Alice Cooper: The Godfather of Shock Rock

When was the last time you were shocked by some rock and roll? Chances are, not recently. 

In 1988 the Los Angeles band Janeâ€s Addiction released “Nothingâ€s Shocking,” an album with a title that played at lead singer Perry Farrellâ€s propensity for doing whatever thing he thought might piss the most people off. Journalist Steve Pond, who reviewed “Nothingâ€s Shocking” for Rolling Stone, mused that Janeâ€s Addiction were a “classic ‘love â€em or hate â€em†outfit.” 

For just about ever, artists have focused on the “love ‘em,” but in 1988 Janeâ€s Addiction was already among a “classic” line of bands that harnessed the power of the “hate ‘em” part of that equation. And they had one Founding Father to thank: Alice Cooper.  

Early in his career, Cooper embraced the macabre and publicity stunts, and both earned him a spot in the American imagination. Yet Cooper has depth, and despite the quick flash and fade that most often accompanies “shock,” Cooper has remained relevant for more than 50 years. Here, Little Steven, Drew Carey, and Alice Cooper explore his musical past, present, and future. 

SVZ: 
So you were born in Detroit but moved before high school?

Alice Cooper:
Yeah, I had asthma when I was a kid. And so I left there when I was 10 and moved to Arizona because that was the only place that was going to get you healthy. So that's where the band started actually. I was in high school. Then of course, we moved to LA because that's where everybody was. And we thought we were the best band in town until we got there and realized that there were like 10,000 other bands who were the best band in their town.

Drew Carey:
That's when you were The Spiders. Right?

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SVZ:
So, you were actually, I think, the first or second band signed by Frank Zappa to his label, right?

Alice Cooper:
After Captain Beefheart. Frank didn't know what to do with us because, you know, we showed up at seven in the morning at the log cabin and started rehearsing there, and he said “I meant seven tonight.”

Drew Carey:
Itâ€s 7 rock and roll time I think is what he meant.

Alice Cooper: 
I think so. We were doing songs like “Pretties for You”, which were like every song. It was two minutes long with 38 changes in it and he sat there and he looked at it and he said “I don't get it”. And I went, “Well is that good or bad?” He goes, “Oh no, it's good.” Anytime Frank Zappa says; "I don't get it, is good. I'm gonna sign you because I don't get it. Where are you guys from San Francisco?” And I said, “No, we are from Phoenix and he goes, “Okay, now I really don't get it.”

Alice Cooper:
But we were Yardbirds, you know, I mean, we were The Yardbirds band. There was Yardbirds, Paul Butterfield, The Kinks those were the bands that we learned how to play from. Then we just added a little bit of West Side Story and a little bit of Bela Lugosi, and Vaudeville to it, and it ended up being Alice Cooper.

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Drew Carey:
They do everything hard in Detroit, everything pretty much. I mean everything hard in Detroit as a compliment. Hip Hop's hard there, it's a real hard, edgy industrial town.

SVZ:
Yeah, everything is the hard way. 

Alice Cooper:
It's because the kids are real. Their parents really do work in the factories. They do have long stringy, greasy hair, and they do wear black leather jackets and Levi's and boots. That's not what they wear to the show. That's what they wear every day. The cool thing about the Detroit sound was we would play every single weekend with Bob Seger and Ted Nugent, all young bands that were just starting. They were all hard rock bands. You'd look down to the audience and there would be Stevie Wonder. And there'd be the guys from The Miracles and The Temptations. They loved hard rock. And then when we were not playing, we would go see them downtown at the Rooster Tail or other places like that.

SVZ:
That's amazing, actually. I think that's very cool.

Alice Cooper:
Yeah, during the riots, any guy with long hair in a band could go to any black bar downtown and be totally accepted. Because we weren't the enemy. We were musicians. And we were players. We were brothers. 

SVZ:
Wow, that is cool. That's very unique, I think. I canâ€t think of any other town that has that. 

Alice Cooper:
Yeah, very cool. If you were from Detroit, you were totally accepted. I mean, that was, the whole deal. That was you are a hard rock band.

SVZ:
Well, I've always been proud of the fact that we, in the music world, certainly integrated long before society did that's for sure. I mean, we're still working on it and society, let's face it. But you know, in the music world, we were always brothers and sisters right away.

Alice Cooper:
Literally. If you go to an airport, when you're on tour, and you run into a band that you've never met before they are your brothers, because of the fact you stayed in the same hotels, you played the same gigs. You play with the same promoters. You're in the same world as they were so it's almost like you didn't have to meet them, you already know them. You know who they are.

SVZ:
True. True. Yeah, it's been nice. There has to be some advantages to being a freak, misfit and outcast, you know? We have to have something good happen for us.

Drew Carey:
Going back to meeting these other bands at the airport, were there any bands or musicians like Stevie Wonder or people at that level, that makes you think I can't believe Iâ€m an artist with this person? Somebody you really looked up to and admired that was also in your circle?

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SVZ:
The latest work is the Breadcrumbs EP dedicated to Detroit, right?  We were playing it all the time on our radio show. The whole Breadcrumbs EP was fantastic. You donâ€t have to wait for Detroit Stories. It has 6 tracks or so and it is just great.

Alice Cooper:
Yeah, Breadcrumbs was an EP that was leading to the album. The new album is called Detroit Stories. And it's all about Detroit, recorded it in Detroit. It features Wayne Kramer on guitar. All these guys, we used to play and write songs with, they are all Detroit players. We recorded it in Royal Oak. 

SVZ:
And when is the album out?

Alice Cooper:
It's coming out pretty soon. In the next couple of months. Everything's on hold, like everything else. What I want to do in Detroit is to go out on a flatbed truck and just drive through downtown Woodward, and do the song.

Drew Carey:
I think you should release it because people need music at home nowadays. Everybody just needs it.

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SVZ:
So you said Wayne Kramer was on your Breadcrumbs EP and he will be on Detroit Stories also, right? You covered Sister Ann by MC5, right? 

Alice Cooper: 
Oh yeah, that was such a rocker. That thing just cried out to be done, you know to play a harp solo on it sounded incredible. Thereâ€s a little Paul Butterfield on there. When I heard that I went, ah, we got to do this song right here, because it's just Detroit Rock and†Roll. Now the weird thing is when you're playing with Detroit rockers that R&B DNA is in the player. You can't get it out of him. We found a kid in a bar and said here play this on guitar and this kid just killed it. It was that R&B feel and the same with Wayne Kramer and Johnny B. It's built into you if you're in Detroit, so it wasn't hard to fall into a little bit of R&B on this record. There's a song called thousand dollar high heeled shoes that's just pure R&B.

SVZ:
Wow, I can't wait to hear that. That's gonna be great. 

Alice Cooper:
Hey, I love what you're doing with the teachers. I love what you're doing with TeachRock. I said, if I was President, the first thing I would do is I would triple teacher salaries, and make it a prestige job. So kids would look up to it. I think that is what becomes a prestige job then the kids go, okay, why don't I do that? I love the idea of what you're doing.

SVZ :
Well, thatâ€s what it's all about for us. It's all about integrating the arts into the education process this way, kids will stay interested because all the kids love, love, love the arts. They love music, and to make them relax a little bit and once relaxed then maybe they'll learn the rest of it. Thatâ€s what we figured.

Alice Cooper:
We have a thing called Solid Rock here in Phoenix. I've been doing this for 20 years. Any teenager is welcome to come in and learn any instrument or dance or art or whatever it is all free, always. All they have to do is show up.

Drew Carey:
It also teaches you that you can complete something. I remember getting lesson books when you're a kid and looking at all these black notes like what the hell are these? And by the end, your playing. You feel a sense of accomplishment like you could do something and that teaches you how to learn and keep track of things. Itâ€s all really great.

Alice Cooper :
You know, we have kids that are from the barrio and we have kids from the most expensive part of Arizona, and they come in and their common denominator is music. Who are you listening to? We have a room of guitars where the kids are learning guitar and we have a room of basses and a room of drums, there are kids playing piano and we have a recording studio where the other kids are learning how to use the studio. The best part is these kids are putting bands together. Jordan Sparks who won American Idol was from Solid Rock. She came out of Solid Rock when she was just 15.

Drew Carey:
Because of the intertwining of R&B and rock and roll that you grew up with in Detroit. Do you find that the kids that come in do they bring in a little bit of hip hop or anything like those elements into this music too?

Alice Cooper:
Well, it's so funny because a lot of our kids are Latino and they have no idea who I am. They come in with their own attitudes, their own music and everything, and we listen to it. It's just a place where you come in and learn. It's amazing to see them get addicted to something. I tell them to come in and find your talent. Some kids sing and play guitar and all of a sudden they sit behind a set of drums and they realize they love this. And the next thing you know, they're there at three o'clock, right after school.

SVZ:
Man. Very cool, man. Right before we closed down (due to Covid-19), we visited a partner school of TeachRock, in California where they're featuring our curriculum from kindergarten through sixth grade. And it was just amazing to see the enthusiasm of these kids. They were integrating the arts into every single discipline, every single class, and they just were so enthusiastic. It's nice to see it when it works. And it can work. Education can work. We are a lucky generation. We got to grow up at the right time. 

Alice Cooper:
When we were kids we got to learn from the Beatles. I tell young bands, I want you to listen to Burt Bacharach because that's how a song is written. You know, it's got a B section, it's got a chorus. It's got a verse.

SVZ:
Craft, craft, craft! It's all about craft. Alright, man. Thank you. Good to see ya. Hopefully, we'll see you in person. sometime soon.

Alice Cooper:
My pleasure. Thank you guys. Good to see you Stevie and good to meet you Drew.

To learn more about the Arizona based Solid Rock teen centers visit https://www.alicecoopersolidrock.com/. The centers provide a safe place for kids to be themselves and connect with like minded peers with a focus on art, music, dance and overall creativity.

To fully understand how Alice Cooper changed Rock and Roll, enjoy this TeachRock lesson! Go one step further and explore the sounds of Detroit in this Teachrock Chapter.