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The group rejected the normal route to stardom, playing acceptable music that people understood, and just went crazy on stage. They famously played in front of 2,000 people at a Lenny Bruce memorial concert in LA; after a few songs and a pillow fight on stage 1,996 had left. The four that remained included Frank Zappa.
Zappa released the first two Alice Cooper albums on his Straight label. The first “Pretties For You” the group recorded while drunk and it flopped, the second “Easy Action” while more accessible didn’t do any better. What the group needed was someone to harness their ideas and give them focus, he arrived in the form of Bob Ezrin.
Ezrin arrived after the group had begun to make waves with their concerts, not due to the music but their stageshow. At the 1969 Toronto Rock ‘n’ Roll Revival a live chicken was thrown on stage, Alice threw it back into the audience who promptly ripped it apart – the demon of the press, Alice Cooper, had arrived with a vengeance from now on anything and everything they did was guaranteed to hit the headlines. Ezrin took the raw materials in the band and helped to rebuild them - the classic period of amazing stage shows supported by killer albums had arrived.
Their next album in 1971 “Love It To Death” spawned the classic single “I’m Eighteen”, while it wasn’t a hit in the UK it did signal the group’s intent to go international. That happened the following year with the release of “School’s Out” suddenly the horror show that was Alice Cooper was over here, playing on TOTP and with a song at Number 1! How parents hated it and teenagers loved it. The music with its anthemic rock style, its message of teenagers in revolt and the group’s love of over-the-top imagery and fashion caught the Glam ethos perfectly.
This was followed up with another two top ten singles “Elected” and “Hello Hurray”. The group toured and brought beheadings, lunatics, dead babies (no, not real ones) and snakes to an “auditorium near you” as the legend built. Alice ran for president, the group spent $32,000 a year on beer, MPs wanted to ban him from playing and another two singles hit the top twenty in the UK.
And then the hit singles stopped. While the stage show was still a classic and the songs were still outrageous (who else could sing about necrophilia in a song called “Cold Ethyl” and get away with it), the music became more adapted to albums and the stage show environment - the single buying public took on other interests. Cracks also appeared in the group - Alice Cooper the singer had become bigger than Alice Cooper the band and they went their separate ways.
Despite sidelining himself for a while to deal with a drink problem, and becoming one of the golfing world’s most unlikely celebrity golfers, Alice continued to work his way up to legendary status. While his success continues to be based primarily on his live act he did return to the charts again in the late 80s with a Number 2, “Poison” and has had a number of cameo appearances in movies (“We’re not worthy”).
Alice Cooper is now arguably bigger and louder than he has ever been before but for me his key period was during the classic years 72 – 74 when his music didn’t have to be loud, it was subtle, the lyrics had a twist, songs sucked you in until all of a sudden you realised what they were about and you weren’t certain if you liked what they were saying.
And what about my mate Les and his 20 year problem with Alice? Well it’s not big and it’s not clever but here’s the sordid story - on a drunken evening in 1984 a group of 10 of us pulled celebrity names out of a hat. The agreement was that, as long as our celebrity stayed alive, every year we would put £100 into a drinks kitty. Les got Alice and was chuffed, with Alice’s history of excess he assumed he’d only be paying in for a few years – over £2,000 later he’s the only one still paying. Every year I raise a drink to Alice while Les curses him – I like to think that Alice would appreciate the sickness of the situation.
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