Alice Cooper reveals that, despite his decades on the road where his antics have led to the label of ‘Godfather of Shock Rock’, the most rebellious thing I ever did was become Christian.
He explains to HuffPostUK, “Because it goes against everything I’m meant to stand for. But I’m dead serious about it. I can still be Alice Cooper, and be a Christian.”
Alice Cooper is still going strong after four decades on the road
Alice is supporting Mötley Crüe on what is definitively, legally bound to be, their very final tour, but despite seeing his rock and roll chums quit the road, he has no intention of stopping himself.
"Someone once asked what my best song was. I said I hadn’t written it yet. I bet if you asked McCartney that, he’d say that too.
"If you ever feel like you’ve written your best song, then you might as well not write any more.
"I never smoked cigarettes, I quit drinking 30 years ago, I’ve been married 40 years, never cheated on my wife, so I’m very happy in everything in my life – there’s no reason for me to stop. I’m in better shape now than when I was 30. At 30, I was a mess. At 67, I can get up five nights a week and do an hour and forty minutes and feel great, and I know how to do it now.
"Mick Jagger makes it look easy, he’s the prototype for every lead singer in every band. Still going. You sit there and you say, ‘That’s the guy.’
Alice (right) is joining Motley Crue for their definitively final tour this year
Clean-living Alice says his biggest addiction these days is the game of golf, which he only started playing because he knew he had an addictive personality.
“I quit drinking and drugs, and I needed to find another addiction that wouldn’t kill me,” he remembers.
“And it’s the biggest addiction going. Lord help you if you get two or three good shots. It’s the most addictive sport in the world.”
With Mötley Crüe going out with a bang at the end of the year, and rock music making way for folk and dance music in the charts, Alice Cooper laments that young musicians are taking their craft far too seriously…
“It’s supposed to be funny, angry, and that’s what I’m missing right now. Right now I’m hearing lots of important little people writing important little things that make me want to go ZZZZZ.
“If I hear one more band talk about oil… everything that’s politically correct, I’m so sick of politically correct. You’re 16, this is your time to shine.
“These guys (he gestures to Mötley Crüe next door) created a really fun world in rock and roll – a blitzy, glam, sexy, hard, fun world, I can’t see a generation saying, ‘I want to do that.’
“I think there’s going to be another generation of bands. The Darkness came too soon. A band called Steel Panther who were basically a tribute band, are now headlining. There’s so much fun in that kind of thing. There are probably 16-year-old kids right now, figuring what to wear, how to do it. And it might come out of London.”
Conversation moves onto the different music movements of the last few decades, including the grunge era of Seattle. Alice raises his eyebrows…
“Seattle went anti-glam. I got to the point, I was thinking, lighten up. All you’re thinking about is darkness. I was going to hire 10 buses and take all these kids to Disneyland for a weekend, just to cheer them up.
“I saw what the reaction was, against the last generation. There’s going to be a reaction against this folk thing, everybody’s introspective, everybody has something important to say. If people ask me what to write about, I say, ‘Write about your girlfriend.’”
So, if Mick Jagger is the prototype, where’s the new Mick to be found? Alice looks conspiratorial.
“I haven’t seen that yet, but I’m sure he’s out there.”
Alice Cooper will be supporting Mötley Crüe on their final world tour which starts in Austria tomorrow and continues until their final gig in Los Angeles on New Year's Eve - more information here.
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