- Title: UK: ALICE COOPER BRINGS NEW "BRUTAL PLANET" SHOW TO THE UK.
- Date: 14th July 2000
- Summary: MANCHESTER, UK (JULY 14, 2000) (REUTERS ) PERFORMANCE FOOTAGE MUST BE CLEARED BEFORE RE-USE ALICE COOPER PERFORMING.
- Embargoed: 29th July 2000 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: MANCHESTER, UK
- Country: United Kingdom
- Topics: Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVA2ZPMM34AFKR21IQ0MC4CI47T1
- Story Text: The king of shock rock Alice Cooper has hit the UK with his trademark spectacular stage show - and even though the veteran villain has been thrilling audiences for over 30 years, time certainly hasn't mellowed him.
A rock icon for three decades, Alice Cooper has perfected a blend of heavy metal and theatrical showmanship that still pulls in the crowds. He is promoting his latest offering, a studio album entitled "Brutal Planet" with a stage show that has been playing all over the UK to packed houses.
This time out Alice inhabits a grim futuristic world, and prowls through a post-apocalyptic industrial set, wearing his habitual leathers and a snarl. This man personifies the ultimate bad boy of rock, so why has he got a girl's name? "Oh, that's the oldest question of all time. I do a song now called "It's The Little Things" and it talks about, you can burn my house, you can cut my hair, you can poison my cat, but if you ever ask me how I got my name. It's the oldest question in the world. Alice Cooper was something that we came up with thirty years ago that was, there were too many rock heroes, we needed a rock villain, and I was more than happy to be that villain. And rather than come up with a name like some horrific name, I felt that that name was scary enough, it had a real sinister quality to it Alice Cooper did, and it stuck, I don't know why but it stuck."
And just as the devil gets all the best tunes, the villain gets all the best lines.
"By far, the villain always gets the best lines, think of any movie you've seen and think of who gets the best lines in the movie. The Joker had all the best lines in Batman, Captain Hook always had the best lines in Peter Pan.
The Sheriff of Nottingham always had that great snappy comeback, the villain's a lot more fun to play. "
Alice Cooper shot to fame in 1972 and immediately caused an uproar with his highly-visual brand of what soon became dubbed shock-rock. Parents were horrified, fearing their Alice-worshipping offspring would turn into devil-worshiping weirdoes. But in fact, Cooper comes from a deeply religious background, and his own parents never objected to his work.
"I never ever had a problem with my parents as far as the Alice Cooper thing went, because they knew I was not satanic at all, they knew I grew up in a Christian home, but they also knew my sense of humour, and it took a while for the public to catch on to my sense of humour and now they understand it. But my dad was a pastor, my grandfather was a pastor, my wife's father is a pastor, and I'm a Christian, but I still don't have any problem playing the villain because I think it's classical. There is nothing in my show that is close to Shakespeare. Shakespeare is much bloodier than Alice cooper, and he is considered required. Macbeth is horribly bloody, all of these things are, a little blood comes spurting out of... I get my head cut off on stage and its aaggh! Because it's rock and roll then suddenly it's satanic, I'm very anti satanic and that's why I didn't have a problem with my parents."
Decapitations, spurting blood, severed limbs, two headed babies, leather-clad dominatrixes to name but a few are all established elements of his stage routine. Although this was shocking stuff in the early seventies, today it's as much high-camp as it is horror - sort of Driller Killer meets Rocky Horror - but even today's desensitized audiences are thrilled by the act. At the end of the day, it's all about showmanship. Cooper is a consummate entertainer and works hard to keep the fans happy.
"I think if you can make an audience go ooh! aahh!, how did he do that? Where did that come from? If you can bewilder the audience and entertain them at the same time, if you can run the audience through a gamut of emotions, that's great. One thing I don't understand about the industrial thing is that it stays on one emotion, it stays on anger, it just stays there and there's no relief from it, after a while you go, ok, come on. Sort of like the way Seattle stays on depression. I think you've got to give the audience a good scare, a good laugh, you've got to break their heart, you've got to make them hate you, you've got to make them love you.
If you can make the audience run thought all those emotions in one show , an hour and forty five minutes and then have them leave going yes, that was fun, then you've got something and that's what we've always tried to do."
After a lifetime of rock and roll, at 52, Cooper shows no signs of wanting to take it easy - although he has found time to become a highly proficient golfer - and the married father of three formerly known as Vincent Furnier is still as popular as ever. He certainly takes as much pleasure as ever from his work, but feels that the music industry has changed for the worst: " When we had two number one albums out in a row, I had no idea how much we made on an album, I didn't know how much per concert, I didn't know how much we spent, I didn't care, I cared about the fact that we were living this great lifestyle, that every night there was a huge audience there and they loved the music, they loved the show, the last thing on my mind was how much is a ticket. To be honest I don't know how much a ticket is tonight, I don't know how much a t-shirt is. I make sure don't know that stuff because that takes away from the sheer joy of the show. Too many young kids now know that they make 8.3% of every T-shirt sold, they shouldn't be caring about that, they should be caring about the band, they should be caring about the music, they should be caring about the audience rather than that. So these bands , I give them two years, if they can get past two years, I am very surprised. Record companies also don't try to promote careers any more, they're in it for the fast buck, and that's too bad."
For Alice Cooper it's all about having fun, he is well known for his sense of humour, and appearances in films such as Wayne's World confirmed his status as a rock icon, as well as proving that he doesn't take himself too seriously.
"Too many bands are so self righteous and so self important, and you get to a point when you just want to say hey, it's rock and roll, come on, this isn't the grand ballet, this isn't Shakespeare, this is rock and roll, let's just have fun with this, let's not get political, let's not get religious, this is rock and roll music and that's what it should be. If you do have a positvie statement to make, great, put it in the lyrics, send it out there, wonderful, but let's not try to make rock and roll and political standard, or a political soapbox to stand on, I just hate that, it just kills the whole idea, bands like that should have to wear grey suits and ties, I think that's awful. " - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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