Although fans of music and politics are likely aware that Alice Cooper enjoys golfing with fellow Arizonan John McCain, it would be a mistake to assume this indicates the rocker is a diehard Republican.
Cooper, who hits the links almost daily when off tour, has informal small-talk rules with the senator.
“We’ve never talked about anything except basketball,” Cooper says. “He knows that I am extremely non-political.”
Cooper sticks to golf and rock — the good things in life. Well, mostly. Cooper votes, he says, but for “the guy,” not a party. And he won’t say for whom, because he doesn’t think celebrities should influence fans’ politics. (He does, however, admit to being surprised that the presidential popular vote was split about 50/50, describing Obama as a “rock star.”)
As his tour bus navigates a blizzard in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, the man born Vincent Furnier sounds thrilled just to be doing the same thing he’s done since the late 1960s. Cooper didn’t invent shock-rock, but he expanded and molded it, creating a snake-wielding monster of ceremonies who got decapitated and electrocuted on stage.
If Idahoans attending his concert Nov. 21 at Garden City’s Revolution Center assume the madness has slowed down over the years, they’re about to get both shocked and rocked, Cooper says.
He still loses his head nightly.
“A lot of people say, ‘Well, let’s go see Alice. It’ll be nice to see the old guy walk through the songs.’ And they get to the show, and they go, ‘That’s the highest-energy show I’ve ever seen! And he’s 65, almost!’
“Granted, I’m in really good shape,” Cooper adds matter-of-factly. “I mean, I’m in better shape at 65 than I was when I was 30.”
Cooper is not so much a rock star anymore as a legend, he says.
“And when I get on stage, it’s kind of fun,” he explains. “Because you’re a living myth! And people don’t know what to expect.”
From the early days, Cooper created a theatrical element that made his engrossing stage show seem more elaborate than it really was. A major benefit is that he is able to deliver the same performance in every city, no matter the size or snowpack. (That means you, Moose Jaw.)
“I always kept it to the point where Alice was the figure — everything came from Alice,” Cooper explains. “Either he was going to do something, or something was going to happen to him. He was the central figure. So it always kept our show a little bit more low-tech, even though every single song had something going on.”
Cooper’s latest incarnation is a 27-song crowd pleaser split between “glam Alice,” “Nightmare Alice” and a hits-laden finale that includes special covers. He and his band roar through four classics by John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Keith Moon, all in front of a backdrop of gravestones and the dead icons’ photos.
“The audience loves that, because I’m actually a guy who did drink with those guys. It’s not just somebody I admired,” Cooper says. “I kind of say those were my big brothers, and I’m the guy who survived. The show is so much fun, it’s like a party.”
So no looming retirement?
“It’s the last word in my dictionary,” Cooper says. “At this point now, I’m having more fun making records and touring (than ever), and I’m selling out every venue. I couldn’t ask for more, really.”
