Alice Cooper
HORRORSTORIES
Accidents will happen, and if the mock-executions by hanging and guillotine that misfired on three occasions during stage shows in the 1970s and ’80s had actually finished off Alice Cooper, we might be looking at a drastically smaller catalogue. But at the ripe young age of 68 he is currently plotting his 27th studio album, which will reunite him with his high school classmates, from back in the days when Alice Cooper meant a band rather than a solo act. Some feel Cooper killed himself, metaphorically, at other junctures – such as when the ‘godfather of shock-rock’ (with props to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins) took up golf and started hanging out with George Burns. In truth, the band had only got notorious thanks to another accident, in 1969, when a live chicken Cooper had thrown into the audience got shredded, and ‘Singer Rips Head Off Chicken’ headlines launched a trail of increasing outrageousness: decapitating baby dolls, knife fights, pet snakes and all those tools of capital punishment. At heart, Coop was “total slapstick”, an all-round entertainer who enjoyed singing The Lady Is A Tramp as much as Dead Babies. Others think Alice was never the same after he went solo in 1976, veering from co-writer to co-writer, often under the aegis of esteemed producer Bob Ezrin, a classically trained pianist who got his break via the AC band. Cooper, born Vincent Furnier, actually almost did die, at the turn of the ’80s, when he added crack to uncontrolled drinking. But he survived, born again figuratively and literally, mining new wave, hair metal, heavy metal and industrial rock with the old Detroit garage sound that put the AC band on the map. He even survived 2009’s Sky+ ad alongside Ronnie Corbett. If Cooper has yet to emulate the capacity of his peers (Bowie, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed) for reinvention and late-career rebirths, there’s plenty of compelling aspects to his back catalogue that’s ripe for appreciation.