When you think of the Godfather of Hard Rock and Shock Rock, there is only one person that comes to mind; and he is the best Shock Rock entertainer of all time. He has been performing for over five decades and has not slowed down. Of course, this legendary singer, songwriter and actor is the one and only Alice Cooper! With his distinctive raspy voice and his show that involves lots of blood, snakes, a guillotine and very sharp swords that Alice told me are very real and he has branded all his band at one time or another when they have gotten too close! I had the privilege to talk to him about his upcoming tour and whats in store for fans for 2018 and how he keeps busy during his off time.

Alice tells me he plays golf six days a week and that 37 years ago, he realized that he has an addictive personality, and said “I had to find an addiction that was not going to kill me and golf was that addiction, and it did that. It’s amazing how addictive the game is, I call it the crack of sports and I finally got a few of the guys from the band playing. I got my guitar player and my bass player, and they are as addicted as I am. I mean, one lives in Sweden so they don’t have a very long season to play and my bass player, he’s in a couple of bands so he doesn’t get a lot of chance to play. But for rock and rollers, when we tour, it’s the perfect sport because, you’re on a 90-110 city tour so you’re in a different city every day, you get in in the morning and you have nothing to do all day. So I mean, we tour in the summer time, so every place we go there’s golf courses so we get up, go out and play for a few hours, then come back and do the show that night.” This is one of the reasons Alice is still going strong at the age of 70. He also feels that not being a smoker has a lot to do with having the lung capacity to be able to do five shows a week without a problem and not having stress. Alice says, “I’ve been happily married for 42 years, don’t have financial stress, and don’t have any stress. Everything seems to be absolutely in place, so I’m out touring because I want to tour, not because I have to tour.”

Alice had a conference the other day that he spoke during and told me, “I said if you think you’ve written your best song already and you don’t think you could write better, then you should quit. And if you think you’ve done your best show and the next show’s not gonna be any better, then yeah, you should quit because you’re just treading water. If I asked Paul McCartney right now if he’s written his best song, he would say no. He still has that song somewhere in him. I’m the same way, I absolutely do not think I’ve written my best songs yet, or I don’t think I’ve done my best shows yet.” I think I speak for any fan of Alice Cooper and wonder what could be in store for us if he still has better songs and better shows to come. Wow, do we have more great things to look forward too!

With so many albums and so many songs, I asked Alice how do you choose what songs you are going to play and he stated, “If you’re in The Who, or if you’re in The Stones, or if you’re in Alice Cooper, or Aerosmith, there are at least 15 songs out of the 25 songs you’re gonna do that you have to do, that the audience demands. I mean if you don’t do them, they’ll be mad, they’ll be angry. So that gives you about 10 more songs that you can play around with. I’ll do two songs off the “Paranormal” album, then I’ve gotta do “Feed My Frankenstein” because that’s the Frankenstein bit with the guillotine, so it boils down to one or two songs and it’s a challenge because people want to hear this song or that song. So what I try to do is find a couple of songs that they’re not expecting you to do. You know, a couple of songs from obscure albums that only the fans would go, “Awww, I never thought they’d do that one!” I like to do “Halo of Flies,” which is a nine and a half, 10 min song. And that’s another one of those songs that a lot of people would never expect us to do, but it shows the band off. I’ve got this touring band that’s probably the best touring band out there. My drummer just got named best drummer in rock and roll, Glen Sobel. I’ve got this all-star band that every single night, they just kill it and that makes my job a lot easier, when I know the band is having fun. And on top of it, they’re all best friends so there’s never any arguing, there’s no nit-picking, there’s no ego; everybody’s just having fun.”

Alice says that he is honest with his band and has told them when they joined the band that there are three things that he can guarantee them. He said, “I will guarantee you, you’re gonna get paid, you’re gonna see the world and you’re gonna get stitches.” I said, “stitches”?? Alice laughs and says, “If you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time of the show…I don’t use rubber swords or rubber knives, you know? Everyone in the band at some point has gotten a nick where they had to get 2 or 3 stitches. And it’s their badge of honor and they show it off proudly. Nita got one right on the arm, she just got a little too close to the dueling sword, when she first got in the band and she was like, ‘Fuck, I got my stitches!’ You know its like getting a tattoo,” Alice says. “It’s fun, I mark my people well!”

Alice just put out a new single called, “The Sound of A” and Alice tells me the interesting meaning and story behind the song that he calls, “the strangest single that we’ve ever put out.” He said, “In 1968, I think, we lived in Venice, California. Pink Floyd was living with us, because they ran out of money. And I’m playing the guitar in the other room, and I may have had some foreign something in my system, in 1968 of course! And I never wrote a song where I wrote the music and the lyrics and melody line, and I wrote this little song and I put it on tape. Well, on the last album, “Paranormal,” Dennis Dunaway, our original bass player comes in and says, “Hey, I’ve got these three songs,” and he played me two of his songs, and then he played “The Sound of A” and I said, I remember Dennis, when you wrote that.” And he goes,”Yeah, except that you wrote it.” I had forgotten about it, totally had no remembrance of this song at all.” When Alice records, he records live in the studio. He says, “We don’t layer things over. I surround myself with great musicians. I had Larry Mullen Jr on drums from U2, and I had Roger Glover on bass from Deep Purple. I said, let this song drift off, normally we’re very, very in control of what happens here. I just wanted this thing to float away, and that’s what happened to it. The idea of “The Sound of A” was it was going to be an idea for sort of a sci-fi thing, where the government controlled everybody by piping in the key of A, just one tone, into everybody’s house and that kept everybody on an even keel. You know, if they wanted to change your attitude, they would, like go minor on it, you know? So they were controlling you through sound. And it ends up 50 years later on an album, and everyone loves the song. So I mean, isn’t that weird, how a song doesn’t really have an age to it?”

Having such an impressive long career, I asked Alice what he considers his biggest musical accomplishment to date and he responded, “I really do think the longevity of that fact that there are 27 albums, the fact that we’re still selling out every venue we go to and that I can still book 105 shows every year and sell out every one of them, after 50 years in the business.. that’s the accomplishment right there. If you’re a quality rock band, and you give them quality visuals and you give them a great show every time, they’re gonna come back. And to me, that’s the trick; just doing quality shows.”

Make sure you check out Alice Coopers new album, “Paranormal!”  If you get a chance to see Alice Cooper live, make sure you definitely do.  It is quite a show!