Alice Cooper
“Well We Got No Class
And We Got No Principles
And We Got No Innocence
We Can’t Even Think Of A Word That Rhymes!”
Used as a dismissive term by some, Glam Rock was actually quite a broad church when it came to the style of group and their musical influences. It ranged from ‘wall of sound’ production techniques with Wizzard, to heavy pop/rock with Sweet, to a tongue-in-cheek approach with The Glitter Band. However only one name in the Glam Rock canon was associated with the darker side of life – Alice Cooper.
Alice Cooper polarised opinion like no other. Everyone had an opinion, whether they had heard the music or not, the image and the response of the press meant that you either loved or hated Alice.
The first time I heard of Alice Cooper I was walking through town with my parents and posters advertising an Alice Cooper concert were plastered across a wall. The image was more than confusing, a girl’s name but a picture of a bloke in make-up? I asked my parents who Alice was. My dad told me not to worry about him, he was a nobody, and then turned to my mum and quietly said “That’s the guy who beheads chickens on stage.”
I was hooked.
But how did Alice Cooper gained this notoriety and was it justified? How did he survive to become one of rock’s elder statesmen? Why has he been a constant thorn in the side of my mate Les for the last 20 years?
Obviously we need to go back to the beginning.......................
It was 1964 and, while the US was gripped with Beatlemania, a group of 16 year olds in Phoenix, Arizona decided to wear wigs, pay some girls to scream, and launch into a Beatles parody at their local talent show. They couldn’t play and they didn’t care. Called the Earwigs and including Vincent Furnier on vocals, Glen Buxton on guitar and Dennis Dunaway on bass the long hard road to rock stardom had begun.
Shortly after this the Earwigs became the Spiders and brought in Michael Bruce on guitar to play alongside Glen. The group could play in a classic garage band style and recorded a couple of singles but still the big break refused to come. Changing the group’s name to The Nazz they continued to play and starve. Little did they know however that things were about to change, bringing in a new drummer in the form of Neal Smith gave them what was to become a classic line up and Todd Rundgren calling his band the Nazz gave them the opportunity to come up with a classic name - Alice Cooper.
There are many stories about how the name came about - it was spelt out on a ouija board, it belonged to a witch, it just sounded good. The story doesn’t matter the effect it had does – a group of longhaired layabouts, playing rock music, wearing makeup, with a girl’s name not only for the group but also for the lead singer (as Vincent transformed into Alice) in 1969 was guaranteed to get a reaction.
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