Alice Cooper

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:33

My castaway this week is the rock star, Alice Cooper. Born in Detroit, he grew up an asthmatic, skinny kid, but a turn in the school concert, Miming to Beatles tracks, convinced him that his future lay on stage. He realised early on that while rock music had many heroes, there were few villains, and that was the territory he marked out for himself. I was more than happy, he says, to be rock's captain hook. He developed his trademark look, blackened hollow eyes and long straggly hair, and set about designing live shows that were gleefully gory and macabre. He has staged countless mock executions, using a guillotine, electric chair, noose, and significant quantities of fake blood. He says of those early days we were into fun, sex, death, and money, when everybody else was into peace and love. It strikes me, Alice Cooper, you must have a very good sense of humour.

Alice Cooper1:28

I hope so. That's that's the one thing people I think have finally started digesting about Alice Cooper from the beginning. It was a marriage of rock, horror and comedy.

Presenter1:39

Yeah.

Alice Cooper1:39

Yeah. I don't think you can really scare somebody without giving them a laugh afterwards. You know, I mean, I think that's part of it. That's really what our show is.

Presenter1:47

You talk about Alice Cooper in the third person, then. He's someone else, is he?

Alice Cooper1:50

Well, I mean I I played this character that I invented named Alice for a long time. I honestly didn't know where I began and Alice ended. And it was when I was drinking. My friends at the time were Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janice Joplin, all the people that died at 27 years old from excess, Keith Moon, you know.

Presenter2:08

Yeah.

Alice Cooper2:11

And I was trying to stay up, keep up with them.

Alice Cooper2:13

And I realized when they all died that you didn't have to be your character offstage. Jim Morrison was always Jim Morrison. He was Jim Morrison offstage and onstage. And it killed him.

Speaker 42:18

Right.

Alice Cooper2:24

You know, and I just figure, why not make Alice a character that only belongs on stage? And when I'm off stage, I don't need to be him.

Presenter2:33

We'll talk more about that fascinating area that it is a little later on in the programme. What about the look? I mean it it's easy to forget that forty years ago that was an incredibly radical look that you came up with. You know this was a man dressing in very flamboyant type clothes. I mean since then you know we we've had goths haven't we? We've had the punk, we've had emo, we've had all that stuff borne out of the seeds that you sow.

Alice Cooper2:43

Yeah.

Alice Cooper2:46

Yeah.

Alice Cooper2:54

Well, when we did Welcome to My Nightmare over here in 1975, I think that was the beginning of goth. Because I mean the the very next day it was the biggest show I think here and the next day there were kids on the street with top hats, a little black under their eyes, wearing all black during the day. Kids are always looking for identity.

Presenter3:00

The

Alice Cooper3:13

And they found an identity there in Alice, this sort of black humorous character that they all identified with, at least for a while. And then they grew out of it.

Presenter3:21

Rock stars of your vintage and I'm thinking now especially of somebody like Keith Richards do choose to sport the eyeliner and the mascara daytime as well. I notice today you seem to be make up free.

Alice Cooper3:31

You know, it's uh only because I somehow got it off with cold cream last night. Most of the time I have smears of black under my eye and everything like that, because i it just you can't get it all off all the time. I kind of made that my style.

Presenter3:46

Yeah. And what about giving that stuff up? I mean, you still wear the full macchiat, the full makeup on stage. Don't you think, you know, I am a a senior rock god now. Maybe it's time to just ditch ditch.

Alice Cooper3:50

Yeah, it's the filmmaker.

Alice Cooper3:57

No, that would be the worst thing in the world. You know, the Alice is a timeless character. You know, when I think how old is Batman? How old is Dracula? How old is Jekyll and Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Fictitious characters don't have an age. It's become part of the texture of Alice.

Presenter4:13

Okay. It's time for your first disc then. Tell me what we're gonna hear. What's your first choice today?

Alice Cooper4:17

Well, Yardbirds were our biggest influence. When we were kids, we learned all the Beatles' songs. We learned all the Rolling Stone songs. Those were the two staples. That's all you really needed to know.

Presenter4:26

Right.

Alice Cooper4:28

Then from there you started growing out into your own style. Well the Who and the Yardbirds were the two bands that really, really made us stop the car and go, what was that? And this song in particular was one that was just to this day there's nobody made a record as inventive as this record.

Speaker 44:51

People along my way Seemingly I've but one leg Only the error

Speaker 45:06

Ten years time of all situations we really

Speaker 45:13

Rocks but no wing is in the mind We sink deep into the well

Presenter5:19

That was the Yardbirds and happenings ten years' time ago. Their line-up included, what was it, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page? Incredible that those guys are still.

Presenter5:29

you know, revered around the world.

Alice Cooper5:30

The Yardbirds had the three premier guitar players in one band.

Presenter5:35

Did you play with the Yardbirds?

Alice Cooper5:36

We actually opened for the Yardbirds when we were sixteen years old. We were a band called the Spiders and we were the house band at this club. It comes that the Yardbirds are going to play at our club, and we're the opening band. Now the problem is, is we do all Yardbird songs.

Alice Cooper5:54

And I said, you know what? Let's just do them. So we get up on stage and we do all of 15 Yardbird songs. And the Yardbirds are back here and they're looking at us, you know, because we were pretty good. I mean, we could do good versions of them. And then the Yardbirds got on stage and just blew us away because they were the Yardbirds.

Presenter6:17

Yeah. Um I'll ask you more about the music a little bit later, Alice Cooper, but for now I want you to tell me about something called the Hollywood Vampires. Who were the Hollywood vampires?

Alice Cooper6:24

The Hollywood Vampires came much later in the career when we had already made it. We had two number one records. And, you know, you're living in Beverly Hills, and there's this club called The Rainbow. Now, The Rainbow is one of those clubs that everybody shows up at every night. And it just so happens that pretty soon it's Alice Cooper, Harry Nielsen, Ringo, Keith Moon, Mickey Dolans from the Monkeys, Bernie Toppin. And we always were there every night. So we ended up moving upstairs into this loft. We finally decided it was a drinking club.

Presenter6:58

Right.

Alice Cooper6:58

The Hollywood Vampires, sort of last man standing. And anybody that was in town, if John Lennon was in town, he came up. And it really was a private drinking club. And there was a plaque that said, Lair of the Vampires. And I think pretty much we would all get there, sit there and start drinking and talking about music. It was basically talking about music. And then you'd wait to see what Keith Moon was going to wear that night. That was the dessert. Okay. Was to see if Keith Moon was going to be the Queen of England or if he was going to be Hitler or if he was going to be a French maid. And because you were already about half a bottle of whiskey into it, as soon as you'd walk in, you'd be on the floor laughing. On top of him being this crazy and outrageous, he's the best drummer in the world.

Presenter7:26

Okay.

Presenter7:44

Yeah. Did you worry about did you worry for him? Did you think he's on the road to heaven?

Alice Cooper7:48

At that time, we were totally you were at that age where you were indestructible. Our band proved that you could live on beer for ten years.

Presenter7:58

And when did you form the baseball team with Meatloaf in it?

Alice Cooper8:01

About the same time.

Presenter8:02

Right.

Alice Cooper8:03

We had a lot of comedians on the team.

Presenter8:04

Who did you play? I mean, you couldn't have been in a normal

Alice Cooper8:06

The normal side. But we played happy days.

Presenter8:06

We can

Alice Cooper8:08

Team. All these other, you know, T V shows and and other bands had their own teams.

Presenter8:14

Was it quite organized?

Alice Cooper8:15

All very organized. There was leagues and everything. But we played every Sunday.

Presenter8:19

Were you one of the organizers? Oh, ye

Alice Cooper8:20

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And we didn't care if we won or lost, to be honest with you. We just liked to play.

Presenter8:25

Let's have some more music. Tell me about your second disc today.

Alice Cooper8:28

Well, now when I was 12, I lived in Van Nuys, California, and the Beach Boys were the thing, pre-Beatles. I Get Around, came out, and it was unique to anything that was out there. And for some reason, it spoke for every kid. You know, I'm getting bugged driving up and down the same old strip, got to find a new place where the kids are. Yep, I get around. It just spoke to me. And to this day, every time that song comes on, I turn it up. You know, it was sort of my 12-year-old first in love with the girl in my class, and it was just that era.

Speaker 49:02

Round, round, get around, I get around, yeah.

Speaker 49:21

I'm getting bugged driving up and down the same old strip. I gotta find a new place where the kids are hip.

Presenter9:29

That was the Beach Boys and I get a round. Let's go back to the beginning then, Alice Cooper. You were born Vincent Fernier back in Detroit. It was the end of the forties. Tell me a bit about your background. What did your mom and dad do?

Alice Cooper9:40

My dad was an honest used car salesman, which meant that we were poor. You know, he couldn't sell a car. He couldn't lie and sell a car. And so the guys that he worked for were pretty much gangsters. And they said, Mick, we love you, but you can't sell cars because you're too honest. You really should be a pastor. And he ended up becoming a pastor.

Presenter10:01

And he was ended up becoming a pastor. Yeah, there was a sort of religious background. Oh, no.

Alice Cooper10:04

Oh, no, kind of, a big religious background. My grandfather was an evangelist for sixty years. My father was a pastor for, you know, thirty years at least. I was the prodigal son. I was the kid that grew up in the Christian church. The band

Presenter10:10

Right.

Alice Cooper10:20

took me out into the world and I became the poster boy for everything that was wrong.

Presenter10:24

Yeah.

Alice Cooper10:25

And then came back to the church.

Presenter10:27

Your grandfather, who was a an evangelical preacher then for sixty years, I mean that's not your normal run-of-the-mill kind of a preacher. There is an enormous degree of theatricality in that.

Alice Cooper10:34

There is it.

Alice Cooper10:36

He was one of these guys. He was this little frail, sort of eccentric, very milquetoast guy. And my grandmother used to just boss him around. He was like Laurel and Hardy. They fought every day of their life. He didn't fight, she fought. And he would just smile and look at her and go, Isn't she great? You know, they were married 76 years. But when he would preach, this little milquetoast guy would pin you to your seat. He was bigger than life and he was powerful. And as soon as he got done preaching,

Speaker 410:46

Yeah.

Speaker 410:59

Right.

Speaker 411:06

Five.

Alice Cooper11:12

He was this little guy again, and I never kind of realized it was very similar to me and Alice.

Presenter11:17

You say you were the prodigal son, you you were in among lots of cousins, but they were all girls. Yeah. So were you did you get a lot of attention from your uncles as well as your father?

Alice Cooper11:21

Yeah.

Alice Cooper11:24

Yeah, I was the guy that w uh Friday night at the fights, you know, I was the little guy that would go along with my uncles who were all tough guys. They were smoked cigarettes, drank beer. All my uncles were tough Detroit guys who could handle themselves, all three of them could.

Presenter11:38

Right.

Presenter11:40

And you were as a child you you suffered asthma w over

Alice Cooper11:44

Probably from hanging with the guys while they were smoking cigarettes. They all smoked like chimneys, you know. My mom and dad were gypsies. They loved to move. When we lived in California, we must have lived in eight or nine different places. So I had to keep changing schools.

Presenter11:46

While they were smoking cigarettes they also

Presenter11:58

And you moved to California partially to do with your health.

Alice Cooper12:00

To get with my health. For a long time we were dirt poor, but we never missed the rent. We always had food to eat. You know, my parents were really good about that. They didn't like being in debt. So the little that we had, we were never in debt. But every time that he would get an opportunity for a better job, we'd move. Then my dad got a really good job at Goodyear Aerospace. He was an electronics designer also. Till finally he was making a pretty good salary. And my mom worked also.

Speaker 412:17

Yeah.

Presenter12:26

Crap.

Presenter12:31

And you found that as a child then you flourished going from place to place. For for a lot of kids that would have been very intimidating.

Alice Cooper12:36

Yeah, I learned how to manipulate, you know, like Ferris Bueller. I would go into a school, they look you over, you know, I kind of could suss the class up. Now, I go to the bully and I go, Look, beating me up is no great feat. I weigh a hundred pounds, I'm skinny, I'll tell you what, who do you want to go out with? I'll set you up with her. But you're my bodyguard now.

Alice Cooper13:01

So where's the kid? I would go to the girl and I'd go, Hey, look, this guy's gonna beat me up if you don't go up with him And she'd go, Really? And I'd go, Yeah, you know, little kitten, big eyes. You know, pretty soon she's doing my homework.

Presenter13:13

All right.

Alice Cooper13:13

This guy is going out with her, but he's my bodyguard now, and I've got everybody arranged to where I want them.

Presenter13:19

Yes, that's interesting.

Alice Cooper13:21

Yeah.

Presenter13:21

That's a lot of nerve. That takes a lot of nerve.

Alice Cooper13:22

It takes a lot of nerve and a lot of personality. Yes. My personality was basically my power.

Presenter13:25

Bloody.

Presenter13:29

Let's hear your third disc, what are we gonna hear?

Alice Cooper13:31

Well, uh again, back in this period, the Who had a strange combination. They could play big heavy songs like My Generation, but they had a pop feel too. They made records that were really good pop records, like Substitute. And this one I picked I'm a Boy.

Alice Cooper13:50

Was real British invasion rock?

Speaker 414:02

Paint your names look of salad your

Speaker 414:06

But let's wait on the globe.

Speaker 414:15

Boy, I'm a boy, but I'm all won't admit it I'm a boy, I'm a boy, but if I say I am like it

Presenter14:23

That was the who and I'm a boy. I read Ellis Cooper that you nearly died when you were ten. You you you suffered was it peritonitis you had a drink?

Alice Cooper14:30

I had a burst appendix and it was the oddest thing. Normally if your appendix breaks, you double over in pain and can't wait to get to the hospital. Mine burst and sealed over and I didn't have any pain. But I was filling up with peritonitis for two days. And pretty soon I was getting sick and I was throwing up. I was throwing up green stuff. They took me to the doctor and the doctor took a blood count and went, Get this kid to the hospital right now. My white blood cells were so far out of whack from my red. I was dying. And I was in the hospital for three months. And I was, it really took it out of me.

Presenter14:32

Drive.

Speaker 414:49

Right.

Presenter15:05

Yeah.

Presenter15:10

What do you remember because presumably you were passing in and out of consciousness, where you remember?

Alice Cooper15:13

Yeah, pretty much for three months. When I went in to get the appendix operation, they couldn't operate because they said we have to wait until the peritonitis, if he lives through that, then we can take the appendix out. So when they finally got in, the doctor told my parents, I can't tell you he's going to be alive when we go in there. I mean, that's how desperate it was.

Presenter15:15

Right.

Presenter15:36

And when you were a little kid then, did it make your parents very protective? Did they want to wrap you in cotton wool after that experience? My mom did. Yeah.

Alice Cooper15:41

My mom did. Yeah. My mom was interesting. My dad was a very sharp dresser, too. My dad was a great dresser.

Presenter15:48

Yeah, yeah, I read somewhere you said he looked he always he went out always looking as though he was about to appear on the cover of a G Q. Look.

Alice Cooper15:54

It's great. My dad was a rat packer. You know, he was uh one of those Dean Martin kind of guys that wore great suits and a little thin tie and white hair back, perfect hair. Looked really, really good and was very funny. He had a great sense of humor. And and I picked that up from my dad. My mom was

Presenter15:56

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter16:07

Right.

Alice Cooper16:14

A lot of times she was a doting mom, and the other times she was, if you want to make it, you've got to get tough. She was very stubborn. So when things were going bad for the band in the beginning, when we were almost breaking up and everything, she'd go, you guys have got to get tougher. If you're going to make it, you're going to have to just grind it out. She was the one that pushed me. Go for it. Go get them.

Presenter16:38

Your mother's still alive.

Alice Cooper16:39

Yeah, oh yeah.

Presenter16:40

And you I I read somewhere that you said they should send her into the Hindu Kush to look for Osama bin Laden.

Alice Cooper16:44

She would find him.

Presenter16:45

Uh

Presenter16:45

Yeah.

Alice Cooper16:46

I swear, she would find him and she'd make him clean up the cave first before she they arrested him. My mom is relentless.

Presenter16:53

Still tough on you?

Alice Cooper16:54

Oh, she's tough. She's really tough. Her great line is: hey, superstar, take out the garbage.

Presenter17:00

Presumably over the years she's met a lot of your very famous friends.

Alice Cooper17:02

She would pick up the phone, be Jack Nicholson, and she'd say, Okay, Jack, he's right here somewhere. You know, and Jack would say, That was your mom, wasn't it? I said, Yeah, you know, Paul McCartney called one time and she picks up. She says, Was this one of those Beatles? You know, he goes, The only time that she was physically flustered was when I came home with a picture of me and Sinatra. That spoke loudly to her because Sinatra was her elvis.

Presenter17:21

My ten.

Presenter17:32

And he sang one of your songs, yeah.

Alice Cooper17:33

Yeah, he did one of the he did You and Me was one of my ballots at the Hollywood Bowl.

Presenter17:36

Yes, what did she make of that?

Alice Cooper17:38

That's when she finally said, Okay, you're a star.

Presenter17:41

Yeah. So how do you meet Sonata? Does somebody come and say it was a very

Alice Cooper17:44

It was a very odd thing. What happened was there was a celebrity baseball game and this little kid was trying to get in the game and they wouldn't let him in. Finally, I went over and I took him, brought him in, sat him on our bench. And I said, You're our team mascot. That night I'm in the casino, and this guy comes over and he goes, Hey, he says, the boss wants to see you. I'm thinking, you know, is this like the Costello family or something like that? And I walk over timidly and there's Frank Sinatra.

Presenter17:51

Yeah.

Alice Cooper18:13

And he says, right up front, he goes, Hey, Coop, call me Coop.

Alice Cooper18:18

You know, like you knew me or something, you know, and I went, Yes, Mr. Sinatra. He says, You did me a solid today.

Alice Cooper18:25

He said, That little kid that you got in the game. I said, Yeah. He says, That was my best friend's son. He said, I owe you.

Presenter18:30

Ah.

Alice Cooper18:32

I said, No, Jeff, Frank, you don't owe me anything You know, really. It was great. And and Don Rickles is there. And Don Rickles goes to Frank and he says, Hey, Frank, he says, This guy fills baseball parks. He says, You do bars.

Presenter18:32

No.

Alice Cooper18:45

Hitler Goig.

Alice Cooper18:46

Don't say that. So the thing about it was that this is how he paid me back.

Alice Cooper18:52

I get a a an invite to the Hollywood Bowl. Me and Bernie Toppin, both. We were best of friends. We go backstage and that's when the picture was taken. Frank's got his tuxedo on. Ty is on time. He's got a martini and a cigarette.

Presenter18:59

Right.

Presenter19:04

Oh, perfect.

Alice Cooper19:05

Perfect. And he says, I'm going to do one of your songs tonight.

Presenter19:09

Yeah.

Alice Cooper19:10

And he does You and Me, which is the pretty fr ballad. And I said, Well, th that is the biggest compliment I ever got in my life.

Alice Cooper19:18

He says, You keep writing'em, kid, I'll keep singing'em.

Presenter19:21

We're not gonna have Sinatra next, but tell us what we are gonna hear.

Alice Cooper19:24

Well, Lora Nero.

Alice Cooper19:25

Maybe the most underrated songwriter of all time. Her first two albums, Every Song's a Hit. The second album, Eli and the Thirteenth Confession.

Alice Cooper19:36

just crushed me, had me by the throat, like a Burt Bacharach. You know, she was the female Burt Bacharach. And to this day, you know, th uh that that album, I've worn it out ten times.

Speaker 419:53

No.

Speaker 419:57

Oh, I'll be long to town. You change my

Speaker 420:06

You're a flood of flood time. You got to walk it through the gates of space. I keep remembering

Presenter20:18

That was Laura Nio and Timer. So Alice Cooper, you landed back in Los Angeles when you were nineteen, and you said of yourself then, I was a total virgin, nineteen and still a church kid. Well, the LA girls whipped through us like hot knives through butter. What an image that is.

Alice Cooper20:37

It's true. Did you enjoy it? It was over, yes. It was one of those things where, you know, we were honestly kids from Phoenix. Right.

Presenter20:38

Yeah.

Presenter20:43

Right. And by this time the the the LA girls were interested in you because you were Alice Cooper.

Alice Cooper20:48

We were on our way up. We were really glamorous looking. What did you look like? We played around with the makeup. Nobody did that. We'd wear black leather pants and then I'd I'd take a a girlfriend's slip and rip it, put it on, put all blood on it.

Presenter20:52

What did you look like?

Presenter20:55

Mm-hmm.

Alice Cooper21:03

And it was like this attitude of what are you going to do about it?

Presenter21:07

As I said in the introduction, it was the idea that it was a kind of ballast to the whole peace and love.

Alice Cooper21:11

It really was. It had nothing to do with

Presenter21:12

It will have

Alice Cooper21:14

Let's all be one. We were more like Clockwork Orange. We'd walk in the room and everybody would go, What the hell is that? Where did these guys come from?

Presenter21:23

And so it was nights at the famous Whiskey Ago Go and it was all hell breaking loose. Paint me a picture of a typical night for that.

Alice Cooper21:27

Yeah.

Alice Cooper21:29

Well, that was that the band would rehearse all day. Right. Because that's really we cared about the music so much that we would rehearse eight hours a day. But our image was so strong. You know, we would play as many gigs as we could to keep alive, but nobody had money to throw around. When we first got our first hit, then we had money. It was great.

Presenter21:31

Right.

Presenter21:42

Right.

Presenter21:47

And in terms of of uh the drinking that that you've mentioned uh a little while ago, uh a bottle of whisky a day and two cases of Budweiser, can that possibly be right?

Alice Cooper21:56

That was that was when we were way, way into uh al already had two major albums. Okay. And we were

Alice Cooper22:05

Voted number one ban in the world.

Presenter22:07

I mean one of the things that that nobody mentions of course about whether it's drug taking or drinking is that the people who are doing it at the time they're doing it are really enjoying it. I mean presumably you enjoy drinking.

Alice Cooper22:16

I had no thought that I was an alcoholic. I hadn't didn't even occur to me. I just figured I like to drink. It never occurred to me because I never there was never a time when I had to not drink. There was never a time when I didn't wake up in the morning, instead of having a cup of coffee, I'd pop a cold beer.

Alice Cooper22:32

But that's what rock stars did.

Presenter22:33

Did? Yeah.

Alice Cooper22:34

Everybody I knew did that.

Presenter22:35

And when you were drinking, it's I think they call it what is it they call it, a high functioning addict. I mean you were able to carry on your life.

Alice Cooper22:41

Even when I was a stone-cold alcoholic, when I was doing Welcome to My Nightmare, you know, Billion Dollar Babies and all these major concerts, we had broken every tendence record. We broke all of those records with Billion Dollar Babies of Nightmare. And there was never a time where I was late. I knew every lyric, never missed a show. And I didn't realize this till later. My psychiatrist that I was in therapy with when I finally went to the hospital, he says, so this Alice that's causing all this, of course I blamed everything on Alice because that was the career thing, you know. Well, I gotta be Alice, so I have to drink. He says, how much do you drink when you're on stage? And I said, well, I never drink on stage. And he said, well, if you do a movie. And I said, well, I never drink when I'm...

Presenter23:17

Mm-hmm.

Alice Cooper23:29

When I'm acting.

Alice Cooper23:31

He says, Wait a minute.

Alice Cooper23:33

Alice is not an alcoholic. You are.

Alice Cooper23:37

He says, you've got these two personalities, right? Yeah. Alice is the healthy one.

Presenter23:40

Yeah.

Alice Cooper23:41

He's the one that's working and not drinking and not taking drugs and and he's doing his job. The other 22 hours during the day is you.

Alice Cooper23:51

You're the problem. It's not the monster. It's Dr. Frankenstein. You know, I thought about it. I went, wow, you're right.

Presenter23:58

Tell me then about your next track. What are we going to hear?

Alice Cooper24:00

Well, now our band devoured records. We loved records from England because it seemed the English bands were very creative and they were doing all these things. And we put on this record called In the Court of the Crimson King, King Crimson. And all of a sudden, this song, 21st Century Schizoid Man, I listened to it and I said, Nobody can play like that. I've heard thousands of bands. Other than Frank Zapp and the Mothers, nobody plays like that. And it was King Crimson. And I literally was just.

Alice Cooper24:31

Speechless.

Presenter25:01

That was King Crimson and Twentyfirst Century Schizoid Man. So Alice Cooper, how long have you been married?

Alice Cooper25:07

Thirty five years. Cheryl was the first when we did the Welcome to My Nightmare show, which was really the first Broadway type of production, I had one of the guys from West Side Story choreographing the show.

Presenter25:19

And so you f the the love affair with Cheryl happened during this tour or

Alice Cooper25:22

During the tour. And I mean, I was in love. You know, I wi it was just one of those things where she could listen to Rachmananoff or do ballet or do jazz or she could watch Godzilla movies with me.

Presenter25:37

And thirty-five years, I mean, you know, uh famously, uh rock stars and marriages are are not entirely compatible. What what's kept what's kept it together?

Alice Cooper25:44

What's kept it together? Thirty five years. Never cheated on her. She never cheated on me. It was just we were two totally compatible. Both of our pa dads were pastors. I didn't find that out till later. Her dad was a Baptist pastor. We both had the same kind of grounded in a certain morality.

Presenter25:58

Right.

Presenter26:03

You said a very affecting thing after you'd been through your treatment for alcoholism and and all of the therapy and the programme and so on.

Presenter26:11

You were worried that she wouldn't love you because she'd fallen in love with you when you were drunk.

Alice Cooper26:16

That was it. One of our biggest songs was How You Gonna See Me Now that I wrote with Bernie Toppin. I said, Cheryl has never met me sober.

Presenter26:19

Yeah, Robert.

Presenter26:20

Yeah.

Presenter26:24

Yeah.

Alice Cooper26:24

I said, We've been married, what, five years now, six years. You know, I hope that uh it's going to be the same as it was before, but better.

Presenter26:34

And how was it?

Alice Cooper26:34

And how

Alice Cooper26:35

It was oh, are you kidding? I mean, she was like elated.

Presenter26:38

And by that time you already had was it one child you already had?

Alice Cooper26:38

Bye.

Alice Cooper26:41

Calico was just born. And that was another reason for me to stop drinking. Was it? Yeah. My daughter's twenty nine and I think I stopped drinking pretty much when she was born.

Presenter26:43

Right.

Presenter26:45

Was it?

Presenter26:51

And you have two other kids now. You have three kids all together.

Alice Cooper26:52

Dash is 25 now and Sonora is 17. They were all born backstage, pretty much.

Presenter26:55

Right.

Presenter26:57

Did you ever have any reservations about introducing them to that world of albeit very theatrical debauchery? But you know, a lot of the images are incredibly powerful.

Alice Cooper27:05

At this point I was sober though.

Presenter27:07

Yeah.

Alice Cooper27:07

I could be very honest with them. If they said, Dad, did you ever take drugs? I would say, yes.

Alice Cooper27:13

And what did it feel like? It felt great, but it almost killed me on every level. It killed my creativity, killed financially, almost killed my marriage. And I said, every way it's destructive.

Presenter27:28

And it did almost at one point destroy your marriage. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you were divorced papers were filed and all of that stuff.

Alice Cooper27:29

Oh, yeah. Yeah. You were divorced papers were filed and all of that stuff. Everything. And then we finally, just uh, you know, on the way in, I grabbed we went in a a closet and I said, This is wrong.

Presenter27:33

And

Alice Cooper27:40

Well, she said absolutely.

Presenter27:41

On the way into courts,

Alice Cooper27:41

Yes. And we walked out and got rid of our lawyers and went to a uh to a a Christian marriage counselor. From then on I had to prove that I was going to be straight and narrow when it came to alcohol. And it worked.

Presenter27:59

Let's have some more music. What are we gonna hear? We're on uh disc number six.

Alice Cooper28:02

Uh another song that made me literally stop the car, this one song came on, uh Jane's Addiction, Been Caught Stealing, that wasn't like anything. It wasn't like any song I'd ever heard. And to this day, it's still one of the most unique records ever made.

Presenter28:03

There's

Speaker 428:19

Being constant.

Speaker 428:21

Once we're down with five

Speaker 428:24

I didn't trust it in

Speaker 428:26

Hey, did you sleep from his bad?

Speaker 428:29

Open s

Speaker 428:30

Just a simple fact

Speaker 428:33

When I want something, then I wanna take for it.

Speaker 428:38

Now what right?

Speaker 428:44

I do

Presenter28:46

That was Jane's Addiction and Been Caught Stealing. We we've talked a lot about the music you've made. It's also interesting, Alice Cooper, that you you've started in or you've been in a lot of movies. You were in Mae West's final film, Sextet. How did that go?

Alice Cooper28:58

How did that go? I was an Italian waiter, which was great because I mean, you know, me showing up in this movie, it was also Ringo, Keith Moon.

Alice Cooper29:07

Timothy Dalton, George Raft. It was all these great people in this movie. So they said, We want you to play this Italian waiter that comes in, brings the food, sits down at the piano and does a song with May West.

Presenter29:19

Right.

Presenter29:20

And how old was May West by this point?

Presenter29:23

And how was she to work with?

Alice Cooper29:23

My biggest flirt.

Alice Cooper29:26

on the planet. She'd go, Why don't you come back to my trailer?

Presenter29:31

Was she kidding?

Alice Cooper29:32

Not kidding at all. I was thinking, well, because you're 86.

Alice Cooper29:39

Then it got to the point where I'm sitting there with all the guys.

Alice Cooper29:44

And once somebody mentioned, you know, she came on to me.

Alice Cooper29:47

And this kid goes, Yeah, she came on to me too.

Alice Cooper29:50

Shoot.

Presenter29:51

Yeah.

Alice Cooper29:51

Through that invitation to everybody in the cast.

Presenter29:54

It's crushing to find out you weren't special then, she wasn't.

Alice Cooper29:56

Oh yeah, I thought she would just thought I was amazing and I was gonna be the one that goes back to her.

Presenter30:00

Your father lived to see you sober.

Alice Cooper30:02

Yeah.

Presenter30:02

Yeah, I'm imagining that meant quite a lot to him.

Alice Cooper30:04

No, I think so too. And he got to meet two of the grandchildren too, which was great.

Presenter30:09

And did he live to see you come back to Christianity? I mean, obviously, with his background in the church, that had been part of your early life, but I'm imagining for many years you'd left it well behind.

Alice Cooper30:17

He saw me on my way. I think he knew that I was on my way back.

Presenter30:20

Yeah.

Alice Cooper30:23

And uh

Alice Cooper30:24

I think he was happy with that.

Presenter30:26

What sort of conversation along with this enduring marriage that you've had for 35 years, you've also had a very long relationship with your manager, which again is very unusual.

Alice Cooper30:37

Three years, 44 years. To this day, we don't have a contract together. Really? Yeah, just handshake.

Presenter30:38

Yeah.

Presenter30:42

Really?

Presenter30:45

I'm wondering how much he worried when you uh y y you don't wear your Christianity on your sleeve, but I'm wondering how much he worried when you found your God again.

Alice Cooper30:53

There was a moment of

Alice Cooper30:56

conflict where I had to sit down and say, I don't know if I can be Alice anymore. And then my pastor says, Well, look where he put you. God doesn't expect you to sit around. He gave you the talent to be who you are. Go be who you are. But there were two things that actually was upsetting the boat. It was that and golf.

Presenter31:16

Yeah. How can we have come this far and not talked about golf?

Alice Cooper31:18

Well, golf was one of those things when I quit drinking. I had to find something that was going to take that time.

Presenter31:24

Yeah. What's your handicap?

Alice Cooper31:25

I'm two, handicapped.

Presenter31:27

We'll talk a little more, maybe about golf and other things in a second, but for now tell me what we're going to hear next.

Alice Cooper31:32

Paul Butterfield

Alice Cooper31:34

was the American version of the Yardbirds. And I wasn't a blues guy, but Paul Butterfield Blues Band put it into a rock blues form that was mind-blowing.

Presenter32:09

That was the Butterfield Blues Band and work song. So Alice Cooper, in a in a typical week then when you're at home, how often would we find you on the golf course?

Alice Cooper32:17

Six days a week. I play every morning, but I get up and I play golf.

Presenter32:21

So it it's not a complicated equation and it seems to make sense. You replaced one addiction with another.

Alice Cooper32:25

Yeah, very easily. I mean, it was it was and golf is the most addictive sport there is. If you hit two good shots.

Alice Cooper32:34

You're going to be addicted. And that's it. That's all you're going to think about.

Presenter32:38

So I'm going to cast you away in just a moment onto the desert island. Presumably, that'll be some kind of hell for you there. It would be. Yeah.

Alice Cooper32:43

It would be. Yeah. It would be only because uh solitude is not part of me. No. You know, I mean the ocean's nice and that'll last for about two, three hours, be great. But then I wanna go do something.

Presenter32:47

No.

Alice Cooper32:54

I don't want to go back and sit in a chair and look at the coconut tree, going, isn't life great? I want to go somewhere.

Presenter32:59

I want to go somewhere. So on this island that I'm send about to send you to, you'll go what you'll go a bit screwy, you'll you'll sort of.

Alice Cooper33:04

Oh yeah, I've I've totally got on my mind.

Presenter33:07

Let's listen to your final piece of music then. What are we going to hear?

Alice Cooper33:09

Well, Bob Dylan, you know, the poet laureate of America, he's just so ragged. And yet you listen to him and there's so much going on with this guy. As a lyricist, of course, he's way up there. But this I had to pick one song. I could have picked 50 different Dylan songs. But this song, for some reason, always haunted me.

Speaker 333:31

You see somebody naked in you

Speaker 333:34

You say who is that man?

Speaker 333:38

You try so hard, but you

Speaker 333:41

Don't understand.

Speaker 333:44

Just what you will say when you get home.

Speaker 333:50

Because something is happening here but you don't know what it is.

Speaker 333:57

Do you?

Speaker 333:59

Mr. Jones

Presenter34:02

That was Bob Dylan, of course, and Ballad of a Thin Man. So, Alice Cooper, I'm going to give you the books now. You you get to take on to this island as you're cast away at the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can take a book of your own. What are you going to take?

Alice Cooper34:14

Jeez, I should take something that's going to explain Shakespeare to me.

Alice Cooper34:20

Because Shakespeare is not that easy to understand for the middle American kid.

Alice Cooper34:25

I think I would probably take a Kurt Vonnekin book.

Presenter34:27

Okay.

Alice Cooper34:27

Okay. I would probably take I'd probably slaughterhouse five.

Presenter34:30

Okay, it's a

Alice Cooper34:31

Or Breakfast or Champions, either one.

Presenter34:32

You've got to narrow it down, you know. Breakfast of Champions. Okay, that's yours. And I will allow you with a luxury to make life a little more bearable on the island. What's your luxury going to be?

Alice Cooper34:34

Breakfast of Champions.

Alice Cooper34:44

Well, I always say my wife is a luxury. Can't take her. Can't take her. Can't take her. A luxury. Okay. A luxury would be one of those indoor driving ranges.

Presenter34:46

Can't take her. Can't take her.

Presenter34:55

Oh yeah.

Alice Cooper34:55

So where you can actually

Alice Cooper34:58

Program the course in, I want to play Pebble Beach. Boom, it comes up. You're at Pebble Beach. You hit the ball into the screen. It tells you how far you hit it, where you are. Okay, I could live with that.

Presenter35:07

Perfect. Okay, and if I were to force you, if the waves were to crash to the shore and threaten to wash away the discs, which one would you run to save of these disks?

Alice Cooper35:14

I I the one I would say more than anyone else is Paul Butterfield.

Presenter35:17

It's yours. Alice Cooper, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Alice Cooper35:21

Thank you.

Presenter35:21

Yeah.

Presenter36:07

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio Four website bbc. co dot uk slash radio four.