Alice Cooper
(Read all about Alice Cooper after the video)
Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier; February 4, 1948)[1] 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.[2]
Originating in Phoenix, Arizona, in the late 1960s after he moved from Detroit, Michigan, "Alice Cooper" was originally a band consisting of Furnier on vocals and harmonica, lead guitarist Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce on rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar, and drummer Neal Smith.
The original Alice Cooper band released its first album in 1969 but
broke into the international music mainstream with the 1971 hit "I'm Eighteen" from their third studio album Love It to Death, which was followed by the even bigger single "School's Out" in 1972. The band reached their commercial peak with the 1973 album Billion Dollar Babies.
Furnier adopted the band's name as his own name in the 1970s and began a solo career with the 1975 concept album Welcome to My Nightmare. In 2011, he released Welcome 2 My Nightmare, his 19th album as a solo artist and 26th album in total. In 2011, the original Alice Cooper band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[3] Expanding from his Detroit rock roots, Cooper has experimented with a number of musical styles, including art rock, hard rock, heavy metal, new wave, glam metal,[4][5] pop rock, experimental rock, and industrial rock.
Cooper is known for his social and witty persona offstage, with The Rolling Stone Album Guide calling him the world's most "beloved heavy metal entertainer".[6]
He is credited with helping to shape the sound and look of heavy metal,
and has been described as the artist who "first introduced horror
imagery to rock'n'roll, and whose stagecraft and showmanship have
permanently transformed the genre".[7]
Away from music, Cooper is a film actor, a golfing celebrity, a
restaurateur, and, since 2004, a popular radio DJ with his classic rock
show Nights with Alice Cooper.
Early life
Cooper was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Ella Mae (née McCart) and Ether Moroni Furnier (1924–1987). His father was a preacher in The Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite) headquartered in Monongahela, Pennsylvania.[8] He has English, Huguenot French, Irish, Scottish, and Sioux ancestry.[9] He was named after his uncle, Vincent Collier Furnier, and the writer Damon Runyon.[10] His paternal grandfather, Thurman Sylvester Furnier, was an apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite).
Cooper was active in his church at the ages of 11 and 12.[11][12] While growing up in Detroit, Cooper attended Washington Elementary School, then Nankin Mills Jr. High. Following a series of childhood illnesses, he moved with his family to Phoenix, Arizona, where he attended Cortez High School[13] and Glendale Community College, eventually earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts.[14]
Recording career
1960s
See also: The Spiders (American rock band) and Alice Cooper (band)
The Spiders
In 1964, 16-year-old Furnier was eager to participate in the local annual Letterman's talent show, so he gathered fellow cross-country teammates to form a group for the show.[15] They named themselves the Earwigs.[16] Because they did not know how to play any instruments at the time, they dressed up like the Beatles and mimed their performance to Beatles songs.[16]
As a result of winning the talent show and loving the experience of
being onstage, the group immediately proceeded to learn how to play
instruments they acquired from a local pawn shop. They soon renamed themselves The Spiders, featuring Furnier on vocals, Glen Buxton on lead guitar, John Tatum on rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar, and John Speer on drums.[16] Musically, the group was inspired by artists such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Kinks, the Doors, and the Yardbirds.
For the next year the band performed regularly around the Phoenix area
with a huge black spider's web as their backdrop, the group's first
stage prop.
In 1965, the Spiders recorded their first single, "Why Don't You Love
Me" (originally performed by the Blackwells), with Furnier learning the
harmonica for the song.[citation needed] The single's B-side track was the Marvin Gaye Tamla Records hit "Hitch Hike".
The single was released by local record label Mascot Records, owned by
Jack Curtis, a concert promoter who also owned the Stage 7 teen club,
which later became the VIP Club where the Spiders were the house band.
In 1966, the Spiders graduated from high school, and after North High School footballer Michael Bruce
replaced John Tatum on rhythm guitar, the band released their second
single, "Don't Blow Your Mind", an original composition which became a
local #1 hit, backed by "No Price Tag".[16] The single was recorded at Copper State Recording Studio and issued by local micro-imprint Santa Cruz Records.
By 1967, the band had begun to make regular road trips to Los Angeles to play shows.[16]
They soon renamed themselves Nazz and released the single "Wonder Who's
Lovin' Her Now", backed with future Alice Cooper track "Lay Down and
Die, Goodbye". Around this time, drummer John Speer was replaced by Neal Smith. By the end of the year, the band had relocated to Los Angeles.[16]
The band adopts a new name: "Alice Cooper"
In 1968, the band learned that Todd Rundgren also had a band called Nazz, and found themselves in need of another stage name. Furnier also believed that the group needed a gimmick to succeed, and that other bands were not exploiting the showmanship potential of the stage.[16] The legend is that the name "Alice Cooper" came from a session with a Ouija board,
largely chosen because it sounded innocuous and wholesome, in humorous
contrast to the band's image and music. However, in an interview with Mark Radcliffe on the Radcliffe and Maconie show on BBC Radio 2 on 30 November 2009 Alice described the incident with the ouija board as an urban legend:
"We literally got that whole story about the witch thing the way you
guys got it. It was like just pure urban legend. I heard about the witch
thing probably the same day you did, but it was a great story." [17] "Alice Cooper" was a character on Mayberry R.F.D. (played by Alice Ghostley)
at the time, probably coincidentally. Eventually Furnier adopted this
stage name as his own. Furnier, now known as Alice Cooper, later stated
that the name change was one of his most important and successful career
moves.[18]
Nonetheless, at the time Cooper and the band realized that the
concept of a male playing the role of a villain, a woman killer, in
tattered women's clothing and wearing make-up, would have the potential
to cause considerable social controversy and grab headlines. In 2007 in his book Alice Cooper, Golf Monster Cooper stated that his look was inspired in part by film. One of the band's all-time favorite movies was What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? starring Bette Davis.
"In the movie, Bette wears disgusting caked makeup smeared on her face
and underneath her eyes, with deep, dark, black eyeliner." Another movie
the band watched over and over was Barbarella. "When I saw Anita Pallenberg
playing the Great Tyrant in that movie in 1968, wearing long black
leather gloves with switchblades coming out of them, I thought, 'That's
what Alice should look like.' That, and a little bit of Emma Peel from The Avengers."[19]
The classic Alice Cooper group lineup
consisted of Furnier, lead guitarist Glen Buxton, rhythm guitarist
Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway, and drummer Neal Smith.[16]
With the exception of Smith, who graduated from Camelback High School
(which is referred to in the song "Alma Mater" on the album School's Out),
all of the band members were on the Cortez High School cross-country
team, and many of Cooper's stage effects were inspired by their
cross-country coach, Emmett Smith[citation needed] (one of Smith's class projects was to build a working guillotine for slicing watermelons). Cooper, Buxton, and Dunaway were also art students, and their admiration for the works of surrealist artists such as Salvador Dalí would further inspire their future stage antics.[20]
One night after an unsuccessful gig at the Cheetah club in Venice, California, where the band emptied the entire room of patrons after playing just ten minutes, they were approached and enlisted by music manager Shep Gordon, who saw the band's negative impact that night as a force that could be turned in a more productive direction.[16] Shep then arranged an audition for the band with composer and renowned record producer Frank Zappa, who was looking to sign bizarre music acts to his new record label, Straight Records.[16]
For the audition Zappa told them to come to his house "at 7 o'clock."
The band mistakenly assumed he meant 7 o'clock in the morning. Being
woken up by a band willing to play that particular brand of psychedelic
rock at seven in the morning impressed Zappa enough for him to sign them
to a three-album deal. Another Zappa-signed act, the all-female GTOs, who liked to "dress the Cooper boys up like full size Barbie dolls," played a major role in developing the band's early onstage look.[21][22]
Cooper's first album, Pretties for You
(released in 1969), had a slight psychedelic feel. Although it touched
the US charts for one week at No. 193, it was ultimately a critical and
commercial failure.
Alice Cooper's "shock rock" reputation apparently developed almost by
accident at first. An unrehearsed stage routine involving Cooper, a
feather pillow, and a live chicken garnered attention from the press;
the band decided to capitalize on the tabloid sensationalism, creating
in the process a new subgenre, shock rock.[16] Cooper claims that the infamous "Chicken Incident" at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival concert in September 1969 was an accident.[16]
A chicken somehow made its way onto the stage into the feathers of a
feather pillow they would open during Cooper's performance, and not
having any experience around farm animals, Cooper presumed that, because
the chicken had wings, it would be able to fly.[16][23]
He picked it up and threw it out over the crowd, expecting it to fly
away. The chicken instead plummeted into the first few rows occupied by
wheelchair users, who reportedly proceeded to tear the bird to pieces.[24]
The next day the incident made the front page of national newspapers,
and Zappa phoned Cooper and asked if the story, which reported that he
had bitten off the chicken's head and drunk its blood on stage, was
true. Cooper denied the rumor, whereupon Zappa told him, "Well, whatever
you do, don't tell anyone you didn't do it."[16][25][26]
The band later claimed that this period was highly influenced by Pink Floyd, and especially the album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Glen Buxton said he could listen to Syd Barrett's guitar for hours at a time.[27]
1970s
Despite the publicity from the chicken incident, the band's second album, Easy Action, produced by David Briggs and released in June 1970, fared even worse than its predecessor, entirely failing to dent the Billboard
Top 200. Around this time, fed up with Californians' indifference to
their act, they relocated to Pontiac, Michigan, where their bizarre
stage act was much better received by Midwestern crowds accustomed to the “proto punk” styles of local bands such as the Stooges and the MC5. Despite this, Cooper still managed to receive a cream pie in the face when performing at the Cincinnati Pop Festival.
Michigan would remain their steady home base until 1972. "L.A. just
didn’t get it," Cooper stated. "They were all on the wrong drug for us.
They were on acid and we were basically drinking beer. We fit much more
in Detroit than we did anywhere else."[28]
Alice Cooper appeared at the Woodstock-esque Strawberry Fields Festival
near Toronto, Ontario, in August 1970. The band's mix of glam and
increasingly violent stage theatrics stood out in stark contrast to the
bearded, denim-clad hippie bands of the time.[29]
As Cooper himself stated: "We were into fun, sex, death and money when
everybody was into peace and love. We wanted to see what was next. It
turned out we were next, and we drove a stake through the heart of the
Love Generation".[30]
In autumn 1970, the Alice Cooper group teamed with producer Bob Ezrin for the recording of their third album, Love It to Death.
This was the final album in their Straight Records contract and the
band's last chance to create a hit. That first success came with the
single "I'm Eighteen", released in November 1970, which reached number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1971. Not long after the album's release in January 1971, Warner Bros. Records purchased Alice Cooper's contract from Straight and re-issued the album, giving the group a higher level of promotion.[citation needed]
Love It to Death proved to be their breakthrough album, reaching number 35 on the U.S. Billboard 200 album charts. It would be the first of eleven[31]
Alice Cooper group and solo albums produced by Ezrin, who is widely
seen as being pivotal in helping to create and develop the band's
definitive sound.[32]
The group's 1971 tour featured a stage show involving mock fights and
gothic torture modes being imposed on Cooper, climaxing in a staged
execution by electric chair, with the band sporting tight, sequined, color-contrasting glam rock-style
costumes made by prominent rock-fashion designer Cindy Dunaway (sister
of band member Neal Smith, and wife of band member Dennis Dunaway).
Cooper's androgynous stage role had developed to present a villainous
side, portraying a potential threat to modern society. The success of
the band's single and album, and their tour of 1971, which included
their first tour of Europe (audience members reportedly included Elton John and a pre-Ziggy David Bowie), provided enough encouragement for Warner Bros. to offer the band a new multi-album contract.
Their follow-up album Killer, released in late 1971, continued the commercial success of Love It to Death and included further single success with "Under My Wheels", "Be My Lover" in early 1972, and "Halo of Flies", which became a Top 10 hit in the Netherlands in 1972. Thematically, Killer
expanded on the villainous side of Cooper's androgynous stage role,
with its music becoming the soundtrack to the group's morality-based
stage show, which by then featured a boa constrictor hugging Cooper on-stage, the murderous axe chopping of bloodied baby dolls, and execution by hanging at the gallows. Back then, the real criticism was aimed at questioning the artists' sexual ambiguity, rather than the stage gore.[citation needed]
In January 1972, Cooper was again asked about his peculiar name, and
told talk-show hostess Dinah Shore that he took the name from a
"Mayberry RFD" character.[citation needed]
The summer of 1972 saw the release of the single "School's Out". It went Top 10 in the USA and to number 1 in the UK, and remains a staple on classic rock radio to this day. The album School's Out reached No. 2 on the US charts and sold over a million copies. The band relocated to their new mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut.[33] With Cooper's on-stage androgynous persona completely replaced with brattiness and machismo,
the band solidified their success with subsequent tours in the United
States and Europe, and won over devoted fans in droves while at the same
time horrifying parents and outraging the social establishment.[citation needed] In the United Kingdom, Mary Whitehouse, a Christian morality campaigner, persuaded the BBC to ban the video for "School's Out",[34]
although Whitehouse's campaign did not prevent the single also reaching
number one in the UK. Cooper sent her a bunch of flowers in gratitude
for the publicity.[35] Meanwhile, British Labour Member of Parliament Leo Abse petitioned Home Secretary Reginald Maudling to have the group banned altogether from performing in the country.[36]
In February 1973, Billion Dollar Babies was released worldwide and became the band's most commercially successful album, reaching No. 1 in both the US and UK. "Elected",
a late-1972 Top 10 UK hit from the album, which inspired one of the
first MTV-style story-line promo videos ever made for a song (three
years before Queen's promotional video for "Bohemian Rhapsody"), was followed by two more UK Top 10 singles, "Hello Hooray" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy", the latter of which was the last UK single from the album; it reached No. 25 in the US.[citation needed] The title track, featuring guest vocals by Donovan, was also a US hit single. Around this time Glen Buxton left Alice Cooper briefly because of waning health.
With a string of successful concept albums
and several hit singles, the band continued their grueling schedule and
toured the United States again. Continued attempts by politicians and
pressure groups to ban their shocking act only served to fuel the myth
of Alice Cooper further and generate even greater public interest.[citation needed] Their 1973 US tour broke box-office records previously set by The Rolling Stones
and raised rock theatrics to new heights; the multi-level stage show by
then featured numerous special effects, including Billion Dollar Bills,
decapitated baby dolls and mannequins, a dental psychosis scene
complete with dancing teeth, and the ultimate execution prop and
highlight of the show: the guillotine. The guillotine and other stage effects were designed for the band by magician James Randi, who appeared on stage during some of the shows as executioner.
The Alice Cooper group had now reached its peak and it was among the
most visible and successful acts in the industry. Beneath the surface,
however, the repetitive schedule of recording and touring had begun to
take its toll on the band, and Cooper, who was under the constant
pressure of getting into character for that night's show, was
consistently sighted nursing a can of beer.
Muscle of Love,
released at the end of 1973, was to be the last studio album from the
classic lineup, and marked Alice Cooper's last UK Top 20 single of the
1970s with "Teenage Lament '74". An unsolicited theme song was recorded for the James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun, but a different song of the same name by Lulu was chosen instead. By 1974, the Muscle of Love
album still had not matched the top-charting success of its
predecessor, and the band began to have constant disagreements. For
various reasons, the members agreed to take what was expected to be a
temporary hiatus. "Everyone decided they needed a rest from one
another", said manager Shep Gordon at the time. "A lot of pressure had
built up, but it's nothing that can't be dealt with. Everybody still
gets together and talks." Journalist Bob Greene spent several weeks on
the road with the band during the Muscle of Love Christmas Tour in 1973. His book Billion Dollar Baby, released in November 1974, painted a less-than-flattering picture of the band, showing a group in total disharmony.[37]
During this time, Cooper relocated back to Los Angeles and started appearing regularly on television shows such as The Hollywood Squares, and Warner Bros. released the Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits compilation album. It featured classic-style artwork and reached the US Top 10, performing better than Muscle of Love. However, the band's 1974 feature film Good to See You Again, Alice Cooper
(consisting mainly of 1973 concert footage with 'comedic' sketches
woven throughout to a faint storyline), released on a minor cinematic
run mostly to drive-in theaters, saw little box-office success. On March
5, 1974, Cooper appeared on episode 3 of The Snoop Sisters
playing a Satanic cult singer. The final shows by Alice Cooper as a
group were in Brazil in March and April 1974, including the record
indoor attendance estimated as high as 158,000 fans in São Paulo on
March 30, at the Anhembi Exposition Hall at the start of the first ever
South American rock tour.
In 1975, Alice Cooper returned as a solo artist with the release of Welcome to My Nightmare.
To avoid legal complications over ownership of the group name, "Alice
Cooper" had by then become the singer's new legal name. Speaking on the
subject of Alice Cooper continuing as a solo project as opposed to the
band it once was, Cooper stated in 1975, "It got very basically down to
the fact that we had drawn as much as we could out of each other. After
ten years, we got pretty dry together." Manager Gordon added, "What had
started in a sense as a pipe-dream became an overwhelming burden".[37] The success of Welcome to My Nightmare
marked the final break-up of the original members of the band, with
Cooper collaborating with their producer Bob Ezrin, who recruited Lou Reed's backing band, including guitarists Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter, to play on the album. Spearheaded by the US Top 20 hit ballad "Only Women Bleed", the album was released by Atlantic Records
in March of that year and became a Top 10 hit for Cooper. It was a
concept album that was based on the nightmare of a child named Steven,
featuring narration by classic horror movie film star Vincent Price,
and serving as the soundtrack to Cooper's new stage show, which now
showcased more theatrics than ever, including an 8-foot-tall (2.4 m)
furry Cyclops which Cooper decapitated and killed.
Accompanying the album and stage show was the television special The Nightmare, starring Cooper and Vincent Price, which aired on US prime-time TV in April 1975. The Nightmare (which was later released on home video in 1983 and gained a Grammy Awards nomination for Best Long Form Music Video) was regarded as another groundbreaking moment in rock history. Adding to all that, a concert film, also called Welcome to My Nightmare produced, directed, and choreographed by West Side Story cast member David Winters and filmed live at London's Wembley Arena in September 1975, was released to theaters in 1976.[citation needed]
Such was the immense success of Cooper's solo project that he decided
to continue as a solo artist, and the original band became officially
defunct. Bruce, Dunnaway, and Smith would go on to form the short-lived
band Billion Dollar Babies, producing one album - Battle Axe - in 1977. While occasionally performing with one another and Glen Buxton,
they would not reunite with Alice until October 23, 1999, at the second
Glen Buxton Memorial Weekend for a show at CoopersTown in Phoenix. They
reunited for another show, with Steve Hunter on guitar, on December 16, 2010, at the Dodge Theatre in Phoenix.[38]
This lineup would perform together again (televised) on March 14, 2011,
at the induction of the original Alice Cooper group into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as well as on May 11, 2011, at London's Battersea Power Station at the Jagermiester Ice Cold 4D event (webcast). Bruce, Dunnaway, and Smith appeared on three tracks they co-wrote on Alice's 2011 album Welcome 2 My Nightmare.
Following the 1976 US No. 12 ballad hit "I Never Cry";[39] two albums, Alice Cooper Goes to Hell and Lace and Whiskey; and the 1977 US No. 9 ballad hit "You and Me",
it became clear from many performances during his 1977 US tour that
Cooper was in dire need of help with his alcoholism (at his alcoholic
peak it was rumored that Cooper was consuming up to two cases of Budweiser
and a bottle of whiskey a day). Following the tour, Cooper had himself
hospitalized in a sanitarium for treatment, during which time the live
album The Alice Cooper Show was released.
In 1978, a sobered Cooper used his experience in the sanitarium as the inspiration for his semi-autobiographical album From the Inside, which he co-wrote with Bernie Taupin; it spawned yet another US Top 20 hit ballad, "How You Gonna See Me Now". The subsequent tour's stage show was based inside an asylum, and was filmed for Cooper's first home-video release, The Strange Case of Alice Cooper, in 1979. Around this time, Cooper performed "Welcome to My Nightmare", "You and Me", and "School's Out" on The Muppet Show (episode # 307 on YouTube) on March 28, 1978 (he played one of the devil's henchmen trying to dupe Kermit, Gonzo and Miss Piggy into selling their souls). He also appeared in an against-typecasting role as a piano-playing disco bellboy in Mae West's final film, Sextette, and as a villain in the film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Cooper also led celebrities in raising money to remodel the famous Hollywood Sign
in Los Angeles, California. Cooper himself contributed over $27,000 to
the project, buying an O in the sign in memory of close friend and
comedian Groucho Marx.
1980s
Cooper's
albums from the beginning of the 1980s have been referred to by Cooper
as his "blackout albums" because he cannot remember recording them,
owing to the influence of illicit substances. Flush the Fashion, Special Forces, Zipper Catches Skin and DaDa saw a gradual commercial decline, with the last two not denting the Billboard Top 200. Flush the Fashion, produced by Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker, had a thick, edgy new wave musical sound that baffled even longtime fans, though it still yielded the US Top 40 hit "Clones (We're All)". Special Forces featured a more aggressive but consistent New Wave style, and included a new version of "Generation Landslide". His tour for Special Forces marked Cooper's last time on the road for nearly five years; it was not until 1986, for Constrictor, that he toured again. 1982's Zipper Catches Skin was a more pop punk-oriented
recording, containing many quirky high-energy guitar-driven songs along
with his most unusual collection of subject matters for lyrics.
However, by the time of its release, Cooper had moved back to Phoenix
in a deathly state of health to seek treatment of crack cocaine
addiction and to receive the support of family and friends. 1983 marked
the return collaboration of producer Bob Ezrin and guitarist Dick Wagner for the haunting epic DaDa, the final album in his Warner Bros. contract.
In mid-1983, after the recording of DaDa, Cooper was hospitalized for alcoholism again, and cirrhosis of the liver.[40] Cooper was finally stable and sober (for good) by the time DaDa and The Nightmare
home video (of his 1975 TV Special) were released in the fall of that
year; however, both releases performed below expectations. Even with The Nightmare scoring a nomination for 1984's Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video (he lost to Duran Duran),
it was not enough for Warner Bros. to keep Cooper on their books. By
February, 1984, Cooper became a "free agent" for the first time in his
career.
Cooper spent a lengthy period away from the music business dealing
with personal issues. His divorce from Sheryl Cooper was heard at
Maricopa County Superior Court, Arizona, on January 30, 1984. The
following month he guested at the 26th Annual Grammy Awards alongside co-presenter Grace Jones. Behind the scenes Cooper kept busy musically, working on new material in collaboration with Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry. The spring of 1984 was taken up with filming, Cooper acting in the B-grade horror movie Monster Dog, filmed in Torrelodones,
Spain. Shortly thereafter he reconciled with Sheryl; the couple
relocated to Chicago. The year closed with more writing sessions, this
time in New York during November with Hanoi Rocks guitarist Andy McCoy.[41] In 1985, he met and began writing songs with guitarist Kane Roberts. Cooper was subsequently signed to MCA Records, and appeared as guest vocalist on Twisted Sister's
song "Be Chrool to Your Scuel". A video was made for the song,
featuring Cooper donning his black snake-eyes makeup for the first time
since 1979. Any publicity it may have generated toward Cooper's return
to the music scene was cut short as the video was promptly banned because of its graphically gory make-up (by Tom Savini) and footage of innumerable zombies gorging on human flesh.
In 1986, Alice Cooper officially returned to the music industry with the album Constrictor. The album spawned the hits "He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)" (the theme song for the movie Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives;
in the video for the song Cooper was given a cameo role as a deranged
psychiatrist) and the fan favorite "Teenage Frankenstein". The
Constrictor album was a catalyst for Cooper to make a triumphant return
to the road for the first time since the 1981 Special Forces project, on a tour appropriately entitled The Nightmare Returns. The Detroit leg of this tour, which took place at the end of October 1986 during Halloween, was captured on film as The Nightmare Returns, and is viewed by some as being the definitive Alice Cooper concert film.[citation needed] The concert, which received rave reviews in the rock music press,[42] was also described by Rolling Stone magazine as bringing "Cooper's violent, twisted onstage fantasies to a new generation". The Constrictor album was followed by Raise Your Fist and Yell in 1987, which had an even rougher sound than its predecessor, as well as the Cooper classic "Freedom". The subsequent tour of Raise Your Fist and Yell, which was heavily inspired by the slasher horror movies of the time such as the Friday the 13th series and A Nightmare on Elm Street,
served up a shocking spectacle similar to its predecessor, and courted
the kind of controversy, especially in Europe, that recalled the public
outrage caused by Cooper's public performances in America in the early
1970s.
In Britain, Labour M.P. David Blunkett
called for the show to be banned, saying "I'm horrified by his
behaviour – it goes beyond the bounds of entertainment". The controversy
spilled over into the German segment of the tour, with the German
government actually succeeding in having some of the gorier segments of
the performance removed.[43]
It was also during the London leg of the tour that Cooper met with a
near fatal accident during the hanging execution sequence at the end of
the show.[44]
Constrictor and Raise Your Fist and Yell were recorded with lead guitarist Kane Roberts and bassist Kip Winger, both of whom would leave the band by the end of 1988 (although Kane Roberts played guitar on "Bed of Nails" on 1989's album Trash).
In 1987, Cooper made a brief appearance as a vagrant in the horror movie Prince of Darkness, directed by John Carpenter.
His role had no lines and consisted of generally menacing the
protagonists before eventually impaling one of them with a bicycle
frame.
In 1987, Cooper also appeared at WrestleMania III, escorting wrestler Jake 'The Snake' Roberts to the ring for his match against The Honky Tonk Man. After the match was over (Roberts lost), Cooper got involved and threw Jake's snake Damien at Honky's manager Jimmy Hart.
Jake considered the involvement of Cooper to be an honor, as he had
idolized Cooper in his youth and was still a huge fan. Wrestlemania III,
which attracted a WWE record 93,173 fans, was held in the Pontiac Silverdome in Cooper's home town of Detroit.
Cooper recorded a new song, "I Got a Line on You", for the soundtrack to Iron Eagle II.
A music video was shot for the song and got minor airplay on MTV. The
song was originally recorded and released in 1969 by the band Spirit. "I Got a Line on You" was released as a B-side for the "Poison" single and on The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper CD.
On April 7 Cooper nearly died of asphyxiation after a safety rope
broke during a concert stunt wherein he pretended to hang himself.[45]
In 1988, Cooper's contract with MCA Records expired and he signed with Epic Records. Then in 1989 his career finally experienced a legitimate revival with the Desmond Child produced and Grammy-nominated album Trash, which spawned a hit single "Poison", which reached No. 2 in the UK and No. 7 in the US, and a worldwide arena tour.
1990s
In 1991, Cooper released his 19th studio album Hey Stoopid
featuring several of rock music’s glitterati guesting on the record.
Released as glam metal's popularity was on the wane, and just before the
explosion of grunge, it failed to have the same commercial impact as
its predecessor. The same year also saw the release of the video Alice Cooper: Prime Cuts
which chronicled his entire career using in depth interviews with
Cooper himself, Bob Ezrin, and Shep Gordon. One critic has noted that Prime Cuts
demonstrates how Cooper had used (in contrast to similar artists who
succeeded him) themes of satire and moralisation to such good effect
throughout his career.[46] It was in the Prime Cuts
video that Bob Ezrin delivered his own summation of the Alice Cooper
persona: "He is the psycho killer in all of us. He's the axe murderer,
he's the spoiled child, he's the abuser, he's the abused; he's the
perpetrator, he's the victim, he's the gun slinger, and he's the guy
lying dead in the middle of the street".[47]
By the early 1990s, Cooper had become a genuine cultural icon,
guesting on records by the most successful bands of the time, such as
the Guns N' Roses album Use Your Illusion I, on which he shared vocal duties with Axl Rose on the track "The Garden". He also had a brief appearance as the abusive stepfather of Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare On Elm Street film Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991).
Cooper made a famous cameo appearance in the 1992 hit comedy film Wayne's World. Cooper and his band first appear onstage performing "Feed My Frankenstein" from Hey Stoopid.
Afterwards at a backstage party, the movie's main characters Wayne and
Garth discover that when offstage Cooper is a calm, articulate
intellectual when he and his band discuss the history of Milwaukee
in surprising depth. In a now famous scene, Wayne and Garth respond to
an invitation to hang out with Cooper by kneeling and bowing reverently
before him while chanting "We're not worthy! We're not worthy!"
In 1994, Cooper released The Last Temptation, his first concept album since DaDa.
The album deals with issues of faith, temptation, alienation and the
frustrations of modern life, and has been described as "a young man's
struggle to see the truth through the distractions of the 'Sideshow' of
the modern world".[48] Concurrent with the release of The Last Temptation was a three-part comic book series written by Neil Gaiman,
fleshing out the album's story. This was to be Cooper’s last album with
Epic Records, and his last studio release for six years, though during
this period the live album A Fistful of Alice[49] was released, and in 1997 he lent his voice to the intro track of Insane Clown Posse's The Great Milenko.
In 1999, the four-disc box set The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper appeared, which contained an authorized biography of Cooper, Alcohol and Razor Blades, Poison and Needles: The Glorious Wretched Excess of Alice Cooper, All-American, written by Creem magazine editor Jeffrey Morgan.[50]
During his absence from the recording studio, Cooper toured
extensively every year throughout the latter part of the 1990s,
including, in 1996, South America, which he had not visited since 1974.
Also in 1996, Cooper sang the role of Herod on the London cast recording of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar.[51]
He also made an appearance on an episode of That 70s Show, at the end of which he and two other (minor) guest characters play a session of Dungeons & Dragons.
2000s
The first decade of the 21st century saw a sustained period of
activity from Alice Cooper. In the decade in which he turned sixty, he
toured extensively and released (after a significant break) a steady
stream of studio albums to favorable critical acclaim. During this
period Cooper was also recognized and awarded in various ways: he
received a Rock Immortal award at the 2007 Scream Awards;[52] was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003;[53] he received (in May 2004) an honorary doctoral degree from Grand Canyon University;[54] was given (in May 2006) the key to the city of Alice, North Dakota;[55] he won the living legend award at the 2006 Classic Rock Roll of Honour event;[56] and he won the 2007 Mojo music magazine Hero Award.
The lengthy break between studio albums ended in 2000 with Brutal Planet,
which was a return to horror-lined heavy metal, with industrial rock,
and with subject matter thematically inspired by the brutality of the
modern world, set in a dystopian post-apocalyptic future, and also inspired by a number of news stories that had recently appeared on the CNN news channel.[57] The album was produced by Bob Marlett, with longtime Cooper production collaborator Bob Ezrin
returning as executive producer. The accompanying world tour, which
included Cooper's first concert in Russia, was a resounding success,
introducing Alice Cooper to a new audience and resulting in Brutally Live, a DVD of an entire concert, recorded in London, England, on July 19, 2000.[58]
Brutal Planet was succeeded by the sonically similar and widely acclaimed sequel Dragontown, which saw Bob Ezrin
back at the helm as producer. The album has been described as leading
the listener down "a nightmarish path into the mind of rock's original
conceptual storyteller"[59] and by Cooper himself as being "the worst town on Brutal Planet". Like The Last Temptation, both Brutal Planet and Dragontown
are albums which explore Cooper's personal faith perspective (born
again Christianity). It is often cited in the music media that Dragontown forms the third chapter in a trilogy begun with The Last Temptation;[60] however, Cooper has indicated that this in fact is not the case.[61]
Cooper again adopted a leaner, cleaner sound for his critically acclaimed[62] 2003 release The Eyes of Alice Cooper.
Recognizing that many contemporary bands were having great success with
his former sounds and styles, Cooper worked with a somewhat younger
group of road and studio musicians who were very familiar with his
oeuvre of old. However, instead of rehashing the old sounds, they
updated them, often with surprisingly effective results. The resulting Bare Bones
tour adopted a less-orchestrated performance style that had fewer
theatrical flourishes and a greater emphasis on musicality. The success
of this tour helped support the growing recognition that the classic
Cooper songs were exceptionally clever, tuneful and unique.
Cooper's radio show Nights with Alice Cooper
began airing on January 26, 2004 in several US cities. The program
showcases classic rock, Cooper's personal stories about his life as a
rock icon and interviews with prominent rock artists. The show is
broadcast on nearly 100 stations in the US and Canada,[63] and has also been broadcast all over the world.
A continuation of the songwriting approach adopted on The Eyes of Alice Cooper was again adopted by Cooper for his 24th studio album Dirty Diamonds, released in 2005. Dirty Diamonds became Cooper's highest charting album since 1994's The Last Temptation.[64] The Dirty Diamonds tour launched in America in August 2005 after several European concerts, including a performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland on July 12. Cooper and his band, including Kiss drummer Eric Singer, were filmed for a DVD released as Alice Cooper: Live at Montreux 2005.
One critic, in a review of the Montreux release, commented that Cooper
was to be applauded for "still mining pretty much the same territory of
teenage angst and rebellion" as he had done more than thirty years
previously.[65]
In December 2006, the original Alice Cooper band reunited to perform
six classic Alice Cooper songs at Cooper's annual charity event in
Phoenix, entitled "Christmas Pudding".[66]
On July 1, 2007, Cooper performed a duet with Marilyn Manson at the B'Estival event in Bucharest, Romania.[67]
The performance represented a reconciliation between the two artists;
Cooper had previously taken issue with Manson over his overtly
anti-Christian on-stage antics and had sarcastically made reference to
the originality of Manson's choosing a female name and dressing in
women's clothing.[57] Cooper and Manson have been the subject of an academic paper on the significance of adolescent antiheroes.[68]
In January 2008, he was one of the guest singers on the new Avantasia album The Scarecrow, singing the 7th track "The Toy Master". In July 2008, after lengthy delays, Cooper released Along Came a Spider, his 25th studio album. It was Cooper's highest charting album since 1991's Hey Stoopid, reaching No. 53 in the US and No. 31 in the UK. The album, visiting similar territory explored in 1987's Raise Your Fist and Yell, deals with the nefarious antics of a deranged serial killer
named "Spider" who is on a quest to use the limbs of his victims to
create a human spider. The album generally received positive reviews
from music critics, though Rolling Stone magazine opined that the music on the record sorely missed Bob Ezrin's production values.[69] The resulting Theatre of Death
tour of the album (during which Cooper is executed on four separate
occasions) was described in a long November 2009 article about Cooper in
The Times as "epic" and featuring "enough fake blood to remake Saving Private Ryan".
2010s
In January 2010, it was announced that Alice would be touring with Rob Zombie on the "Gruesome Twosome" tour.[70] In May 2010, Cooper made an appearance during the beginning of the season finale of the reality-show American Idol, in which he sang "School's Out".[71]
With his daughter, and former band member Dick Wagner, Cooper scored the music for the indie horror flick Silas Gore.[72]
During 2010, Cooper began working on a new album, dubbed Welcome 2 My Nightmare, a sequel to the original Welcome to My Nightmare.[73]
In a Radio Metal interview, he said that "We'll put some of the
original people on it and add some new people ... I'm very happy with
working with Bob (Ezrin) again."[73]
On December 15, 2010, it was announced Cooper and his former band would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The official Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony took place
March 14, 2011 where Cooper was inducted by fellow horror-rocker Rob
Zombie. Original members Bruce, Cooper, Dunaway, and Smith all made
brief acceptance speeches and performed "I'm Eighteen" and "School's
Out" live together, with Steve Hunter filling in for the late Glen
Buxton. Alice showed up for the event wearing a (presumably fake)
blood-splattered shirt and had a live albino Burmese python wrapped around his neck.[3][74] Cooper told Rolling Stone
magazine that he was "elated" by the news and that the nomination had
been made for the original band, as "We all did go to the same high
school together, and we were all on the track team, and it was pretty
cool that guys that knew each other before the band ended up going that
far".[75]
On March 10, 2011, Jackson Browne, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Alice Cooper, Jennifer Warnes and others performed at a benefit concert in Tucson, Arizona
benefiting The Fund for Civility, Respect and Understanding, a
foundation that raises awareness about and provides medical prevention
and treatment services to people with mental disorders.[76] In June 2011 Cooper took his place in the Reasonably Priced Car at the BBC auto show Top Gear.[77]
On June 9, 2011, Cooper was awarded the Kerrang! Icon Award at Kerrang!
magazine's annual awards show. Cooper used the opportunity to hit out
at the "anaemic" rock music that dominates the charts, and said he has
no intention of retiring from the industry.[78]
Cooper supported Iron Maiden on their Maiden England World Tour from June to July 21, 2012,[79] and then headlined Bloodstock Open Air on Sunday August 12.[80] On September 16, 2012, Cooper appeared at the Sunflower Jam charity concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London, performing alongside guitarist Brian May of Queen, bassist John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, drummer Ian Paice of Deep Purple, and Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson.[81]
Cooper also starred as himself in the 2012 Tim Burton adaptation of Dark Shadows that also starred Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer and Helena Bonham Carter. In the film, mistaken to be a feminine name, Barnabas Collins (played by Depp) described him as the ugliest woman he has ever seen.[82]
In 2013, Cooper announced that he had finished recording a covers
album, based on songs by his rock star drinking buddies in the 1970s who
had since died from excess, and that it was scheduled for a spring 2014
release.[83] Later he announced that the album will likely be released in 2015.[84]
On January 28, 2014, it was officially revealed that Alice Cooper would be the opening act for Mötley Crüe's final tour, which would span throughout 2014 and 2015.
Cooper was featured on the song "Savages" on Theory of a Deadman's new album.
Cooper was the subject of Super Duper Alice Cooper, a biographical documentary film by Canadian directors Sam Dunn, Scot McFadyen and Reginald Harkema.[85] The film won a Canadian Screen Award for Best Feature Length Documentary at the 3rd Canadian Screen Awards in 2015.[86]
In October, Cooper released the live album and video Raise the Dead: Live from Wacken, which was recorded at Germany's Wacken heavy metal festival the previous year.
In 2015, Cooper premiered Hollywood Vampires, a supergroup featuring Johnny Depp and Joe Perry with a new studio album of rock covers, featuring many guest artists including Paul McCartney, and live dates at L.A.'s Roxy Theatre and at Brazil's Rock in Rio festival in September.
In 2016, Cooper made headlines again as he resumed his running gag of campaigning for the US Presidency.[87]
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