ALICE COOPER | King Herod
First time:
While on tour in the 1970s, Cooper saw the movie based on the musical, and in 1996 he recorded “King Herod’s Song” for a London cast recording of the show. “Tim Rice wanted a little more venom,” he says. “He wanted Herod to be more cynical. They usually cast Herod as a fat idiot who’s nervous and scared. They wanted this to be more rock ‘n’ roll.”
Familiar role:
Herod is a lot like Cooper’s onstage persona, he says. “If you’re going to have a villain, have an arrogant one who’s very much in love with himself, who holds the audience in disdain,” he says. “My show is vaudeville and hard rock, and it’s all acting. So I told the director I wanted to play that.”
Hallelujah bonus: Herod’s gold silk suit was covered in oil-painting prints of his victims. “When the show was over, I said, ‘How hard will you be looking for this on Monday?’ But NBC wanted it for their archives.”