Alice Cooper Interview

September 1, 2007

Alice Cooper visited Homer’s Haunted Mill on Saturday September 1, or as me and the rest of the Michigan football fans will forever refer to it as, a day that will forever live in infamy.

Meeting and subsequently getting to interview Alice Cooper was a definite highlight in a weekend that included such lows as my beloved Michigan Wolverines surrendering to the likes of Appalachian State and the Tigers losing a seven run lead on Sunday.

My overall excitement for the meeting make me seem more of a star struck groupie than respectable journalist, but for me to be the latter, someone would first

have to accuse me of being respectable, so I grudgingly accept the critique. I will be the first to admit that although I played it off as being cool calm and collected, I was resisting the temptation to fall on my knees ala Wayne and Garth and break into “we’re not worthy.” Further adding to the temptation was the fact that night before Alice had played a show in Wisconsin. It took a lot for me not to ask if the show was near Milwaukee and stare blindly waiting for him to take the bait and correct my pronunciation of the native tribe.

Without further adieu, her are some highlights from the interview:

On haunted houses and his fans:

“They would never put me in a convention center. These kind of things are perfect for me, and it’s the kind of thing where … in all reality, we usually do our show, we do a meet and greet in the back and we meet you know 10-20 people.

“There’s never a time where you actually talk to your fans. Every time you actually take that second to write something, ‘what’s your name’… and they always have a story, or some little thing to say and you write about it and you actually have a one-on-one with your fans, and I think more guys should do that.

“This is a perfect venue for that for me, you know with this kind of thing.

“I’m a very accessible rock star. I believe that when I leave my house, I belong to the public. In other words, if you see me at the mall, if you see me at the movie theatre, I don’t hide in my hotel room. I go play golf. I do everything that anybody else would do.

“I never say no to an autograph. I never say no to a photograph. Because where would I be without those people that want those autographs, ya know? I don’t understand guys that want to charge $100 for an autograph. You sit there you go, ‘What? How does that work?”

“It’s the public that made you, and how dare you hide from them. I understand if they’re in your backyard, or if their trying to get into your house, like with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, I understand that could get really annoying … when people are starting to go through your garbage and stuff that gets a little old.

“But most of the people I know, and I was just with Iggy (Pop), and we were at the airport in Miami, and we both stood there for a good twenty minutes signing everything, because, I can’t imagine me not signing that. I can’t imagine me going, ‘I don’t think so’ and walking away, that just wouldn’t be right. 

On Wayne’s World:

“To this day I get ‘we’re not worthy’ at least three or four times a day.”

The craziness of the horror genre:

“I was Freddy Krueger’s father!

“Well, when you’re in the horror genre, and I think horror is basically … there’s a very thin line between horror and comedy. I think horror is so over the top ridiculous, ya know? Especially the more bloody a movie gets, the sillier it gets. Because, it is just so over the top. To me a good horror movie is a good comedy.

“In my show … there’s a lot of horror in my show, but there’s always a punch line somewhere in it. A lot of people don’t get the punch line, but a lot of people do, ya know? And I can look down and they see something that happens and all of a sudden they start laughing and I go ‘Good!’ At least those people got that.

“If you look at any good horror movie - like a movie like The Evil Dead - where you’re watching and it’s sooo bloody, you go, ‘this can’t get any bloodier!’ Then the pipe breaks, and it covers the guy in blood! And you go, ‘ok,’ and your laughing because you say, ‘that’s so over the top, but it’s funny.’ Maybe you don’t think you should be laughing at it, but it’s funny.”

His book, Golf Monster: A Rock 'n' Roller's 12 Steps to Becoming a Golf Addict.

“Everybody knows that plays golf that there is a golf monster, and he lives in all of us. The golf monster tries to get you to cheat. The golf monster will hide your ball in the middle of the fairway, the golf monster will make sure that you lip out on a putt that you need more than anything else. It’ll lip out and go further than where you were. Every single bad thing that happens on the golf course is the golf monster. Even though it’s in us, it’s out there It’s the only real monster that really exists.”

On his alcohol addiction:

“I was drowned in alcohol. I make no bones about that.

“I was throwing up blood in the morning. That was a good horror movie. My bathroom was a good horror movie. My whole body was just revolting against it, saying, ‘Ok enough! You’ve had enough, you have to stop.’

"Went to a hospital, I came out, and haven’t had a drink in about twenty six years now, and … it’s over. It’s gone. But, the first year when you come out, and what you’re used to doing, is getting up in the morning and having a drink very first thing. And the second thing you do is have another drink. And then, pretty soon you sit and watch TV all day and then you do a show that night.

“You have to figure out something that’s gonna take up that time. You have to reprogram your whole life. So, I get up in the morning and I go, ‘ok, my first instinct is to open up a beer.’ Ok, that’s not there anymore. So, my first instinct now, is to get up, have breakfast and tee off.”

“So, I’m on the tee every morning, 6:30-7 o’clock every morning. Some people do yoga, some people go workout, whatever they do. I play 18 holes. That’s just my regimen. And you never get tired of it; I mean I never ever get tired of the game. There’s never been a time where I went, ‘I don’t think I want to play.’ ”

On sleep (or his lack thereof):

“When you’re on the road, you don’t sleep as much.

“You sleep in little segments. You get two hours at night after the show on the bus on the way to the next city. You get in the next city, and your tee-off time’s not ‘til 8 o’clock and you get in at 5:30. So, you get two more hours there. Then, right before the show, I always take two hours. So, you get 6 hours sleep, but it’s in different little segments. You never actually sleep for 6 hours. On a day off you do.”

Capturing an audience:

“Alfred Hitchcock used to build you up to something happening and then … it wouldn’t happen. Then it would happen! So, as you’d let your guard down, and the music would come down, and then it happens. And your thinking ‘Oh jeez!’  Those are tricks that we use on stage, too.

“A small thing is hard to read on stage, because you’re playing to 15,000 people sometime, 10,000 people sometime. Even in a theatre, if it’s something that not everybody’s gonna pick up on, then it’s not really worth doing. You’ve gotta do something that the whole audience is buying into.”

On Grindhouse, the double-feature film consisting of the Robert Rodriguez directed Planet Terror and the Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof:

“I liked the first one (Planet Terror), but the second one, Tarantino’s just too much dialogue. We were sitting around the table and I go ‘come on!’ The girls kept talking and talking and that’s not my kinda flick.

“The first one was great, you had zombies, you had a girl with a machine gun on her leg. You had everything that I’ve ever paid for in a movie. The dumber the better for me. I only rent movies where if I look at the cast and it’s anybody I’ve ever heard of, I don’t rent it. I like the movies that are just totally off the wall.”

Parting words:

“Hit ‘em straight.”