"You go from being dangerous to loveable if you stick around long enough."
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper
His grand, theatrical shows, with their gallows and guillotines and fake blood, were steeped in vaudeville, horror flicks, and garage rock and spawned the violent subgenre of heavy metal known as shock rock. He is the original rock villain who paved the way for other evildoers to come like Ozzy Osbourne, Marilyn Manson, and Rob Zombie. The androgynous male in make-up and tattered women’s clothing who fronted one of the seminal bands of the ‘70s glam era. The songwriter of timeless, classic rock anthems like “Eighteen” and “School’s Out.” And now, at long last, Alice Cooper and his band are Hall of Famers.
The group were recognized for their considerable contributions to music with their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this week. The class of 2011 was formally feted on Monday, March 14 at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Fellow inductees included Neil Diamond, Dr. John, Darlene Love, Tom Waits and Leon Russell. Although artists are eligible for inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25 years after the release of their first recording, this was Alice Cooper’s first time on the ballot despite a career that has spanned five decades. According to Cooper, the only time he was upset about not being nominated was in 2009, when Kiss, who he considers to be protégés of a sort, were nominated before him. “That one stung a little bit,” he told Billboard. “I sat there and went, ‘Now, wait a minute…really? Are we invisible here or what?’”
Cooper had good reason to be frustrated. After all, he and his band of the same name were rock ‘n’ roll animals back in the ‘70s. Their music toed the line between hard rock and pop with hits like "School's Out" that had multi-generational appeal. Their live shows were pure rock theater—visual spectacles that were legendary in gore that included decapitated baby dolls, mock hangings, and much bloodshed. Fans were as diverse as Mae West, Liza Minnelli, and Salvador Dali, while rock icons Elton John, David Bowie, and John "Johnny Rotten" Lydon of the Sex Pistols all cite Cooper as an influence. Alice Cooper invoked the ire of public officials and pressure groups who called for the band’s shows to be banned. The publicity, of course, made a phenomenon out of them, ensuring that tours were completely sold out.
Alice Cooper—who adopted the band’s name as his own and pays a yearly royalty to his original bandmates for the right to use the name commercially—was born Vincent Damon Furnier on February 4, 1948, in Allen Park, Michigan. The son of a preacher, he was very active in the church as a young boy. By the time he was old enough to drive, Furnier had put together his first band called The Earwigs to take part in a local talent show. Comprised of his fellow cross-country teammates, none of whom knew how to play an instrument, the band dressed up like The Beatles and mimed their performance to Beatles’ songs. The Earwigs won the talent show and loved the experience of being onstage so much that they went out and bought instruments from a pawn shop and proceeded to learn how to play them.
After graduating high school the group went through some name and lineup changes before emerging as the Alice Cooper band with Furnier on vocals and harmonica, Glen Buxton on lead guitar, Michael Bruce on rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass, and Neal Smith on drums. As the story goes, the name was agreed upon after a session with a Ouija board revealed Furnier as the reincarnation of a 17th century witch named Alice Cooper. Furnier realized the potential for controversy that a male playing the role of an androgynous witch would cause and the headlines the band stood to grab as that rarity among rock heroes, the rock villain. Cooper took it upon himself to fill that void.
Alice Cooper were brought to the attention of Frank Zappa, who was looking to sign bizarre music acts to his new record label, Straight Records. He auditioned the band and signed them to a three-album deal. Their first album, Pretties for You, was released in 1969 and had a slight psychedelic feel to it. Although it grazed the US charts, holding at #193 for one week, the album was ultimately a critical and commercial failure.
Enter the infamous Chicken Incident, which had Alice Cooper biting the head off a chicken and drinking its blood on stage. The show in question took place at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival concert in September 1969. Cooper has since debunked the myth, saying it was all an accident. He claims a chicken somehow made its way onto the stage during the band’s performance and, not having any experience around farm animals, Cooper presumed that because the chicken had wings, it would be able to fly. He picked the fowl up and threw it out over the crowd, expecting it to fly away. The chicken plummeted instead into the first few rows which were occupied by disabled people in wheelchairs, who reportedly proceeded to tear the bird to pieces. The next day the incident made the front page of national newspapers, making Cooper out to be a monster. Although totally fabricated, Zappa encouraged Cooper to go with it. The publicity for the band, albeit negative, would be priceless.
Alice Cooper released their sophomore album in June 1970. Although Easy Action was a strong album, it met with the same fate as its predecessor, leaving the band only one more shot in their deal with Zappa. This time Alice Cooper, now teamed with producer Bob Ezrin, hit one out of the park with the August 1970 release of their breakthrough album, Love It to Death. Success came to the band big time with the single “Eighteen,” which was released in November 1970 and reached #21 on the Billboard Hot 100. Not long after the album’s release, the Alice Cooper band were signed to Warner Bros. Records, who purchased Cooper’s contract from Zappa’s label and re-issued the album, giving the group some much needed promotion. Love It to Death reached #35 on the Billboard album chart.
Over the years that followed, Alice Cooper built on their success with the albums Killer (1971) and its hit singles “Under My Wheels” and “Be My Lover”; School’s Out (1972) with its monster single of the same name; and Billion Dollar Babies (1973), which included the songs “Elected,” “Billion Dollar Babies,” and “No More Mr. Nice Guy.” Their final studio album together as a band, Muscle of Love, was released at the end of 1973 but failed to match the top-charting success of its predecessors. By 1975, the members of Alice Cooper had all scattered to pursue solo projects. Cooper decided to do the same himself and released his first solo album, Welcome to My Nightmare. The success of that album marked the end of the band and the beginning of a long, lucrative solo career for him.
Alice Cooper, both as a band and as a solo artist, put out 25 studio albums, 6 live albums, 21 compilation albums, 12 video albums, an audiobook and 49 singles. Six of his studio albums have achieved platinum in the US, while 2 have achieved gold. Over his career, Cooper has sold well over 50 million records.
These days Cooper talks of “Alice Cooper” in the third person, not in an arrogant or pretentious way, but to make it clear he’s talking about a persona, a character he invented long ago that had little to do with the golf-loving family man he is today. Once the stuff of urban legend and the scourge of parents everywhere for the potential threat he posed to modern society, Cooper, at age 63, is considered pretty tame and even somewhat shticky now. “It just shows you how the images are digested by the audience,” says Cooper. “Mick Jagger, now that he’s nearly 70 years old, he’s looked at as a very upstanding guy.” The same can be said for the man once accused of decapitating a chicken.
Fellow horror-rocker Rob Zombie, who had the honor of inducting Cooper into the Hall of Fame, said of the musician and the band that bears his name that, "They were the most rock-star destroying band of all-time. They took everything to a new level … They were more than a band. They were more like a murderous gang of drag queens. Their mission was to destroy the hippie dream of peace, love and understanding." Zombie recalled how he painted a portrait of Cooper dripping in blood when he was in fourth grade and was asked to make a picture of someone he admired—drawing attention from school authorities.
Wearing a shirt spattered with fake blood and with a boa constrictor wrapped around his neck, Alice Cooper took the stage Monday night and made his acceptance speech before reuniting with his original band—minus the late Glen Buxton—and ripping into a ferocious version of "Eighteen." Many in the buttoned-up crowd didn't quite know what to make of such an aggressive performance. Undeterred, the band carried on with "Under My Wheels" and "School's Out" with Rob Zombie guesting. "We’ve always been a hard-rock band. We just wanted to decorate it a little differently," Cooper said. "I wish I could tell you that being in the Hall now, we'll never embarrass you, but I can't make that promise. After all, we are Alice Cooper. It's what we do."
The reunited Alice Cooper band recently laid down several tracks for Alice’s upcoming album, Welcome 2 My Nightmare, which is being produced by Bob Ezrin, who was at the helm for Cooper’s original 1975 concept album, and first solo recording, Welcome to My Nightmare. The album is set for release in 201l.
