Alice Cooper psychoanalyzes his career and the culture

Lisa Ferguson

Friday, Sept. 3, 1999 | 9:59 a.m.

Who: Alice Cooper.

When: 8 p.m. today.

Where: The Joint, Hard Rock hotel.

Tickets: $40, $42.

Information: Call 693-5066.

Child abuse. Animal abuse. Injustice.

Oh, and people who talk in movie theaters.

These are the things that offend Alice Cooper.

A pretty normal list for a rocker who has spent the past three decades performing stunts designed to shock the masses during his concerts.

Over the years he earned his creepy reputation by getting cozy with boa constrictors and for having his head lopped off by a guillotine during shows, among other antics.

But then Cooper -- who was born Vincent Furnier, a preacher's son, in Detroit -- contends he's a pretty normal guy. After all, he's a renowned golfer (sponsored, even, by Calloway Golf) who won the Fairway to Heaven tournament, held annually in Las Vegas, three years in a row.

And if that wasn't normal enough, the practicing Protestant even had a gig as a Sunday school teacher. "I'm an all-American kid," he contends.

"If I ever saw anybody hitting a dog, I'd be in a fist fight," Cooper said in a recent phone call from "exotic" Bakersfield, Calif., where he and his bandmates were preparing to kick off a tour which stops at The Joint at the Hard Rock hotel today.

"I can't help defending the little guy," the 51-year-old rocker said, "so that's something very untrue about the Alice Cooper" persona.

On the other hand, "People (who) talk in movies I want to kill. (When) I go to a movie, I don't want to hear somebody talking," he said. The annoying habit is the subject of a song Cooper wrote, called "It's the Little Things," which will appear on an upcoming album.

Still, myths have trailed Cooper -- known not only for his onstage antics but garish makeup and outspoken lyrics -- since his early days when he was among the first to mix theatrics with rock 'n' roll.

There was the matter of his sexuality, given his androgynous stage name. "Then people finally realized he's not gay because he's been married 23 years and has three kids," said Cooper, who speaks of his stage persona in the third person.

"And he's not Satanic. There's never been anything Satanic in the show. I've never even used any nudity" or foul language in the stage shows, he said. "There (are) a lot of things that people would like to believe about Alice Cooper that (aren't) true. Now that's not to say that I haven't done some pretty ridiculously odd things to the public, but always in the best of taste."

Cooper, the father of such hits as "Eighteen," "School's Out," "No More Mr. Nice Guy" and "Poison," recalls how when he first appeared on the music scene "there was no 'theater rock.' In fact, it was probably like the most taboo thing you could do was connect show biz with with rock 'n' roll because it was supposedly the anti-show biz kind of thing."

But he never bought into that sentiment. "Rock 'n' roll, if there's anything that it really should be, that's theatrical. I don't believe that it should just be a bunch of guys up there spitting at society. If you're gonna do that, at least make it interesting, make it visual."

A slew of other jaw-dropping acts -- blooding-spitting Kiss and, more recently, Marilyn Manson among them -- have followed in Cooper's wake. Still, he said, it took time in the early days to convince music critics and even other musicians that his style was viable.

"We had to prove ourselves as musicians, we had to prove our point that show biz works in rock 'n' roll. ... As soon as it was No. 1 and and everything was working and the press was eating it up then you saw David Bowie (emerge), then you saw Kiss, then you saw all these bands happen.

"So if there's anything I'll probably go down in history for it will probably be (as) the (movie director) Busby Berkeley of rock 'n' roll" with a dash of Bela Lugosi for good measure, he said. "Which is OK with me."

Cooper learned early in his career, however, to distance himself offstage from his ghoulish onstage image.

"When I'm home my 6-year-old (daughter), if Alice Cooper comes on TV, she says, 'There's Alice Cooper,' and I go, 'Let's watch him.' She knows I play Alice Cooper, but she's never seen Alice Cooper at home so why would she think that would be anything but a character?"

The same goes for his band. "We'll videotape the (concert) in the middle of the tour and we'll look at it and go, 'Well I don't like the way Alice does this. I don't like the way he moves over here to this side of the stage.' We treat him like a character. That way I don't have to be him and I don't have to die for him."

Cooper said he's been criticized in the press by Manson for not always staying in character. "He says ... 'I'm Marilyn Manson all the time,' and I'm going, 'Boy, that's painting yourself into a corner.' What happens the first time somebody sees you in a bowling alley (and) suddenly you're not Marilyn Manson? What happens when you go Christmas shopping?

"If you let your guard down for one second suddenly you're a phoney. So I let myself out of that a long time ago. I said, 'I want to be able to live my life. I'm not going to box myself (in) ... and every time I go shopping I've got to put a snake around my neck and put makeup on. If you want to see that, come and see (a concert) and I'll gladly give it to you but not on the street."

And that he does: Cooper's tours are famous for their themes, such as the previous offerings "Welcome to My Nightmare" and "The Billion Dollar Babies Revue." He describes the current outing as a rock 'n' roll carnival.

"First of all, carnivals are creepy enough," he said, "but an Alice Cooper carnival, that would be even creepier than most." Included in the chaos will be everyone onstage (including his equipment-lugging roadies) and "anybody who is even close to the stage, so if you're in the first 20 rows you're in the show."

When writing songs, Cooper said, he tries to imagine how they will play out in concert. "If I say this, I can do this on stage; if I say that, it's sort of innocuous."

To some, maybe, but certainly not to everyone. It would have been easy to lump Cooper and the lyrics to his 1972 anthem "School's Out" -- which gleefully boasted about blowing school up -- in with the rest of the artists and songs blamed for the tragedy that occurred at Columbine High School.

"I didn't really get any flak" after the shootings, he said. "People were blaming me for (inspiring acts like) Marilyn Manson and I'm going, 'First of all, I don't see how Marilyn Manson plays into this thing.' "

Music, Cooper said, "is the easiest scapegoat for a lot of other problems. You're telling me that these kids weren't gonna kill somebody no matter what? There's a million other kids (who) listen to our music correctly.

"I had to do some soul searching on that and then I realized that about 99.99999 (percent of people) don't take it like that. Are you gonna sacrifice music and theater and art for that small degree of lunatics?

"Most of the people in the '60s and '70s, their parents worried about them coming to see my concerts; (they) are now lawyers and doctors and poiticians and turned out pretty good."

Although he's still riding the recent release of "The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper," a monstrous box set that encompasses his entire recording career, he already is thinking ahead to his next offering which will likely be titled "Brutal Planet." Chances are good that the stage show supporting that disc will "have that science fiction feel to it."

Look for a blend of rock and sports at Cooper'stown, the strategically-placed eatery (near Phoenix's Bank One Ballpark) that Cooper opened last year.

A longtime sports fan, Cooper said, "I always thought that sports and rock 'n' roll were really close to each other. Every guy I know (who is) in pro sports wants to be in a band. Every guy in a band wants to be on a pro sports team. And they all want to be comedians."