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It would appear that the remaining 'Rock Meets Classic' shows have been postponed According to the official site, and put through google translate: "Current information about the Corona virus As of 12.03.2020 - 2.30 p.m. Due to the spread of the novel corona virus, some federal states have already decided to ban events with more than 1,000 visitors in order to curb the spread. These regulations apply immediately and probably until the end of the Easter holidays (April 19, 2020). This affects the following events: 03/11/2020 Bamberg 13.03.2020 Würzburg March 14, 2020 Frankfurt 03/15/2020 Regensburg 03/17/2020 Neu-Ulm March 19, 2020 Ludwigsburg March 20, 2020 Dresden 03/21/2020 Ingolstadt We are currently working flat out on alternative dates for the affected shows and the options for them, and we will announce further information shortly." |
Cancelled! "From Alice Cooper: We are regretfully postponing our Spring 2020 headline North American tour from March 31 through April 22. The tour is being rescheduled for Fall 2020 and the new schedule will be announced as soon as possible. Due to the current concerns regarding COVID-19, the health and safety of our fans, local venue staffs, as well as the health and safety of our band and crew, is of utmost priority. Information regarding previously purchased tickets and VIP packages will be available soon at alicecooper .com; it is recommended that those who have tickets should retain them, as they may be valid for the re-scheduled shows. Let's get through this together and resume rocking later in the year." |
Ultimate Guitar has a short interview with Nita "Nita Strauss Talks How Alice Cooper Treats His Band Members, Recalls What Made Her Cry With Joy Onstage During a conversation with Kerrang Magazine, Nita Strauss talked about playing in Alice Cooper's band, how the singer treats his bandmembers, getting emotional onstage, and more. "When you're playing with other people, whether as a guest guitarist or with Alice Cooper, are there moments where you wish you could blast out your full emotion, but you can't because you might overwhelm the vocalist?" "Absolutely. Especially with Alice Cooper. We're a supporting act to Alice. There's this invisible line on stage that we don't cross. If Alice wants us to take the front stage, we will run with it, but it's his show, and we're conscious of that. "We're there to make the Alice Cooper show as great as it can be, but not to be, like, Alice Cooper featuring Nita Strauss. There are three lead guitar players in Alice Cooper's band: myself, Ryan Roxie, and Tommy Henriksen. "There isn't any room for the three of us to do that, especially with Alice there. We have to give the crowd that guitar hero experience while also not taking anything away from Alice." I've interviewed Alice twice for Kerrang, and he always takes a moment to talk about you and your bandmates' other projects. There's this stereotype of the frontman who thinks, 'I'm in charge, know your role,' but he was quick to say he wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you guys. "That's kind of him because he would totally be here. Let's not kid ourselves, he could have anybody in his band! For him to not only choose us but give us that spotlight and mention our names, it's so amazing. Any rockstar can learn a thing or two from Alice Cooper. Is there something that you've learned from working with Alice that you've taken with you, whether it's about being a musician or just something like how to get fake blood out of a shirt? "The real thing I've taken with me is appreciation. Alice could be a jerk. You always hear about the rockstars that aren't even on Alice's level who are just jerks. "Then there's Alice, who could be enjoying his dinner, and when a fan comes up to him to tell them their stories about having their records taken away from their parents, he'll put the fork down, look at them, and then start a conversation, asking if they ever got the records back. He really knows that without those fans, none of us would be here." Have you ever played a set while crying? "Oh my God, so many times! The first time I played 'Poison' with Alice Cooper, I cried so many times. When I was recording the album, there are these two ballad tracks that are just super personal to me, and I was just crying. "Not even cute, movie tears, like actual bawling! [Nita does a hacking, open-mouthed sob] I've cried during guitar clinics. I'm a very emotional guitar player, so it's not uncommon for me to cry. I just let it flow through me."" |
Intriguing "Guess what, mutants? Times are weird out there. You gotta stay healthy & safe! And to keep you entertained, our beloved radio rambler Alice Cooper is gonna have a special announcement in the next few days. Can you guess what it is?" |
New interview at Rolling Stone magazine "Alice Cooper’s Message of Hope: ‘We’ll Get Through This Together’ The singer suggests fans support musicians out of work (if they can) and plans a lot more studio time Alice Cooper was making his way across Germany last week, headlining a tour that also featured Cheap Trick, when he learned that the country was prohibiting gatherings of more than 1,000 people due to coronavirus worries. The tour was canceled, and he and his crew immediately had to navigate their way back home, after the U.S. cut off travel to and from Europe. Everyone eventually flew to the States. Cooper postponed his upcoming North American dates, and now he’s shifting his attention to the things he can do at home. “While our management is working to reschedule the postponed shows, I’m going to finish work on my next album, which is nearly done,” he tells Rolling Stone via email. “At least now I won’t be squeezing in vocal recording sessions on days off, between shows. I don’t like a lot of time off, as anyone who sees my schedule already knows, but a little extra time at home can be re-energizing.” Cooper says he hasn’t really turned so much to other people’s music to help him recharge — “I rarely listen to music at home,” he says — but he does enjoy listening to Little Steven’s Underground Garage on SiriusXM when he’s driving, and it’s the kind of soundtrack that makes him happy. “They play a great mix of young retro bands — the Strypes, Bayonets, etc. — and deep cuts from classic bands I play on my radio show, Nights With Alice Cooper, like the Yardbirds, Love, Paul Butterfield, Procol Harum, etc.” Although he’s best known for doom and gloom onstage (he still travels with a guillotine and dons a straightjacket during his shows), Cooper says hope is keeping him going. Since everyone around the world is going through the same thing right now, he says we’ll be stronger because of it. “We’re all in this together,” he says. “Whether you’re entertainer or fan, rich or poor, male or female, old or young. And we’ll get through this together. And when we do, we’ll be back on the road, doing what we love to do.” He also hopes people are able to support artists who are less fortunate than him. “My band has been around a long time and are lucky enough to have the resources to survive through this,” he says, “but maybe fans should buy some merch or music from younger newer bands that can’t tour right now and don’t have the reserves that we have.”" |
Go Tech Daily has a rather amusing feature on Alice - amusing because I'm assuming it wasnt originally conducted in English, and the translation for some words, phrases and even album titles is a bit dodgy! "Alice Cooper: Welcome To My Nightmare – the story driving the album It’s worth noting that by the time Alice Cooper produced Welcome To My Nightmare in February 1975, he was previously just one of the most renowned rock celebs on the planet. Concerning 1971 and 1974, the Alice Cooper Band, which consisted of Cooper himself (born Vincent Furnier), guitarists Glen Buxton and Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway and drummer Neal Smith, had notched up an extraordinary operate of some 10 main singles culled from 5 strike albums, four of which acquired them platinum position. The band experienced shaped in 1968 out of the ashes of earlier band The Nazz (formerly identified as The Earwigs and then The Spiders). When Todd Rundgren also appeared with a band of the identical title, Vincent and buddies made the decision on a identify alter, and with a push story about utilizing a Ouija board to conjure up the name of a legendary 17th-century witch named Alice Cooper, so the younger shock rockers had been set in motion. First achievements was muted – some getting the band’s outrageous tactic to their trade also considerably to handle, other folks baulking at the look of the band, specially Alice himself, as the young frontman swiftly adopted the titular title himself. “People would appear and see us participate in and just think that as I was the direct singer then I have to be Alice Cooper,” he points out now. “But originally the band was just termed the Alice Cooper Band. But because anyone thought I was Alice I determined it would be much easier and better for the band to simply begin contacting myself Alice. Of training course, afterwards, when I would go solo for Welcome To My Nightmare, I’d really develop into Alice Cooper.” The band came to the attention of Frank Zappa, who signed them to his Straight label. The guys had famously misunderstood Frank when he’d instructed them to come to his home for an audition at 7 o’clock, indicating in the evening, only for the band to arrive ready to participate in at 7 in the morning. Their 1969 debut Pretties For You went mainly disregarded, but just after an look at Toronto’s 1969 Rock And Roll Revival the band have been splashed all more than the newspapers soon after the now-famous ‘chicken incident’. “Somehow a chicken got on stage,” Alice relates. “I did not know anything about farm animals so I assumed it could fly and threw it into the crowd. It landed in the front rows exactly where the lovers in wheelchairs have been sat. You can imagine the furore.” Newspaper allegations that Alice experienced, in simple fact, bitten the head off the hen and drunk its blood on phase ended up immediately denied by the band, only for mentor Frank to famously notify Alice, “Well, no matter what you do, don’t inform anyone you did not do it!” 1970’s Quick Motion also went largely overlooked, but a transfer to Alice’s hometown of Detroit (“LA just did not get it – they have been on the completely wrong medications for us”) came as the major Warner Bros corporation acquired out the Straight label, and in the Uk the glam rock movement was collecting apace. Teaming up with producer Bob Ezrin gave the band their irst style of achievements with the one I’m Eighteen from 1971’s Enjoy It To Demise and from then on Alice and the band hardly had time to breathe. Killer (1971), School’s Out (1972) and Billion Greenback Infants (1973) catapulted Alice Cooper to the top rated of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, and outrageous gimmickry like the decapitation of child dolls and the introduction of a boa constrictor to the band’s dwell exhibit additional to the shock element the band, notably Alice himself, brought to the glam rock genre. “I noticed Anita Pallenberg actively playing the Good Tyrant in the 1968 movie Barbarella putting on very long black leather-based gloves with switchblades coming out of them and I thought, ‘Alice must appear like that,’” he states. “That, and a minimal bit of Emma Peel in The Avengers.” The outcome labored a address. Ethical campaigner Mary Whitehouse succeeded in finding the online video for School’s Out banned on the BBC, and a person Uk MP petitioned the then-Household Secretary to ban the band from doing in the Uk. Nonetheless, when 1974’s Muscle mass Of Love unsuccessful to match the good results of its illustrious predecessors, cracks started to exhibit. “There was some discontent about the path we were going in, if I try to remember effectively,” claims Alice. “Some of the band made the decision that they ended up heading to go and work on their very own projects so I rather by natural means imagined I’d do very a lot the exact same. At the time there was no big decision to disband the Alice Cooper Band, we were being just working on distinctive factors. It just took place that inevitably which is the way factors turned out.” For Alice Cooper the person, the selection was to also document his have solo album, even if it, like the previous 7 studio albums from the band (not to mention 1974’s immensely prosperous Alice Cooper’s Biggest Hits, which also outperformed Muscle Of Really like) also appeared less than the Alice Cooper name. After once more, Alice selected to get the job done with producer Bob Ezrin. “Bob had labored with us on every single album from Adore It To Demise to Billion Greenback Infants,” states Alice. “He’d been a major participant in some of our biggest successes and it felt suitable to get him concerned again. On major of that, Bob is a genius. He hears items other people really don’t listen to and seems to know just how to orchestrate factors in a way you really do not get with other producers. His input was a must have to Welcome To My Nightmare.” Bob experienced been doing the job on Lou Reed’s 1973 Berlin album, itself a rock opera of sorts concerning a doomed drug-addled couple, and with the Alice Cooper Band involved in many assignments of their have, a new established of musicians would be needed. Bob enlisted guitarists Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter, and bassists Prakash John and Tony Levin from the Reed fold, whilst he himself would lend his appreciable keyboard, synthesizer and arranging abilities. “It was extremely refreshing to be able to work with some new and terrific musicians,” points out Alice. “Dick Wagner I try to remember as currently being particularly superior and I actually clicked with him as a writer also. He’d already worked with us, playing My Stars on the School’s Out album and we went on to write or co-publish the likes of Department Of Youth, Welcome To My Nightmare, The Black Widow, Only Women of all ages Bleed… Not a bad array of product for a person album.” Central to the theme of Welcome To My Nightmare is Alice’s fundamental thought that the music relate the tale of the nightmares experienced by a younger child named Steven. “I loved horror movies,” states Alice. “Still do. And I also like theatre and musicals. And I generally had the grand strategy that we could acquire the fundamental album and build a stage demonstrate from it, which is what we in the end did. I noticed it as like a cross in between a unpleasant fairy tale and some thing like West Aspect Tale. If you hear to a thing like Gutter Cat Vs. The Jets from School’s Out you can hear that in any case. “And doing work with someone like Bob Ezrin genuinely helped propel the entire thing forward. He does not truly keep again and is open up to anything so we truly just went for it. The full check out was to practically make the album seem like a soundtrack for a movie or a perform. And I think we realized that with Welcome…” The icing on the cake, having said that, for the entire album, was to get renowned horror actor Vincent Price tag to agree to act as a narrator for the album, lending his promptly recognisable voice notably to the emphatic The Black Widow in the part of Museum Curator, uttering the memorable line, ‘And listed here, my prize, the Black Widow, is not she lovely…’ “That wasn’t planned,” Alice notes. “But as time went on we started wondering no matter if we could possibly need a little something to incorporate extra impact. I wrote to Vincent. I didn’t anticipate a reply but seemingly he understood all about who I was and was only a lot more than content to get part. He was fantastic, he seriously got trapped into the part and he even took aspect in the Tv special that followed. I consider he could possibly have even fancied undertaking the tour as nicely.” Recorded at Toronto’s Soundstage and New York’s Electric Girl and A&R Studios involving 1974 and 1975, Welcome To My Nightmare was unveiled on the Atlantic label in February 1975 (it appeared on the Anchor label here in the British isles) exactly where it achieved range five in the Billboard charts. The album spawned a enormous US strike with the sensitive Only Gals Bleed (a song about a girl in an abusive relationship), despite the fact that to some degree typically for the more than-delicate US marketplace it was launched just as Only Girls. The two Office Of Youth and the disco-inflected title keep track of have been also singles. The entire album was labored into an elaborate phase show to realise Alice’s original dream, which price tag more than fifty percent a million pounds and featured filmed sections, dancers, big spiders, dancing skeletons and a nine-foot-tall furry cyclops! Prior to this, the aforementioned hour-prolonged Tv distinctive, Alice Cooper: The Nightmare, aired on America’s ABC channel that includes Alice in the key purpose as Steven, not able to wake up from the nightmares torturing him, and with Vincent Price that includes as the Spirit of the Nightmare. The movie won an Emmy and was later launched on both equally VHS and DVD. The ensuing tour with its extraordinary phase present was also a achievement and a series of exhibits at London’s Wembley Arena were being recorded and released theatrically (and, naturally, subsequently on VHS and DVD) in 1976 but was not a massive strike. For Alice however, Welcome To My Nightmare (the album) represents a very last hurrah for the 70s. His final US platinum album just before his late-80s renaissance, and the begin of his spiralling fight versus liquor which would nearly totally derail him in 1977. “I consider we got it ideal with this album,” he claims. “It had all the factors that I wanted on the file. And for a initially solo album, it is not a poor start out!” The following chapter… An accident in which Alice fell from the stage in Vancouver on the Welcome To My Nightmare tour was a clear indicator that his alcoholic beverages intake was obtaining a dire effect on his vocation. The following Alice Cooper Goes To Hell album (1976) performed fairly effectively but 1977’s Lace And Whiskey was not great and next the subsequent tour Alice checked himself into rehab, recording 1978’s From The Inside album about his time there. The remainder of the 70s have been used showing on Television demonstrates this sort of as The Muppets and making cameo film appearances. Alice’s early-80s do the job is mainly greatest neglected, not minimum by Alice, who statements no recollection of recording Zipper Catches Skin (1982) and DaDa (1983). On the other hand, he eventually kicked the booze, returned freshly sober and signed to MCA in 1986 with the metal-orientated Constrictor and adopted it with 1987’s even better Raise Your Fist And Yell. Both laid the floor for a return to arena glory with 1989’s Trash and the substantial hit Poison. A string of critically acclaimed albums has followed, like 2008’s Along Arrived A Spider, and Alice excursions regularly, maintaining his position as elder statesman of metal. " |
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It would appear that the next album is to be entitled 'Detroit Stories' New interview at AZ Central "Catching up with Alice Cooper, who's home with family in Arizona after postponing his tourAlice Cooper was in Germany when he could see that it was time to come in off the road. "We’re in Berlin," he says. "And you can feel it coming. Italy is already a mess. Spain is starting to become a mess. Germany is starting to catch it. They canceled a show in Zurich, our third show. I went, ‘Uh oh. It’s a house of cards now.’" Cooper played his final European date on March 10 in Berlin. "They said ‘We’re gonna close the borders,’" Cooper says. "So we finished Berlin, got in the bus, drove to Munich, got on a plane and the only thing they asked us when we got back to the States was ‘Have you been to China or Italy?’ We went 'No' and they said ‘Welcome home.’" Upon his safe return to Arizona, the legend announced that he'd postponed his spring North American tour, which was slated to run from April 1 through April 22, in response to health concerns related to the spread of the new coronavirus, settling into his Paradise Valley home for some quality time with his family. Alice Cooper's home with Netflix, Hulu and family"For me and Sheryl, two months off is great," he says, referring to his wife of 44 years, who also dances and sings all the high harmonies in his show. "We’re at home, the golf courses are open, which is great for me. You’re sitting here with Netflix and Hulu. We haven’t had one problem getting food or anything." It's kind of nice being home, he says. "I feel less vulnerable in my house than I do in a different hotel every day. You don’t know who’s been there, what they’ve touched. When I was in Europe, I spent all day doing Purell, washing my hands. Every time you would touch something, you’d realize 'Well, how do you know that wasn’t infected?'" His daughter Sonora, who's five months pregnant, has moved into the Cooper family home with her husband, Diego Diaz, at her dad's suggestion. "I said ‘Why don’t you just stay here and we’ll keep it all in house?' That makes it kinda nice, actually. In some ways, you kind of think it’s God’s way of telling everybody, ‘Slow down. Everybody get back with your families.’" 'I am the glass-three-quarters-full guy'It's the sort of reaction you'd expect from Cooper, who despite the darkness of his image, tends to have a fairly sunny disposition. "I am the glass-three-quarters-full guy," he says. "I look at things like this and go ‘Yeah, it’s a horrible thing. But there’s also another side to it of everybody kind of pulling together and at the same time, families sort of being forced to live with each and get reacquainted." They've even had a family wedding in their home since getting back from Germany. "My 86-year-old father-in-law just got married here at the house," he says. "A very small wedding, just family. So we’ve had a house full of company." As to whether he's concerned about the possibility of contracting COVID-19, Cooper says, "I’m not scared of this thing. ... But you’ve got to consider everybody. You never know what the guy next door's health problems are." He's more concerned with older people like his mom, who's 94. "My mom is in a place now – a really nice place – but we can’t visit her," he says. "They have totally locked it down. They said, ‘Everybody in here is 85 or over, 90.’ If they get it, they have a much, much harder time getting rid of it." In more than 50 years of touring, this is the first time Cooper's had to cancel shows for a public health emergency. "I can’t think of any other time that this has happened, he says. "I mean, a worldwide infection where everybody had to really be responsible?" Cooper's been doing his radio show from how. And if he wanted to write songs, he could. "The only thing I can’t do," he says, "is go out and perform." As to the financial fallout of putting his touring on hold, Cooper says "We’re not sitting around worrying about our next meal." It's the other people who rely on income from those tours that would actually feel it. "The people that we work with, we have to make sure that they’re taken care of," Cooper says. "There’s a certain responsibility, especially to employees that you’ve had for a really long time that you realize are working from paycheck to paycheck. They have families. You’ve gotta take care of them." He feels bad for the fans who planned on going to those concerts. "Some of these audiences buy their tickets a year in advance and they plan their vacations around it and all kinds of things like that," he says. "I don’t know how you can help that. You just have to reschedule and say, ‘Do your best to get there.’" What it means for Alice Cooper's Solid Rock Teen CentersCooper also had to postpone his spring fundraiser for Alice Cooper's Solid Rock Teen Centers at Las Sendas Golf Club, which was scheduled to take place the weekend of April 25-26 "I mean, it hurts your charity, but hey, we’ll recover," Cooper says. "Luckily, it’s not devastating to us. I feel sorry for younger, smaller nonprofits that are just starting up." While Cooper is chilling with family — and golfing — in Paradise Valley, producer Bob Ezrin is home in Toronto, mixing Cooper's latest album, "Detroit Stories." "Again, he can do at home," Cooper says. "I’m done with it, myself, right now. The next project will probably be a new (Hollywood) Vampires album. But we haven’t even started on that." Cooper was born in Detroit as Vincent Furnier and moved to Phoenix as a child. He and the other members of the original Alice Cooper group – guitarists Glen Buxton and Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway and drummer Neal Smith — met in Phoenix, moved to California and had relocated to a farm near Detroit by the time they cut their breakthrough single, "I'm Eighteen," with Ezrin and Jack Richardson. A new album is in the works — from a distance"Detroit Stories" is a tribute to the place that city holds in Cooper's heart. "I’m really happy with this album," Cooper says. "It’s really kind of different than anything we’ve done — only because we actually put parameters around it. It wasn’t just 'Let’s just do this' and 'Let’s just do that.' We said, ‘It has to be a Detroit-oriented song.'" They even brought in veterans of the Detroit scene to work on it, including Wayne Kramer of the MC5, Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad and Johnny "Bee" Badanjek of Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels. "There’s a certain thing about Detroit that is hard rock," Cooper says. "But the players in Detroit have always had a certain amount of R&B built into the way they play, which gives the whole album a different kind of taste to it. So it’ll be a very unique Alice album. You’ll hear Alice going in a couple of directions you wouldn’t normally hear me go in, which I think is refreshing." He and Ezrin were satisfied, he says, when they could say, "Yeah, that feels like Detroit." Dunaway, Smith and Bruce are also on the album. Buxton died in 1997. "I call those guys Detroit players because we lived there," Cooper says. "So they qualify as Detroit players. We just decided to call it 'Detroit Stories' because that’s really what it is. Every song is sort of a story about Detroit or even fictitious stories about Detroit." While fans are waiting on that album and Cooper's return to the road, the singer is encouraging those fans to listen to the CDC. "We’ve got to conform to the guidelines so nobody gets sick," he says. "I think the sooner everybody does that, the faster this thing will be over. We should all get through this in the next month or so, so you know, you can get out and get a suntan then."" |
Alice Cooper, Def Leppard, and Scorpions Jigsaw Puzzles Are On Their Way | Kerrang "Stuck inside? These Alice Cooper, Def Leppard, and Scorpions jigsaw puzzles will keep your idle hands occupied. Of all the weird merch metal bands could produce, jigsaw puzzles seem like a trend that’s quickly taking off. Everyone from Metallica to Motörhead and Slayer have had their album covers memorialized as puzzles thanks to toy imprint Rock Saws. But if you’ve already assembled all of those album covers, you’re in luck, as the company has announced that they’ll be putting out puzzles of albums by Alice Cooper, Def Leppard and Scorpions — just in time for quarantine. The latest line from Rock Saws — an imprint of UK-based toy company Zee Productions — features two classic Alice Cooper covers: Welcome To My Nightmare and Trash Two Def Leppard covers: Pyromania and Hysteria And two Scorpions covers: Blackout and Lovedrive All of the puzzles are 500 pieces and go for £17.99 online. Unfortunately, the puzzles won’t ship until April 24, and with any luck the entire world won’t be stuck inside then. That said, order now if you’re not so optimistic and want to build the cover of Trash yourself. Alice Cooper may seem like a weird choice for what is basically a children’s pastime, but in truth the shock rocker was never the villain everyone wanted him to be — and which other rock acts believed him to be. “There were other bands that wanted not to play with us!” he told Kerrang! in 2019. “I remember early, early on, the Grateful Dead were not going to let us use their mic at a festival. They said, ‘Alice Cooper can’t use our sound equipment.’ They’d heard the same rumors everyone else did — they’d never met us before! And the great thing was that [Jefferson Airplane singer] Grace Slick stepped up and said, ‘If Alice doesn’t go on, we don’t go on.’ And the Jefferson Airplane were the biggest band in the world at the time, so we went on. She stood up for us, and that made me her lifelong friend. She had no reason to stand up for us, except that she heard something in the Grateful Dead that sounded like The Man. And that’s exactly what they were fighting against.”" |
I really like those and might get them over time. In particular the two Def Leppard ones. The Alice ones are good too. In fact the only one i'm not fussed about is Scorpions Blackout. |
New interview at Spin Magazine "Alice Cooper Provides a Solid Rock for Teens During COVID-19 Crisis Cooper's Solid Rock nonprofit continues to help teens even as the pandemic spreads Sometimes, something suddenly appears that’s so unsettling, even the king of shock rock himself is startled. That’s what happened when Alice Cooper was forced to cancel his European tour in the midst of something scarier than what Cooper does in his notorious horror rock show. “It’s strange times. I’ve never lived in a time when one infinitesimal thing that you can’t even see has literally stopped the entire world,” Cooper says, sounding astonished while speaking from his home in Arizona. Cooper’s wife, Sheryl, is also on the call. She performs in her husband’s show (often portraying a psychotic nurse), and she seems stunned as she recounts the unexpected and abrupt end to their show in Berlin. As she tells it, they were told to “jump off the stage and go directly to our bus in full makeup and costumes.” Almost 24 hours of exhaustive travel later, they made it back to Phoenix – but they “got home, no food in the house, went to the grocery store, no food at the grocery store. What’s happening?” Unfortunately for the Coopers, they have more than just canceled shows to worry about. They’re worried about the pandemic will affect Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock, the nonprofit organization they founded in 1995. The organization operates The Rock Teen Center, a 28,000 square foot facility in Phoenix where people ranging from ages 12 to 20 can get free instruction in music (both instrument lessons and recording studio training), dance, art, film and photography, among many other artistic options. Cooper says Solid Rock is something they feel driven to do. “We’re based on a Christian ethic,” he says. “The kids say, ‘Why are you doing this?’ and we tell them, ‘Because the Lord told us to. We don’t want anything from you except you to show up and create.’ And they say, ‘Well, what do you get out of it?’ And I go, ‘Watching you create!’ That’s all there is to it.” Another reason for doing this, he adds, is that “We feel that every teenager is at risk – not just the ones that come from the gang world. They’re all in trouble unless they have some guidance.” But while Solid Rock is a labor of love for the Coopers, it also requires funding to operate – and the pandemic has forced them to cancel Solid Rock’s biggest fundraising event of the year, Alice Cooper’s Annual Rock & Roll Golf Classic tournament. It was scheduled to take place on April 26. Canceling the tournament has “put a gigantic dent in funds,” Jeff Moore, Solid Rock’s executive director, says. Moore says the virus-driven economic downturn also calls into question how much donations from individuals and corporate sponsors will be affected this year. “Their contributions are based on their profits and the successes of their businesses,” he says. “With all this happening, I don’t know what positions they will be in. They have been fantastic sponsors over the years. But we also have to be mindful that they could be severely hurt through this crisis.” As Solid Rock faces this financial hit, logistical problems are also arising. As people self-isolate at home, the Teen Center staff have scrambled to continue offering activities, such as putting up video series with lessons for various instruments, and livestreaming performances from the teens themselves. The goal, Teen Center director Mark Savale says, is to “engage and keep in contact with our teens. If we can’t see them face-to-face, we can at least put some content where they can actually participate.” This emphasis on interpersonal connections is at the heart of what Solid Rock and the Teen Center are all about, according to Ale Moran, 20, and Kailee Schoeff, 18. Both of them participated extensively in many of the programs before becoming part-time staff members there. (Moran teaches art, and Schoeff teaches photography). They know firsthand how the Center can help – and the danger that could come now that this pandemic is undermining this support. “I was a freshman when I first started coming to the Rock,” Schoeff says. “I didn’t have a lot of friends, nobody really talked to me. I walked in and all the teens and the staff were super welcoming and wanted to be my friends right off the bat. I was really shocked. I wasn’t used to that. So it was intimidating in a very good way.” Now, she says, she’s making an extra effort to text and connect with the teens. “Especially at times like this, it’s important to reach out to them and make sure they’re not feeling alone or ignored.” Moran also worries about what this loss of contact could do, since she knows firsthand what a good influence the Center can be for teens. “Before I started going to the Rock, all my friends would drink and do drugs,” she says. “To me, there was no way out – I thought that was going to be my life.” Now, she can advise other teens at the Center. “I can speak on what I went through; it’s not just, ‘I’m telling you what to do.’ It’s like, ‘No, I’ve gone through that. I don’t want you to have to go through that, too.’” Stories of the positive impact of the foundation keeps the Coopers motivated to keep it going. “You see a kid who was uncontrollable, and he comes in, and [now] he’s the one that’s blossoming the most – it’s unbelievable,” Cooper says. “We just sit there and go, ‘Wow, he was the kid that I didn’t want to deal with. Now he cannot wait to get in [when we open]. I sit back and smile. These kids, all they really need is some creative outlet.’” But, Moore says, trying to accomplish this via remote outreach is an extremely frustrating endeavor. “It’s very strange to have things so quiet and to not have the teens here, because we are a relational ministry. Trying to do things through social media, that interpersonal interaction is difficult at best.” For their part, the Coopers are determined to try to turn this situation into an opportunity. “Alice and I are encouraging the kids at Solid Rock to use this time to create,” Sheryl says. “Paint something. If you’re a dancer, choreograph. Keep pressing forward, and then when we’re together once again, show us what you’ve got.” Should funding still come through as hoped, there are other post-pandemic plans in the works as well. A second Teen Center, in nearby Mesa, is still scheduled for a December opening date. They hope that the golf tournament can be rescheduled for this fall. And, the Coopers say, their daughter Calico (a member of famed improv group The Groundlings) is creating a theater program at the Center – and Johnny Depp (Alice’s longtime friend and Hollywood Vampires bandmate) has volunteered to teach an acting workshop. Bringing in celebrity volunteers is a tradition that is also on the “wish list” for when the Center doors can reopen. Because of Cooper’s legendary music career, many famous musicians have conducted workshops with the teens throughout the years, including Rob Halford (Judas Priest), Brian “Head” Welch (Korn), Monte Pittman (Madonna’s longtime guitarist), John 5 (Marilyn Manson), and David Pack (Ambrosia). Cooper himself can be found teaching songwriting classes or playing ping pong with the teens, while Sheryl leads master dance classes, which they say they plan to continue doing. Even though it’s uncertain when everything can get underway again, Cooper is maintaining a positive attitude. “I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy,” he says, explaining that he even sees some value in this current self-isolating reality: “This has forced families to sit in the same house together and maybe rediscover themselves. It’s almost like God saying, ‘Let’s take a time-out. How about you kids sit with your parents and watch TV, or play Monopoly.’ All the sudden, families are gelling together again because it’s like one for all and all for one against this disease. I think that’s, in some ways, a bit of a blessing.” The Coopers are also positive that Solid Rock will survive these challenging times. “This is just a setback,” Cooper says. “We’re here, we’re not going away.” Sheryl seconds this reassurance: “We are in it for the long haul.”" |
New Q&A interview at Forbes "Q&A: Alice Cooper On His New Podcast, Guns ‘N’ Roses, Jimmy Page And Hanging With Pink Floyd In 1968 For the last 16 years, Alice Cooper has done double duty as a rock legend and host of the global radio show Nights With Alice Cooper. As a true rock icon who partied with the likes of John Lennon and Keith Moon in the Hollywood Vampires and has played with everyone from Foo Fighters and Led Zeppelin, Cooper has unparalleled access in the rock community. He has utilized that access to interview everyone from Jimmy Page and Slash to Queen's Brian May and Ozzy Osbourne. But as Cooper points out those interviews were often one and done, so if fans missed them they could not access them again. So a few months back he was approached by Storic Media about turning the show into a podcast. “We are proud to launch Alice Cooper’s Vintage Vault as part of United Stations’ new podcast network, Storic Media. Through Storic we will be launching a series of podcasts ranging from children’s stories to all things music and beyond,” said Kristin Verbitsky, director of Storic. Cooper felt the same. And this week I spoke with him about the podcast, his interview technique and more. Few people have the stories of Alice Cooper and he did not disappoint as he filled me in on Guns 'N' Roses, Jimmy Page and a truly amazing Pink Floyd story at the end of the interview. Steve Baltin: How are you holding up in all of this? Alice Cooper: The great thing in Arizona is that the golf courses are open. They say it's an outdoor event, you're not touching anything but your own equipment. And they want people out doing something — walking, outdoor activities and they said that is the one sport that is not a contact sport. There are 200 golf courses here. So we go out every morning, first off there's nobody out there. We have the whole place to ourselves and we're done by 9:30, 10 o'clock and it's great. We come home and then I don't feel guilty sitting watching TV all day. Baltin: Was the podcast always intended to come out during this time frame or was the release sped up to come out during the quarantine? Cooper: We had planned the podcast before. We've been doing the radio show for 16 years and the podcast came up four or five months ago. I said, "What is it?" And they said, "The idea is to take old interviews and for you to go into that interview and either explain it or be the narrator, the voice over top of these. Because every single interview, even if it's not your interview is somebody you know or have interviewed. So it's not like this is somebody you've never talked to before." So I kind of go in and do insight into that person or before they're talking. What it does is bring up all these great interviews that were kind of lost. You hear them once and they're gone. And I said, "Wait a minute, they're like records. What if we want to hear what Jimmy Page has to say about this? What if we want to hear what Slash says about that or whoever?" So it's taking these interviews and turning them into something new all over again. Baltin: Using your record analogy, when you go back and listen to old records you often hear new things in there. Is that the case for you with the interviews too? Cooper: I started going, "We started out this album with absolutely no storyline and it accidentally turned into a storyline because every single character was a paranormal character. I didn't design it to be that. It happened like that." When I did the interview at the first I said there was no storyline. Two months later there was a storyline that was accidental. That's just one example of how I might be talking to Duff McKagan and Duff goes, "Well, I don't know if Guns 'N' Roses ever gonna get back together, doesn't sound like it ever will." And four months later they're on tour and doing the best tour they've ever done (laughs). So it's kind of neat to see what actually did happen against what they thought was gonna happen. Baltin: Are there particular interviews that have been fun to revisit? Cooper: Sometimes I look at the date of when this interview came out and I go, "Oh boy, look what happened to that band since then." They weren't expecting to have a hit or they were expecting this to be their biggest album and it didn't go anywhere. But I don't like to dwell on what never happened. I think it's funny to let the audience also discover that. "Let's see what they were talking about in 2005." I'm sure Brian Johnson [AC/DC] was not expecting to lose his hearing. He's going on and on about how he loves it and can't wait to get back on stage and here you go a couple years later and he can't hear anything. Who would ever predict that? It's kind of fun to look back and say, "Wow, if it were a time machine we never would have expected that." I always look at it like if you were to tell me in 2005 the world's greatest male athlete was going to become a woman, Bill Cosby was gonna become a [convicted] rapist and Donald Trump was gonna be the president I'd say, "What world are you in?" That's a Kurt Vonnegut novel you're talking about, that's not reality. And yet all that stuff happened. We kind of take it for granted after a while, but when you start adding up the insanity...if somebody said, "There's something so small that nobody can see it that's going to stop the entire world for about three or four months" you'd go, "What? Is it an alien?" And they go, "No, it's just a germ, but it's gonna stop the entire world." You'd go, "No, that's never gonna happen." On a smaller level it's like that on interviews where people have all these great ideas of what's going to happen and this is going to be the greatest tour we ever did and of course that tour never happened. So it's almost funny. Baltin: At times it becomes overwhelming to think of the interviews you have done. Like it took me years to appreciate interviewing James Brown. Do you have that experience? Cooper: Yeah, I forgot a lot of these interviews. I totally forgot that I interviewed Jimmy Page. I've known Jimmy since 1968. We did the Whisky A Go Go together, but I totally forgot that interview. And in that interview there was never any mention of him going back in to all the Led Zeppelin albums and remixing them. And I think at the time they were still up in the air about Zeppelin getting back together. Of course that never happened and everybody in the whole world went, "Why? Everybody's still viable except the drummer and they've got his son who plays just like his dad." So I think it is a bit of a game to listen to what was supposed to happen, what didn't happen, what wasn't supposed to happen that did happen and it's a little bit shocking to see we don't have any control over what is going to happen. Baltin: This is an obvious question but is there one person you'd like to interview you never have? Cooper: Oh yeah, who wouldn't want to interview Bob Dylan? I've never interviewed Bob Dylan. And the easiest one in the world would be Paul McCartney. He's the nicest person you've ever met in your life. I did a really good interview with Jeff Beck one time. In fact I said I look at it this way: Jimmy Page best rock and roll guitar player; Jimi Hendrix, most inventive guitar player; Eric Clapton best blues player; Jeff Beck, best guitar player. And he went, "Yeah, that's right." Baltin: What would be the one question you'd most like to ask Dylan? Cooper: Somebody told me that he doesn't use a teleprompter. That's 400 songs, okay. Everybody in that band has to know every song because he does an audible, he doesn't just give them a setlist. He'll get done with a song and say, "Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands." And they have to know that. If he's not using a teleprompter it's one of the most amazing memories of all time. I was told he doesn't use one. I would ask him if he does use a teleprompter because as a singer I would be lost without my teleprompter. And I know those songs. I still like to have it on. So I would ask him, is it just whatever song you want to play right at that moment? It is just an audible? Baltin: Are there things then from these interviews you've put to your own music? Cooper: Yeah. One thing I do in my interviews is I tell the person right up front let's not make this an interview, let's make this a conversation. If there are a couple of hot points I want to get I work it in to the conversation. But I want it to sound like somebody is listening in on a telephone call between me and Bill Wyman from the Rolling Stones. And we're just talking and whenever it goes it goes. I might have one or two questions that I work in there that I want to know about, that I really want to hit up. That way that interview doesn't sound like question, answer, question, answer. I let them get to what they want to talk about more than anything else. I just sort of sit back and let them go with what they want to talk about cause I've done enough interviews where I'll get done with the entire interview and I'll go, "We didn't even mention the tour or the new album. We just did 15 minutes of what I did in 1973." I get off the phone and I go, "That was a totally wasted interview. I didn't get across what I was trying to do." Baltin: How are your interviews different you think from other interviewers? Cooper: Most of these guys, when you get two rock stars talking they're gonna go off in a million different directions. I think people would much rather feel like they're voyeurs and they're listening to a private conversation that they shouldn't be listening to between two guys. I think that's a more interesting interview. But if it is something where they're really trying to sell something I'd say, "Okay, let's get that out of the way so we can just riff from then on." And I think that makes it a more comfortable interview for everybody and a more unique interview cause you kind of feel like you're getting away with something. You're listening to Alice talk to this guys about this city and that person. If I were listening and didn't know anything about it I love backstage stories. "He did what?" (laughs) Baltin: Even listening to the Slash one that was true as I was surprised at how open he was with you about the friction in Guns 'N' Roses at the time. I don't think he would have been that open with a journalist. Cooper: It was so obvious that there was such a tumor going on with Guns 'N' Roses. I took them on their first tour and a band cannot be as good as they are without being best friends. If you starve together, get high together, get arrested together, if somebody died and you cried together, you go through a lot of stuff when you're in a band early on. You really do become brothers. So those guys knowing that I've gone through the exact same thing as they have they can open up cause they know you know what they mean. As a fellow musician I totally get what he's talking about. I've been there. I know exactly what that is. Baltin: What is one of your great backstage stories? Cooper: I remember sitting around and listening to a Burt Bacharach album with Pink Floyd in 1968, sitting there going, "Oh man, listen to that. Listen to what he did there." Because of the simplicity of that kind of writing is impossible. It's so hard to write a simple song. Then you look who you've got. You've got Pink Floyd who are writing these musical epics and Alice Cooper writing this insanity. And both of us are sitting there listening to Burt Bacharach going, "Wow." I'd say lyrically and musically nobody was better than the Beatles and Burt Bacharach. They were the best." |
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Alice, Sheryl, Dash and Nita appeared during the 'Oh Say Can you Stream' charity fundraiser which was put together by Megadeth's Dave Ellefson The entire thing ran for 9hrs, 26mins, so Good luck with finding them! OK - you have twisted my arm! Nita is featured at 4:36:20 and Alice and Sheryl are at 4:49:10 |
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Alice took part in the 'Stars In The House Jesus Christ Superstar Live!' podcast on April 12th. This was based around the US repeated showing of 'Jesus Christ Superstar' For most of the show he's just there in a little box on the screen, but they do finally get around to talking to him, starting at 38:20 |
To help you get through lockdown The Vampires full set from Hellfest 2018 Setlist : 1. I Want My Now 2. Raise the Dead 3. I Got a Line on You (Spirit cover) 4. 7 and 7 Is (Love cover) 5. My Dead Drunk Friends 6. Five to One / Break On Through (to the Other Side) (The Doors cover) 7. The Jack (AC/DC cover) 8. Ace of Spades (Motörhead cover) 9. Baba O'Riley (The Who cover) 10. As Bad As I Am 11. The Boogieman Surprise 12. I'm Eighteen (Alice Cooper cover) 13. Combination (Aerosmith cover) 14. People Who Died (The Jim Carroll Band cover) 15. Sweet Emotion (Aerosmith cover) 16. Bushwackers 17. Heroes (David Bowie cover) 18. Train Kept A-Rollin' (Tiny Bradshaw cover) 19. School's Out (Alice Cooper cover) (with 'Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2) |
The Goon Squad, featuring Alice band members Ryan Roxie, Chuck Garric, Tommy Henriksen and Glen Sobel, have recorded a version of The Stooges song 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' as a tribute to New York punk stylist Jimmy Webb who died on April 14th Webb was best known for his work as a manager/buyer at the punk shop 'Trash & Vaudeville' and as the owner of the rock clothing shop 'I Need More' which was frequented by a long list of music legends including Alice and the band |
April 25th, 1975 - 45 years ago today, the television special 'Alice Cooper: The Nightmare' was broadcast on the ABC network |
A number of the postponed US dates have been rescheduled for later in the year: 31st March - Fallsview Casino, Niagara Falls, ON - Postponed until November 6th 1st April - Memorial Centre, Peterborough, ON - Postponed until November 7th 5th April - Fox Arts Center, Appleton, WI - Postponed until November 11th 8th April - Adler Theatre, Davenport, IA - Postponed to November 14th 10th April - Alerus Center, Grand Forks, ND - Postponed until November 18th 11th April - Centennial Concert Hall, Winnipeg, MB - Postponed to November 19th 13th April - Conexus Arts Centre, Regina, SK - Postponed to November 21st 15th April - Jubilee Auditorium, Edmonton, AB - Postponed to November 23rd 16th April - CN Centre, Prince George, BC - Postponed until November 25th 18th April - Abbotsford Centre, Abbotsford, BC - Postponed to November 28th 19th April - S.O. Events Centre, Penticton, BC - Postponed to November 27th 5th June - Winstar World Casino, Thackerville, OK - Postponed until October 30th 6th June - Stormont Vail Events Center, Topeka, KS - Postponed until October 31st 17th June - Mohegan Sun Arena, Wilkes-Barre, PA - Postponed until January 24th 2021 Original tickets for all shows *should* be valid for the new dates The April 22nd show in Portland is now marked as cancelled on the venue website, which leaves just four shows from the original schedule not either cancelled or having a new date - Grand Rapids, Milwaukee, Omaha, and Seattle There's no firm news on the Hollywood Vampires European shows yet, but the Lowlands Festival in August has been cancelled so that's one show gone! |
From the opening song on the 2000 'Brutally Live' tour, promoting the 'Brutal Planet' tour |
April 29th, 1977 - 43 years ago today, the 'Lace And Whiskey' album is released It's an album that many fans love to hate. While it's not a classic, a lot of the material is still fun. A lot of people don't like the disco element that was sneaking in on 'Love At Your Convenience' or the Country and Western sound of 'Damned If You Do', but elsewhere there are still some great rock songs on it It was after the completion of the 1977 tour to promote the release that Alice checked himself into a New York-based sanitarium for his first treatment for alcoholism. Maybe not essential but still well worth getting. |
I like Lace and Whiskey. :) It's Hot Tonight, the album's titular track, I Never Wrote Those Songs and My God are all great tracks. But it is hard to defend No More Love At Your Convenience! |
"ATTN MINIONS: STAR IN ALICE COOPER'S NEW VIDEO "DON’T GIVE UP" Alice Cooper will be launching a brand-new song, “Don’t Give Up” on May 15 and he is calling on you to be a part of this special song! Share a photo/video of you holding a sign featuring a word from the lyrics to the song and you could be in the final video! How and what to submit
lyrics Yeah, I know you’re struggling right nowT&C's |
You've probably got more chance of featuring if you go with 'a' or 'it's' or 'so', for example as everyone who thinks they are cool and wants to be famous for a tenth of a second will go with 'Monster', 'razor's', 'human', 'blood' and so on. |
The Alice Cooper Solid Rock Celebrity Golf Tournament 2020: Lockdown Version |
In memory of Betty Wright (1953 - 2020) 'No Tricks', the 'B' side to the 'How You Gonna See Me Now' single, released in 1978 "[Alice] No tricks up my sleeve I kicked the downs and now I'm clean No shakes up my spine I beat the speed and I dumped the wine No tracks, that was yesterday I changed my style, the way I play [Betty] Don't you believe it No blues No depression No more panic Or obsession [Betty] Don't you believe Anything he said All them junkies talk that way It's just as bad as it was before I see the man knockin' at his back door [Alice] ... this kid's straight And put on ice The street corner deals at any price Come on and check my veins And check my eyes No tracks, that was yesterday I changed my style, the way I play [Betty] Don't you believe it No blues No depression No more panic Or obsession Some tricks just go away And other tricks they're here to stay [Betty] Oh don't you know me Sometimes my spirit's willin' The flesh is weak and That's what's killin' [Betty] Don't you believe anything he said All them junkies talk that way It's just as bad as it was before I see the man knockin' at his back door [Alice] Hey now this kid's straight, put on ice The street corner deals at any price Come on and check my veins And check my eyes [Alice] I tried so hard But I'm hurting for another fix It's just this habit I, I can always kick What do you say there friend? [Betty] Don't you call me.. It's just a game And I can beat it any day No matter what this lovely lady say Hey, wanna be my friend? Some tricks yhey go away And other tricks they're here to stay [Betty] Oh don't you know me Sometimes my spirit's willin' My flesh is weak and That's what's killin' [Betty] Don't you believe anything he said All them junkies talk that way It's just as bad as it was before I see the man knockin' at his back door [Alice] I said this kid's straight And put on ice The street corner deals at any price Come on and check my veins And check my eyes" |
The new song Presumably the official 'fan video' is coming soon |
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New interview at the Phoenix New Times "How Alice Cooper and His Family Are Keeping Busy in Quarantine It was early March when Alice Cooper realized he needed to get home. The coronavirus was sweeping through Italy and Spain. His show was canceled in Switzerland. He went to the airport in Berlin and hopped on a plane. Back in Arizona, he postponed his North American tour and hunkered with his family at their Paradise Valley home. “I think God just told the world that it’s a giant time out,” Cooper says. Still, his wife, Sheryl Cooper, says they’re still making good use of their time. “We’re all taking tap lessons every Thursday night,” she says. “We have a live broadcasted teacher.” “Everyone has tap shoes,” Cooper says. “Of course, Sheryl, [daughters] Calico and Sonora are much further ahead since they are professional dancers, but I am hanging in there!” “I call us ‘artists in residence,’” Sheryl says. “I don’t like the word quarantine.” In March, Cooper launched a new podcast full of old interviews from his radio show Nights With Alice Cooper. It’s called Alice Cooper’s Vintage Vault and includes chats with rock legends like Ozzy Osborne and Debbie Harry. He's also finishing production on the hard rock album Detroit Stories, which features players from his hometown of the Motor City, where it was also recorded. The Coopers’ dedication to the Christian faith and charity also remains intact. The couple's Solid Rock Foundation, along with the Solid Rock Teen Center, located at 13625 North 32nd Street, has kept them busy. The center, which opened in 2012 and serves those between the ages of 12 and 20 years old, is closed temporarily due to coronavirus. But live performances and one-on-one lessons are being streamed daily. Cooper says he got the idea for the center 25 years ago, when he observed an awkward drug deal between two kids on bikes on the west side. “I looked at this kid and said, 'What if he is the best guitar player in town, but has no idea because he hasn’t had the opportunity?'” Cooper says. “That made us say, 'Let’s give them that opportunity. Let’s open up a place where all teens are invited. Let’s find out what your talent is and work on that.'” “We have professionals teaching kids arts, music, dance, and production. But despite being free, the caliber of the artistic training is fantastic,” Sheryl says. “It’s not only educational. It’s vocational.” Adds Cooper: “I tell kids up front: There are five guys in a band and 30 people who run the show. And I couldn’t do it without them. If you end up being a roadie or technician, that’s a pretty good living...They realize they are bringing art into the world, and that’s important.” Among many others, the center has nurtured the career of American Idol winner Jordin Sparks, who appeared at Cooper’s annual Christmas performance before auditioning for the reality show competition. The center is funded with grants and donations, and the financials have taken a big hit lately. The postponement of Cooper’s annual golf tournament in April, which is its second biggest fundraiser of the year, didn't help matters. Still, the Coopers hope to expand the center to other Arizona cities and the rest of the country. A second location of the center is set to open in Mesa, though due to the coronavirus, its opening will probably be delayed until December of this year — not this summer, as originally intended, says Mark Savale, the Teen Center's director. “Detroit needs 10 of these,” Cooper says. The necessity of places like the Solid Rock Teen Center was impressed upon Cooper by a rattling experience he had several years ago. “A girl showed me her to-do list: ‘Get up, go to school, lunch with friends, go to the park, kill myself,’” Cooper says. “She said, ‘I had a pocket full of pills and a razor blade.’ She’s 14. But some kid said, on the way to the park, ‘Let’s go to Solid Rock.’ Ever since, she’s there every day at 3 p.m. “Now, we don’t ask what their home life is. That’s not our job. We’re not psychologists. But this story made me say at the next board meeting that if 20 years of planning ends up being just this girl not killing herself, then it’s worth it. It shocked me. And I’m pretty hard to shock.”" |
There are some on-line Alice jigsaws here |
Trailer for the new Suzi Quatro documentary, which features an appearance by Alice |
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New interview at Blabbermouth "ALICE COOPER Completes Work On 'Detroit Stories' Album Legendary rocker Alice Cooper has completed work on his new album, "Detroit Stories". The LP, which was once again produced by Cooper's longtime collaborator Bob Ezrin, features contributions by such Michigan talent as the MC5's Wayne Kramer, GRAND FUNK RAILROAD's Mark Farner and Johnny "Bee" Badanjek of MITCH RYDER & THE DETROIT WHEELS. They also used the Detroit Horns and Detroit background singers. "Every Detroit player, I don't care how hard rock they are, how punk they are, there's a little bit of R&B in it, because it's Detroit," Cooper, who was born in Detroit as Vincent Furnier and moved to Phoenix as a child, told the Arizona Republic. "It's in the DNA." Cooper said that there's no release date yet for "Detroit Stories". "There's nobody saying, 'Oh, you have to have it done by blah blah blah,'" he said. "The whole world is on hold right now [due to the coronavirus pandemic]." Earlier in the month, Alice released a new single, "Don't Give Up". Produced by Ezrin using remote technology, the song is a spontaneous reaction to the challenges facing us all right now. A strictly limited "Don't Give Up" seven-inch vinyl picture disc will be released on August 14 on earMUSIC. Speaking to SiriusXM's Ozzy's Boneyard, Alice stated about how "Don't Give Up" came together: "The funny thing was Bob Ezrin and I and Tommy Henriksen did an album called 'Detroit Stories', and it's all about Detroit, because that's [my former] hometown. And I decided all Detroit players — Wayne Kramer, Mark Farner; all these guys — will either write or be on the album or sing on the album, but all the songs are about Detroit also. And so the song was called 'Hanging By A Thread', and it was a bit of an anti-suicide song. We're all hanging by a thread, but just don't step off the ledge. Hang in there. And Bob called up and said: 'That song is done. You've already done 'Hey Stoopid', which is an anti-suicide song.' He says, 'Why don't we turn this into what's going on now?' And he says, 'Keep the B section of the chorus,' he says, 'but let's take the verse and you talk it and just write something poetic that's encouraging. "The idea that I had on it was that we're a lot tougher than this disease," he continued. "We're the blood and guts of the human race. Does it scare us? Yeah. But are we gonna be [too] scared [to move forward]? Hell no. We're gonna live through this. And the whole idea was just don't step off the ledge. Some people are already suicidal, and then this comes along, and this is gonna push 'em off the edge. And I'm just saying don't step off the edge." Cooper's latest release — the six-track "Breadcrumbs" EP, described as a tribute to the garage-rock heroes of his hometown of Detroit — was released in September via earMUSIC" |
New interview at Yahoo Entertainment "Alice Cooper on co-starring with Johnny Depp, the Bee Gees, Mike Myers, Gene Wilder, Muppets… and snakes Speaking with Yahoo Entertainment from his Arizona home to promote his new podcast Alice Cooper’s Vintage Vault, which features classic conversations from his long-running radio show, Alice Cooper grants an epic interview worthy of its own podcast episode. The man is such a rock icon that even his legendary pet snakes — who’ve gone by such marquee-worthy stage names as Cobra Winfrey and Julius Squeezer — have rock ‘n’ roll tales to tell. “There are so many great stories when you're carrying snakes around, the big boa constrictors, because they were so much a part of the band that you just let them roam around,” Cooper chuckles. “But they'd get loose in hotels. We had one go down the toilet in Knoxville, Tenn., and it came up in Charley Pride's toilet about two weeks later. … Yvonne, she was our biggest snake and the sweetest, she was the nicest one, but if you're sitting on the toilet and a snake comes up between your legs while you're sitting there… Well, you're going to have some kind of traumatic reaction to that!” A couple of Cooper’s reptilian sidekicks, including one with the movie-star moniker Eva Marie Snake, actually became movie stars, appearing in the famous “I hate snakes!” scene in the Indiana Jones film Raiders of the Lost Ark. But Cooper is no stranger to the screen himself, having acted in everything from the notorious movie musical Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band to Wayne’s World to television shows with the Muppets and Gene Wilder. But who would play him in a Cooper biopic? He readily suggests his bandmate in the supergroup Hollywood Vampires and his onetime co-star in Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows. “If Johnny Depp were just better-looking, he could play me,” Cooper quips. “He would be so good for it, though. … because he really likes to take those characters that nobody else wants to play. And he loves prosthetics. He would get my nose in there and the whole thing. And he knows me well enough now where he could imitate me pretty well.” But until that biopic happens, Cooper reminisces below about his own most memorable onscreen moments. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978)“The thing about it was that I had just gotten out of rehab, and I had a mustache. I had never had a mustache before, but I had this big mustache. And I came out of rehab and they said, ‘We're doing Sgt. Pepper.’ And I said, ‘Oh, with the Beatles? That's going to be great!’ And they said, ‘No… with the Bee Gees." And I immediately went, ‘This is going to be a disaster!’ You're talking about the Beatles' [most] sacred record of all time. … Now, I love the Bee-Gees, I get along with those guys, I had a great time with them. But the general public are not going to stand for that. “But it was one of those movies that ended up being so bad that it was great. …It was consistently horrible to the point where it was great. And they told me, ‘You get to beat up the Bee Gees. There's a fight scene where you actually fight with them, and you get to work with George Martin.’ Now, that was the reason that I did the movie, because I wanted to work with George Martin. And here we are, doing the Beatles' prettiest song. It’s the prettiest thing the Beatles ever did, ‘Because.’ And somehow at the end of it, George Martin says, ‘I can't believe that you could turn the Beatles' prettiest song into a threat!’ I said, ‘Well, the character is a villain. … He's not going to do it nice. He's going to be this horrific character doing it.’ “And [Martin] sent it to John [Lennon], and John loved it. Lennon loved it because he thought it was just the opposite of what it was supposed to be. … John and I were pretty good friends; he was an original Hollywood Vampire, and so he was in the drinking club. … And George Martin produced it well, so that kind of greasy, horrific voice really popped out. It really was playing against the prettiness of it. So, John said, ‘Ah, yeah, I would expect that from Alice.’” The Muppet Show (1978)“I never had so much fun in my life as doing The Muppet Show. You rehearsed for a week in London, and after a while these Muppets were people. You were talking to them: ‘What are you going to have for lunch today?’ ‘Oh, I don't know. I was thinking about going to...’ You'd catch yourself talking to this piece of felt like it's real, because they would react exactly the way a person would react. Miss Piggy would say, ‘Do you want a Diet Coke? Because I know that you're not drinking now.’ … They'd come into your dressing room. ‘Hey, you want some lunch?’ ‘Yeah, Kermit. I'll be right there.’” Wayne's World (1992)“I got there, and I was supposed to do ‘Feed My Frankenstein.’ That was the big deal. They were going to go see Alice backstage, and that's all that was going to be. As soon as I got there, Mike Myers says, ‘You're an actor. Here's six pages of dialogue.’ And I said, ‘When are we shooting this?’ And he goes, ‘About two hours from now.’ So, I memorized about a quarter of it and then just riffed on the rest of it. “[I was lecturing about] Milwaukee. It was like, ‘Oh, the governors and the mayors of Milwaukee were Socialists, and actually it was all the fur traders are coming down from Canada.’ I was sounding like I was in Jeopardy. … I was just starting to make things up out of nowhere. And what you didn't see on camera was you had Mike and Dana [Carvey] doing everything they could to make me laugh. And I picked a spot between them and delivered all the lines, [looking] in between them. But if you would have heard the outtakes on the ‘We're not worthy!’ [scene], it went on for about seven or eight minutes and it got vile. It just got vile. … I guarantee you Mike or [producer] Lorne [Michaels] has [the outtakes]. But if that ever gets out, I'm not in trouble — but they are.” Something Wilder (1995)“I did a show with Gene Wilder. It was a comedy where it was live in front of an audience, like a play. I was his noisy next-door neighbor. And he ends up going to this party, coming home, but he's got my eye makeup on and he can't get it off. It was a good 10 minutes of just Gene Wilder and I doing schtick, but I had to know timing — I had to know where I was going, where he was going. It was a live audience and they couldn't redo it, they couldn't reshoot it. And I'm telling you, when you get to work with Gene Wilder, I doubt that you can get better than that.”" |
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Alice is still noted as appearing 'subject to contract', BUT it now seems unlikely because rescheduled live shows for the US have already been announced, and they cover these dates |
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There is a new short interview with Alice at Ultimate Guitar "Alice Cooper Addresses Idea of Retiring as He Turned 72 This Year "If I come into your town and put on a show and nobody shows up, well, then I know I'm done," the musician said. During a conversation with KZZK, Alice Cooper was asked if the ongoing lockdown has made him consider retirement seeing that he turned 72 this year. Cooper replied: "Not in the least. That word doesn't exist in my vocabulary. A long, long time ago, I said if I come into your town and put on a show and nobody shows up, well, then I know I'm done.Back in 2018, Alice told Q103 Albany when asked about retirement "I've always said this: If we do a tour and nobody shows up, then I'm retired. That's never happened. In fact, we're doing better business now than we've ever done. |
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