Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper is regarded as an old school recording artist as the rocker approaches octogenarian status.
However, Cooper, 77, was retro when he emerged as a shock rocker in the early 1970s. Vaudeville and old horror films inspired Cooper's stage show, which stood out since none of his peers at the time would incorporate schtick into their set.
Without Cooper, there's no Kiss or New York Dolls. Rob Zombie, Dave Grohl and Megadeth's Dave Mustaine have cited Cooper, who will perform Saturday at Atlantic City's Ocean Casino Resort, as an influence.
Emerging rockers impacted by Cooper can't help but pick the legend's brain.
"Young bands come to me and I tell them to have fun," Cooper said. "Once you get a hit, that's when the work starts and you're at it for 20 hours a day doing interviews and all of that. Once you have a hit you have a responsibility to your fans."
Many of Cooper's songs still sound fresh today. The anthemic "I'm 18" remains resonant. Teens still connect with it since Cooper speaks their language.
"Bob Ezrin, our producer, wanted us to keep it as simple as possible," Cooper said. "We wanted it to be like a Yardbirds song. But Bob kept saying 'dumb it down.' The power of it is in its simplicity. We didn't understand it until we heard it on the radio. The song is so in your face."
And then there are the covers.
Cooper's version of the Velvet Underground's "Rock and Roll" was turned inside out just like the Cowboy Junkie's take on VU's "Sweet Jane." Both recording artists made the songs their own.
"I used to know (Velvet Underground singer-songwriter) Lou (Reed) back in the day in New York at the Chelsea Hotel during the '70s," Cooper said. "The Velvet Underground made that song in a very New York heroin chic manner. Lou sings it very monotone.
"I said to Bob (Ezrin), 'Why don't we put a V-8 engine into that song and take it to Detroit,'" he recalled. "So we turned 'Rock and Roll' into a monster rocker. I sent it to Laurie Anderson, Lou's wife, and she said that Lou would have loved it."
Cooper rarely interacted with Reed, an enigmatic rocker who often slipped into a fortress of solitude.
"Lou was pure rock," Cooper said. "I'll tell you a great story. I saw Lou two years before he passed away (in 2013). I hadn't seen him since the Chelsea Hotel days. So I ran into him, 'How are you doing, Lou?'
"'What's new Alice?' Then Lou says, 'I keep pushing the ball to the right," he said. "Lou played golf! I said to him that we could never imagine having this conversation when we were at the Chelsea Hotel. Lou said, 'Absolutely not.'"
It's hard to imagine Reed or some other seminal rockers on the links.
"You would be surprised who plays golf," Cooper said. "Iggy (Pop) plays golf. Bob Dylan plays golf. A lot of metal guys, death metal guys play. A lot of musicians were athletes, who played baseball and soccer. What are we going to do? Go to the mall? It's better to get out there and take some swings at the ball and then there are guys (like Cooper), who take part in tournaments. The weirdest guys are really good at golf. Dweezil Zappa is a great golfer. Adrian (Young), the drummer from No Doubt is a scratch golfer."
It's hard to believe that Cooper would ever embrace a golf club back in the early '70s, when he hung out with his drinking club in Los Angeles. Cooper would pound back booze with such legendary pals as John Lennon, Keith Moon and Harry Nillson.
"It was insanity," Cooper recalled. "We drank every night and had a blast. I still remember the political conversations John and Keith had. I stayed out of those discussions."
Those were the last days of larger than life rockers. What happened to rock stars?
"I got to be honest," Cooper said. "I think bands got lazy. During the '70s you had to do a show. The audience demanded that they got a show and loved something glitzy. We brought show biz to rock and roll and David Bowie and Elton John jumped on it."
Hard rock has ebbed over recent years but Cooper — unlike his pal, Kiss bassist Gene Simmons — doesn't believe rock is dead. Cooper is certain the beloved genre will be as popular as it was a generation ago.
"I guarantee you that there are teenagers in garages learning Guns N' Roses, Aerosmith and Alice Cooper," he said. "You'll see another resurgence of hard rock. It always returns. It's best that we're not in the mainstream now but rock and roll is outlaw once again and that's a good thing. But yes, hard rock will return."
