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Old 2nd October 2018, 11:14 AM
Susan Foreman's Avatar
Susan Foreman Susan Foreman is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Childhood home of Billy Idol - Orpington
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Syracuse .com has a new Q&A with Alice

Q&A: Alice Cooper, the 'Gentleman's Psycho'


Alice Cooper is up before 7 a.m. most mornings to play golf. He's a Christian, former restaurateur and family man.

But at night, he transforms into...Alice Cooper, a character he compared several times to Captain Hook and a performance complete with macabre makeup and costumes, snakes, sadistic nurses and a guillotine.

The divide between Alice Cooper the person and Alice Cooper the character is something the 70-year-old musician has made sure to keep clear.

I chatted with Alice Cooper ahead of his Oct. 6 show at the Oncenter Crouse-Hinds Theater to talk about his side projects, channeling his inner Alan Rickman in Jesus Christ Superstar and life before Alice Cooper.

Some of the questions and responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.
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Jacob Pucci: You legally changed your name to Alice Cooper [from Vincent Furnier] back in the 70s. Does your family and close friends call you Alice, or do they still call you Vincent?

Alice Cooper: My mom calls me Vince. The only other person that calls me Vince is [Rolling Stones guitarist] Keith Richards. Keith Richards will not call me Alice. He'll call me Vinny. "Vinny! How're ya doing, Vinny!" It's one of those things. He would never call me Alice."

JP: But he's the only one?

AC: He's the only one, yes. Groucho Marx would call me Coop. He says, "I can't call you Alice. I gotta call you Coop."

JP: You turned 70 this year. You've been performing since you're a teenager. It's been 50 years-plus on stage. What keeps you going and what else do you hope to accomplish in your musical career?

AC: I truly believe this of any artist. If you think you've done your best album, if you think you've written your best song, then you should quit. But I still always believe that the next album, the next song, the next show, is going to be the best one I ever did. I'm sure [Beatles singer Paul] McCartney thinks like that, I'm sure that any actor thinks like that, any artist.They always kind of think, "Well, I'm not done yet, I still have all these ideas that could be the best thing I've ever done."

I've never really gotten tired of hard rock. Hard rock to me is, when you get on stage and you've got a band like I've got, and I mean, I've got three gunslinger guitar players, I've got the best drummer in rock and roll [Glen Sobel], my female guitar player, Nita Strauss, is voted best female guitar player in rock and roll.

When you got a band like that, and you got a show like ours, it's impossible to get bored with it. Every song has got its own theatrical bit to it and our show is so much more exciting than most other rock shows, because there's always something going on visually as well as musically.

JP: Speaking of other rock shows, you were in the neighborhood at Turning Stone back in May with the Hollywood Vampires. How does the experience there compare to an Alice Cooper show?

AC: It's a little bit different in the fact that when I play Alice Cooper, the character in my show, I play that character to not be a human. At all. He's a character, he's like Captain Hook. He's like Mr. Hyde. That character never talks to the audience, because it would make him human. He would never sit there and go "Oh, thank you, he's a song we wrote about blah blah blah," because that would make him vulnerable.

The Vampires are basically the world's most expensive bar band. It's Johnny Depp, [Aerosmith guitarist] Joe Perry and I and we surround ourselves with all the best players. The idea behind the Vampires at the beginning was to pay tribute to all our dead, drunk friends. All the guys we used to drink with, like Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix and all those guys.

So in that case, I'm not necessarily playing the Alice character. I'm Alice Cooper, but I'm much looser. I talk to the audience all night. It's a little bit different in the intensity. But when you get into the songs, when you really get into the music of it, both bands are really intense and that's what I really like about it. The fact that both bands get up there and our whole object is to just tear that audience up and don't give them a chance to ever get bored with anything you do.

JP: You played King Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar that aired on NBC on Easter earlier this year. Tell me a little more about playing that role.

AC: Well that's an interesting thing. 20 years ago, [Jesus Christ Superstar lyricist] Tim Rice asked me to do a revocalization of the Herod song when they were going to do the remake of the live album. He wanted something with a little bit more venom and maybe a little bit more sarcasm, a cynical character. And I said, "Well, I can bring that to it."

I kept thinking of Alan Rickman. He's so over-the-top condescending. I said, "That's how I want to play him," and they said 'great idea.'" So when they came around to doing this live version, they cast the whole thing and asked [composer Andrew Lloyd] Webber and Rice who's going to play Herod and they immediately said Alice Cooper. 'He's the one that knows this character.'

So when I got on stage to play that character, it's not that different from Alice Cooper. Because I try to play Alice Cooper as arrogant. A villain should never be apologetic about anything. So that character is very similar to Alice Cooper. I was probably the most comfortable up there playing it because on stage every single night, I play a character.

Whereas, John Legend plays John Legend. And he goes up and does his songs and that's great. Same with all the other characters. I actually jump into a character, so it was much more natural for me to play Herod and feel pretty much at home in that character.

JP: Your name is legally changed, so even when you're not the character, you're still the person. After all these years, has it been tough? Are there days when it's tough to switch from Alice Cooper the person to Alice Cooper the character?

AC: It's automatic. It's absolutely automatic. I've done so many shows as Alice. There was a time when I was not sober that I never knew where Alice ended and I began, because there was that blurry, cloudy area. "When am I supposed to be Alice and when am I not supposed to be Alice?" When I got sober, I really made a definite line in the sand of where Alice starts and where I end.

If you talk to me before the show, even when I'm in character, even when I'm in makeup, I'll just be saying to the guys, "Hey, the Lions are playing Green Bay this week."

But as soon as that curtain goes up, my posture changes, everything changes and I flip into Alice Cooper. Then they know that character is going to be a whole different thing. He's not going to be talking to you, he not going to be doing this or that.

At the end of the show, the curtain comes down and I'm right back to being normal me. I think I got myself trained to be this really strict character on stage. And off stage, I don't want any part of him. He's not at all like me.

JP: What would the on-stage Alice Cooper not know about the off-stage Alice Cooper?

AC: No, we know each other pretty well. I mean, you have to understand who you are and what you are and when you are. I tried to make Alice Cooper a "gentleman's psycho." In other words, he would never swear at you. To him, that would be very gauche to swear, to use an F bomb or anything like that. He might slit your throat, but he'll never swear at you.

So there's a certain gentleman quality to him and he also knows that there's a religious thing there. Alice would never cross that line. I'm Christian and Alice Cooper is not a satanic character. He's much more like a Captian Hook, which is more of a funny villain. Of course he's a horrible character and he would do anything, but there's still a sense of yore behind what he does.

JP: You've played at Turning Stone with the Vampires twice and you've been around Central New York the last few years. What keeps you coming back? Any observations on New York?

AC: Honestly, we never know where we're going. I never look at the itinerary. To me, a show's a show. We're going to do the same show if it's for 2,500 people at a casino, usually on a Tuesday or Wednesday or an off day like that, as if we were doing Rock in Rio for 150,000 people. We never change the show. Ever. And that's the whole thing about it. It's consistent, the show is consistent at all times. So going in to New York playing that venue will be the same energy as playing any other big venue for us. New York is great, but when you're on stage, you don't know if you're in New York or Alabama.

JP: Do you have a preference in venue? Do you prefer a smaller venue or a big arena?

AC: To be honest with you, we've played the big outdoor festivals, we've played the big arenas, the big, big, big shows. The Alice Cooper show in particular can play those great big venues and it works.

But if I were going to see Alice Cooper, I'd want to see Alice Cooper in a theater. There's a lot of detail you don't see when you're 500 rows back, even with the big screens. It's not as intense as when you're in a theater. You can see Alice trying to get out of the strait jacket, you can see the facial expressions, you can see the nurse that's just a horrible, psychotic nurse. You can see what's going on with the ballerina and Alice and you pick up on the emotional part of it.

Whereas, I think that gets lost in a big, big, big venue. When you're playing in a big venue, you have to exaggerate everything, you have to make big moves. In a smaller one, you can make it much more intense, I think. And the music is more intense in a small venue anyways.

So I prefer playing a theater. Of course the promoters and managers want you playing the bigger places because the moneys bigger, but at this point, I don't even think about the money.

JP: Thanks so much for your time. Before you go, if there anything else you want fans to know?

AC: I think a lot of people think 'well Alice is 70 now, so he's going to walk through the show.' It's anything but that. I give it more now than I did when I was in my 40s and 30s, so the show is really, really intense. [We have] best touring band of anyone out there, so be ready for an exhausting evening.

And it is October, so if you do feel like coming in costume, that'd be just fine. Halloween is just around the corner.
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