January 24, 1979: He's Gotten Help

Alice Cooper OOR Magazine Cover & 2 Page Feature(Translated)ALICE COOPER

NO. 2/24 JAN 1979

Alice Cooper was supposed to arrive at Schiphol on Friday afternoon as part of a promotional tour, which would also include a visit to our country. Everything went according to plan: he had boarded the right plane, the weather was fine and the wheels touched down on the tarmac of our international airport exactly on time. The reception committee was ready and everything seemed to be going smoothly. But when the last passenger from London had passed through the sliding doors, the committee became somewhat worried. Had he fallen down the aircraft steps? Got lost? Had he fished narcotics out of his suitcase? After some information, it turned out that Alice had indeed arrived and was in the VIP room. After bribing a few customs officials (corruption is a current issue and therefore causes few problems), the leader of the committee managed to gain access to the room. With a straight face, Cooper's manager told him that Alice was not feeling well and would return to London on the next plane. Protests that all kinds of agreements had been made and that there was little difference between a hotel room in London and one in Amsterdam did not help at all: his decision was made and with the words 'You'll Still Hear From Us' the bewildered record company executive could leave.

A few days later a phone call: Mr. Cooper offers his sincere apologies and asks if you would be so kind as to come to London at his expense for the promised interview. And so you are now going to read a story subsidized by the artist himself. And that is also nice for a change.

Living beyond your means for a long time

Do you remember Alice Cooper? He was born Vincent Furnier in Detroit in 1948 and grew up in Detroit, Phoenix and Los Angeles until he was ten, after which the Furnier family settled permanently in Phoenix. In high school

At school he becomes interested in music and forms a con band with a number of schoolmates, called The Earwigs. The group plays exclusively material from the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds and succeeds in winning a language competition organized by the school.

hit with the self-written Don't Blow Your Mind. In 1967, the group's name was changed to The Nazz and when everyone left schoolthe company moves to the musical mecca of the West Coast, Los Angeles. It is not at all what the young guns had imagined. The first year the group takes on every performance, hunt to gain some notoriety. Encouraged by this, things quickly become more professional and the name changes to The Spiders. In 1966, the band even scores a hefty local prize, but spectators who run into the dressing room afterwards with fat contracts, are absent. The group sleeps in the station wagon, or at best on the floor of friends' houses, and is regularly on the verge of starvation. One of the group members even starts a homosexual relationship with a businessman who is well off, so that the group has no shelter for a while. and food is assured. When it turns out that there is already a group in the States called The Nazz, it quickly becomes Alice Cooper. And that also becomes the new name of Vincent Furnier. Through the GTO's, a couple of prominent groupies, Alice comes into contact with Frank Zappa, who saw something in the group for his newly founded Straight-Bizarre label. In 1969 the group released their first clpee, entitled Pretties For You. The record did nothing and after much nagging they were allowed to make a successor after half a year, Easy Action, which also did nothing. In 1970

Alice Cooper is sent packing by Zappa and the future looks bleak. Still, the boys manage to keep themselves alive by touring all over the country,

In Toronto they meet by chance an engineer with pro-ducer ambitions, named Bob Ezrin, who has good contacts with Warner Brothers and is prepared to try to get a record deal. This only succeeds with great difficulty, but when the single Eighteen becomes a big hit, the album Love It To Death soon follows and the boys finally have success. This is partly due to the bizarre stage act, which in the meantime Elton John partner Bernie Taupin he makes the end of '78 musically very different from earlier work LP From The Inside. Some explanation is now in order.

Alice Cooper is in a great mood and he should be. Bernie Taupin is the laughing third.

THE CLINIC WAS THE ONLY SOLUTION

Dressed in glitter, women's clothing and leather and with the help of snakes, chickens, baby dolls and electrical chairs Alice Coo per knows how to make a deep impression on the young audience. and to the great annoyance of parents the group gets a lot attention of the media and carry the kids Alice Cooper on their hands. With the LPs Killer, School's Out and Billion Dollar Babies Alice manages to work his way up to world success and he enjoys this fame to the fullest. But then slowly but surely the decline sets in. Muscle Of Love is disappointing and Alice decides to disband his group, in order to continue alone. This results in Welcome To My Nightmare and an extremely spectacular stage show for the world tour. The success seems to have returned, but after a while it collapses like a house of cards. The LPs Alice Cooper Goes To Hell and Lace And Whiskey do not change the situation and in 177 Alice, by now a very heavy alcoholic, collapses and is out of the picture for months.

In the summer of 78 he recovered and went on tour with a kind of Best Of show, but the success was disappointing. It was clear that the rudder had to be turned around somewhat and together with his friend and ex

What was going on last week at Schiphol? 'Oh, I suddenly didn't feel well at all and I didn't feel like doing any interviews, photo shoots, etc. at all, so I went back to London. After all, I had already cancelled all my appointments there, back and because no one would know that I was back, I could relax and within two days I was back to my old self. I asked if you could come here, because I didn't feel like coming to the Netherlands for the second time. I think it's great that you came.

-Okay, back to business. How did the rather unexpected collaboration between you and Bernie come about?

More or less naturally, actually. Bernie and I have been friends for over ten years, but hardly anyone knows that. Last summer we met again and I told them I had plans for a new clip and Bernie happened to be looking for something else at that moment and then...' Benie: 'I had been with Elton John, that I increasingly felt that I wanted to do something different.

It's a long story, of course, but in short it comes down to the fact that over the years I started drinking more and more and stronger alcohol, until at one point I was a wreck. Admission to the clinic was the only solution. I was there for three months and since then I have been completely free of alcohol. I haven't felt as good as I do now in the last ten years. I'm so glad I'm free of it.' Are there also reasons why you're going to drink so much? Yeah, of course; someone doesn't just drink two or three bottles of whisky a day. After Welcome To My Nightmare things weren't going as well as they used to and that's why I started drinking more. During Alice Cooper Goes To Hell things were still going well, but after that I had to make a record according to my contract. And I didn't want to make a record at all, so it turned out to be a bad album and then my drinking got out of hand. And once you get past a certain point, you start needing more and more." - And what happened when you clean? 'My first idea was to make a record about the clinic. I took my audience to the 'Nightmare' and to 'Hell', so it seemed gave me a great idea to take them to the clinic now. But yeah, I was kind of out of it, so I decided in consultation with my manager and the promoters to first do a Best Of tour to get back into the spotlight and then start making the LP.

DEPRESSED

When did you start writing and how long did it take to create it? When I first got to the clinic I didn't think about it because I was too sick for that. But once my body was clean and the therapy was peeps started around the ear things about my drinking, the idea came slowly. By the time Bernie and I got to work, I had developed so many ideas that it actually went very quickly. The recording itself went very smoothly: we neither of you have ever made an album so quickly - You've been out of that clinic for a year now, do you have any trouble staying off the booze?

'Not at all. I have no need for it at all anymore. Even when people in my company drink, I have no problem with that. It used to be different. I started with beer, but because of the tensions of touring and the uncertainty of whether you can maintain your success, you look for a way out and that became the strong drink. And everywhere you went there was drinking, so you joined in. From 276 on I didn't even drink beer anymore, because it had no effect on me anymore. And I got so depressed that I needed more and more. And then I made Alice Cooper Goes To Hell and I still think that's a fantastic LP, but the sales were not so well and when I had to prepare for the tour afterwards, I was physically not up to it anymore. It took a lot of effort from people at the time to get me to actually go on tour. And that tour was exhausting for me, because I didn't really want to and because of that I was always in a bad mood and I tried to find an escape in drinking.' -What do you think of the music scene these days?

Well, it's all become big business. I used to sell one or two million records and then I was the absolute superstar, but these days five or ten million records is quite normal. Icdercen also has a sterco installation these days and that wasn't the case in the past either. That's why a lot of singles were sold in the past and mainly LPs these days. I expect From The Inside to sell at least five million copies. And you'll see, when we go on tour it will be even more."

NIPPLE

- Are there any new groups or movements that you find interesting? 'No ceht. Take that punk craze, there's not much that's really interesting in there. They don't sell any records at all, certainly not in America. The only band that sells records and draws full houses is Cheap Trick, but I think they're more New Wave. Besides, that punk in America is all fake, isn't it? Just go and look at the parking lot of the Whiskey in Los Angeles, when a punk band is playing, all Mercedes and BMWs

But the music is still sometimes bearable; I'd rather hear a punk band than a folk band, because that doesn't make me feel good. Concerts to save trees, you know, or whales. I hate nature, you know. -Are you actually going on tour again?

Jazekor, we're going to start rehearsals in January and they're going to last about six weeks and then we're going to tour the States for three to four months. If all goes well, we're going to be back in the summer

Europe, Japan and Australia and then probably record another LP. The show will be very spectacular, I can tell you that. On the cover of From The Inside you see all those people in the clinic, right? Those people will also go on tour and there will be a lot of decor and such. It will be a direct report from the clinic, org Cooperesque, so to speak." Won't that be a costly affair, with all those people and those sets? 'It certainly will be, but I can afford it. I pay for everything myself and I am convinced that the money will come back. also. I have a reputation in that respect and people also expect that Alice Cooper will show something on stage and that there will be all kinds of unexpected

Things happen." Do you and Bernie also work together on developing the stage show?

'More or less. Everything I come up with with the various ideas is presented to Bernie.' Bernie: 'Yeah, I keep an eye on things, but of course Alice has a lot more experience with that kind of thing than I do, but I find it interesting, because once Alice is on tour, I start working with Elton John on stage production of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and of course I can use my experiences with the Alice Cooper show very well. When that stage adaptation is finished, we're even going to film it, so I'll be covered for the coming year, I think." - Which musicians are you taking with you,

Alice? I'm still working on that. Definitely Davey Johnstone as lead guitarist and maybe Steve Hunter. It's unlikely that Dick Wagner will join because he's been very busy producing lately. I still have to find the rest of the guys. It would be nice to bring my old backers from the Nightmare tour, I haven't seen those guys in three years."

JOURNAL

Are you also going to make it clear to people through the show that you are a drinker?

Definitely. But I'm not going to protest against the use of alcohol or anything like that, not at all. Besides, in America almost everyone knows about it, because the fact that I'm in that clinic ended up, has been on all the front pages. When I arrived at the clinic with my suitcase, there was even a film crew from the news, so everyone was already fully informed. But I do want to show people that I am in excellent condition and that I am quite excited about it again. This tour is also very well set up, because to span and fatigue too far avoid, we apply the rule: three weeks of performing, three we know freely. And that seems really ideal, worked really hard for a while and then relax for a while. I'm really looking forward to it.' - How do you look back on the past ten years? 'It has been a very strange period, with fantastic moments and terrible moments. In the beginning it was like this, that we were the eccentric clothing and the stage act for the did fools, to give the people a a little bit shocking, but when we had so much success with it, it got crazier and crazier and we got crazier and crazier. At first I was only Alice Cooper for two hours in the evening and the rest of the day I was just Vincent Furnier, but at a certain point I became Alice Cooper 24 hours a day and I couldn't break away from that character. I had created a character for fun, but I had become that character myself and when I started to realize that that was wrong, I couldn't go back. The tension and the pressure were much too great, I started to hate Alice Cooper and that's when the drinking problem started. The Alice Cooper of that time ruined me, but now the situation is fortunately such that I am no longer that character, but I can still play him. And that's how it should be.

Kees Baars

Bernie keeps an eye on things

photo anton corbijn