's going great. I mean, we did Europe already, we did Russia, Bulgaria, England, and all over Europe. And then we started the American tour, where I promptly broke my rib on the first show.
UW: Ouch. How did you do that?
There's a scene in "Welcome to My Nightmare" where all these zombies are onstage and I get bumped into a staircase, you know, accidentally. But, it just happened to catch me right on my rib and it just cracked it. I went to an X-ray yesterday and they said, "Well, nothing we can do about it. We can't wrap it, we can't do anything." So when I get up to do the hanging…you think that's not a little apprehensive? You know, you get a nice two-foot drop with a jolt and every night you go, "Awwwww."
UW: Well, take it easy out there.
Once you get onstage you can't take it easy, that's the thing.
UW: Would you agree that "Along Came A Spider" is a "return-to-form" album for you?
I really kind of do my albums for my fans. I realize I'm not breaking any new ground out there. I don't think Ozzy is, or Aerosmith is, either. We have our fans. We've had them for a long time. We are getting new fans because kids that like Marilyn Manson immediately go, "Who's this Alice Cooper that they're always talking about?" Then they bring up my website on the internet and go, "Wait a minute…I like this guy even better…and he's got 25 albums out!" So, they rediscover me…but honestly, when I do an album, I'm not thinking about, "Boy, I really got to get the Foo Fighters' audience." [laughs] I'm thinking that I've got to satisfy my audience. I spent more time in the production of this one, and I think that's what they mean by going "back to form." It probably reminds them more of "Welcome to My Nightmare," and that's fine because when we do this production on stage next year, it will be like "Welcome to My Nightmare." It will be a full-out Alice production. The album is already doing great. It's charting great, it's selling great, pre-orders are amazing. It's already surpassed in one week all the other albums combined. I must have found something in here that works.
UW: So much of your work deals with teenage angst and rebellion; how do you still tap into that at age 60?
Well, the good thing about it is that I don't. Alice does. I don't know how old Alice is. When he's doing "Eighteen" he's 18. When he's doing "School's Out" he's 15, 16, 17 years old, I guess. You know, because, how old is Dracula? How old is Batman? How old is any fictitious character? They really don't have an age. You know, so when I'm on stage and I'm doing "Eighteen," believe me, I'm as 18 as any kid out there that's 18…maybe more. When I get offstage, of course I go, "Well, I can't say you're 18"…you know Alice has got to be 18. Then there are other times when Alice needs to be a hundred. You know, he needs to be coming out of a crypt somewhere, so I kind of adapt him to whatever I need him to be.
Alice Cooper will be playing the Lifestyle Communities Pavilion on Sunday, August 24. Tickets are $25. Doors open at 7p.m. Cinder Road opening. For more information, please visit www.alicecooper.com.
Originally Published: Issue 663 - August 13, 2008
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