I can’t horrify people like I used to anymore — Alice Cooper

Since 1964, Vincent Furnier has had audiences on their toes as Alice Cooper with his signature makeup and vaudeville antics. He will begin the UK leg of his most recent tour in Glasgow on Monday.

The 76-year-old Godfather of Shock Rock, who is known for his humor both on and off stage, discusses ghosts vs demons, how audiences are more difficult to frighten than ever, his possession of a James Bond vehicle, and the job that truly brings him joy.

Your stage shows are known their over-the-top theatrics. How do you keep on raising the bar when you perform?

It’s a natural thing with me, I don’t even think about it. We’re doing a brand new show now, and yesterday we wrote the show for next year. The creative process is what I love. I find it enjoyable to write the show and piece it all together.

I already have all the songs, but how do you perform them now? How do you present them to the audience within the Alice Cooper parameters and make it fun? I get off on the audience getting off.

We create a dark vaudeville, but there’s humour weaved all the way through. I surround myself by some of the best players around, they’re all best friends.

Did you ever expect to have such longevity when you first started out?

You can ask Mick Jagger that too, and Keith Richards! We never thought we would even reach the age of 30. That was the age we all thought we would retire. I had no idea that 46 years later I would still be doing this and still having fun. It’s amazing my energy level has maintained. I can’t explain it except for the fact that I got sober 41 years ago.

Is there anything else that you do in terms of keeping fit?

When I was a kid in college, I was a 3,000m runner and I think that has a lot to do with my longevity. I’ve always stayed slim, I never got overweight. I can still wear clothes that I wore in high school. I don’t really have to watch my diet, I just don’t eat very much.

It seems to be working so far!

I’ve always said I’ll retire when I physically can’t do it anymore, or when the audience doesn’t show up. That right there tells you you’re done if nobody is showing up. We’ve sold out every show, pretty much. Why would you retire from something that you love doing? I genuinely still get off on it.

Where is the strangest or funniest place you’ve ever been recognised?

I get recognised literally everywhere. I keep forgetting that I’m Alice Cooper. I get off stage and I have three or four months off and I’m not in that role and life adapts, but people still recognise me.

My wife, Sheryl, is like that, too. She has been part of my show for decades and she can still out-dance any 25-year-old. 
I love that I can go on tour and bring home with me, because she’s here.

It’s apt you’re playing shows in the midst of spooky season. Halloween is coming. Do you believe in ghosts or anything like that?

I watch these ghost hunter paranormal shows and I don’t understand if they’re ghosts or if they’re actually demons. I think, from a Christian point of view, once you die, you don’t just float around. You’re assigned one place or another. So what are they really dealing with when they find a little girl in an Irish castle somewhere saying, ‘Help me, help me’? I think that’s actually a demon. It seems more demonic to me, for sure.

For us, it’s like Halloween every night, everywhere – we’re a traveling Halloween all year round. We went out on tour with Rob Zombie and that man personifies Halloween and horror and everything spooky.

Do you still have any dream collaborations?

With Hollywood Vampires I got to work with Paul McCartney, which was cool. He was an honorary Hollywood Vampire. It’s too late now, but as a lyricist I always wanted to write a song with Burt Bacharach. I had songs written and we never got around to it and he passed away.

You love golf but what are some other hobbies you enjoy?

I collect cars. I like unique cars. I found out that I bought a 1963 Studebaker Avanti that belonged to a Soviet spy. I didn’t know that when I bought it, but when I looked at the history of it, they busted a Soviet spy in this car.

I also bought a DB11 Aston Martin and it was in the movie Spectre. There was a little tag on and it says, ‘Engineered and built in London for Mr James Bond’.

How many cars do you have?

I’m not trying to do 100 cars or anything crazy like that.

I have about eight or nine right now, but they’re all cars I wanted when I was a kid but never thought I could afford. They’re not Ferraris or anything, I’ve got a 68 Mustang like the one in the movie Bullitt. Those are the cars I like to buy, that I’d have loved as a little boy.

What’s your top tip for achieving the rock star makeup look?

I have always been the kind of person that wants to do my own makeup, and so does Sheryl. In the new show she plays a character named Marie Antoideath.

She does a full Marie Antoinette, but with the white hair, big white eyes, really scary, and she does all her own makeup. It’s fun to create these characters and make them work within the songs. I don’t even have a tip now, it’s just second nature.

What is something that you are most proud of?

We have three teen centres now in Arizona. Any teenager can come in, and we don’t care about religion, we don’t care what your gender is, your race.

We just said we needed some place for these teenagers to go. We help them to find a talent, to play guitar, play songs, put bands together. We have a rehearsal studio, everything.

It gets kids away from gangs and into bands, and away from what’s really going on in the streets right now. If even one kid comes in and realises that they’re a guitar player, an actor or a singer or a dancer, I’m very proud of that.

We’ve had kids find a passion and reason, and young people who were suicidal now feel they have something to live for. They don’t know who I am. They just think I’m a crazy old man with the makeup, and make fun of me until one of them Googles me and they go, “Oh, that guy!”

It must be fun to still be surprising people even now?

It’s impossible to shock an audience anymore, that has gone. We still include the elements that used to be shocking, but now they’re just theatrical in the modern day.

I think people would feel cheated if they came to my show and they didn’t see the hanging or the guillotine, but it definitely doesn’t horrify people like it used to.

One thing I will say, though, is that the Alice Cooper show has the best live band you’re ever going to hear. Nita Strauss on guitar, our drummer was voted the best rock drummer ever. We have pure energy, we don’t let up, and you’ll absolutely be entertained.

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