It was Salvador Dali who persuaded his pal Pierre Cardin to book the Alice Cooper Band for his new Paris theatre in 1971. Unfortunately, Espace Pierre Cardin it was too small. “When we got to the parking lot, it looked like a total riot had broken out,” bassist Dennis Dunaway, 78, recalls. “Our French chauffeur said, ‘Oh, don’t worry, everybody always riots here’. We thought, fine, when in Rome…” The band’s third album, Love It To Death, was a smash hit and Mick and Bianca Jagger were in the audience. “It was packed, but a huge crowd outside couldn’t get in,” guitarist Michael Bruce, 77, adds. “Someone broke into a car and smashed through the front door while we were playing.” “It was Omar Sharif’s Rolls Royce they broke into,” says Dennis. French media blamed communist agitators for the chaos. But the November 2nd show wasn’t the worst the Arizona rockers ever experienced. That came two years later, in December 1973, at the Toledo Sports Arena, Ohio.
“They were throwing fireworks at us that exploded on stage,” recalls Michael who was rushed to hospital to have a particle of metal removed from his eye. Dennis: “We only lasted four songs. It was a really old venue and they sold beer in cans which became a very nice projectile to throw at us. When they hit the stage, they exploded and suds went everywhere.” The fireworks were cherry bombs – equivalent to one eighth of a stick of dynamite. “One hit the lighting up above us and shards of glass were coming down.” When Michael was hit, “We bailed, we’d already played tough shows but Toledo was the last straw,” Dennis continues. “I played Toledo five years ago and everyone was saying ‘I didn’t throw any fireworks’.”
The Alice Cooper Band broke up 50 years ago, but now they’re together again, with Alice, Michael, Dennis and drummer Neal Smith – everyone except late lead guitarist Glen Buxton who died from pneumonia complications aged 49. Their blistering come-back album, The Revenge Of Alice Cooper, reminds you how musically riotous their brand of hard-hitting shock rock was back then. Yet the Alice Cooper Band started as an arty enterprise at Cortez High School art club, in Phoenix, Arizona, when sickly preacher’s son Vincent Furnier found a kindred spirit in Dennis, bonding through a mutual love of Dali’s surrealism and the pop-art scene. Dennis was known in school not by his name but as “The Artist”. The two friends, who also ran long distance together, decided to start a band and incorporate artistic ideas. They formed The Earwigs, with Glen, playing their inaugural gig at a 1964 talent show wearing Beatles wigs and singing Beatles songs with lyrics changed to sporting themes. Vince was promoted to singer because he was the only one with a good memory for lyrics. The Earwigs became The Spiders and built a strong local following.
Dennis: “Michael was the songwriter, he urged us to stop being a covers group and write original songs instead.” Their Who and Yardbirds-influenced 1965 debut single, Why Don’t You Love Me? charted in Arizona, followed by Don’t Blow Your Mind in 66. By the time they moved to LA the following year, they were calling themselves The Nazz. Dennis: “Our first gig as the Alice Cooper band was in Santa Barbara with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Blue Cheer. Neal had a cast on his foot because he had accidentally been shot in the ankle by Alice” (while shooting rabbits). One early show was at the Venice Beach Cheetah Club, on a pier overlooking the Pacific ocean. “We put the charm on the lady who booked the bands and she put us on a bill with Lenny Bruce.” Their friends’ band GTOs (Girls Together Outrageously) were right at the front screaming for them. “But everybody else was queuing for the exits hurling insults at us because of the way we were dressed.” Michael: “We had long hair and make-up, we were called Alice Cooper…” Dennis: “And we bought our outfits cheap from the women’s section of thrift stores. We dressed androgynously.”
After seeing the audience walk out, Frank Zappa signed them to his Straight Records label. Before that, the GTO’s Miss Christine, Zappa’s babysitter, had arranged an audition for them at Zappa’s cabin home. It was scheduled for 7pm, but they mistakenly turned up at 7am. And played! “Alice had a handholding relationship with Miss Christine, mainly so we could get Frank Zappa to listen to us. We set up our equipment and started playing,” says Dennis. Michael: “He and his wife were asleep. He came down the stairs, his eyes looked like they were closed…” Dennis: “He said, ‘What the hell is going on here?’.”
They would release two albums on Zappa’s label – Pretties For You and Easy Action – but, despite successful gigs with Led Zeppelin, they never felt at home in LA. In 1969, deciding they were “too weird for Hollywood”, they broke away and relocated to Detroit in 1969 where hard new acts like the MC5 and The Stooges were electrifying audiences. “We left town broke, with our tails between our legs,” says Dennis. Dunaway. Their habit of eating in diners, wearing full shock rock regalia, rarely went down well but the US Midwest bought into their high-energy theatrical schtick. New York’s Max’s Kansas City was more problematic – Vince/Alice was arrested for saying “tits” on stage. On the plus side, Bob Ezrin was in the audience and convinced his boss to sign them. He produced their single I’m Eighteen – which attracted serious heavy rotation on radio and became their first US hit, peaked at 21 in the US singles chart. In June 1971, Love It To Death (their third album, and their first on Warners) broke them internationally. “We were just a garage band that had all the right stuff,” Alice has said of their success. “We had the right ideas, the right theatrics, the right sense of humour and the right drive to get this done. We were at the right place at the right time.”
Their act was influenced by horror films, TV, and theatre. They would smash watermelons on stage, rip open pillows, use copious fake blood, and eventually incorporate a guillotine into the act. Pythons were fondled. But contrary to rumour they never killed chickens. One did wandered onto the stage at the Toronto Rock & Roll festival in 1969, and Vince did throw it out into the crowd, says Michael, “but it landed safely at the feet of a guy with a camera; nobody ripped it apart.”
Love It To Death went platinum as did 1972’s follow-up, Killers, before 72’s School’s Out propelled them into the Top 5. The School’s Out single shot to No 1 here, helped by Mary Whitehouse’s campaign against them. Alice sent her flowers. “We knew from the British Invasion here that getting rock press coverage was easy, but getting in the national press meant you’ve made it. Also, we knew that if your parents told you not to listen to something you had to listen to it. Everybody who tried to stop us only poured fuel on the fire.”
More hits followed – Elected (John Lennon’s favourite), Hello Hooray, No More Mr Nice Guy. Dali invited them to the New York’s St Regis Hotel, where he resided, in Spring 1973. There, the flamboyant Spanish genius famously created a 360 degree “cylindric chromo-hologram” of Cooper’s brain – the first hologram. “It included a chocolate éclair and was crawling with ants,” says Michael. “I met Dali a few times. When he spoke, he kept switching languages – French, then Spanish and whenever he reached English, he’d be talking about burning giraffes.” He was also prone to wearing a giraffe-skin vest, gold Aladdin shoes, a blue velvet jacket and sparkly purple socks that had given to him by Elvis Presley. Dali even offered them a painting of his Geopoliticus Child as an album cover, but they never had the songs to fit it.
That same year, their Billion Dollar Babies topped the US and UK charts, and by 1976 it was over. Why? Dennis: “We were pretty burned out from not getting a break. We were touring all the time and when we did get a week off, we’d be told ‘During this week off, write a new album…’. Alice and Glen were heavily into the bottle. We were concerned, but it didn’t make a difference.” Michael: “We tried.”
After 1974’s Muscle Of Love album, they’d agreed to take time off and decompress from their years on the road. They came back with songs for the next album only to find that Alice had released his first solo album Welcome To My Nightmare, and negotiated a new contract that didn’t include them. They only realised it was over when, after a year’s tour, Alice announced another solo LP. They formed new band Billion Dollar Babies, releasing the album they’d written as Battle Axe. It was a wild wide and any bad feeling has been flushed down the toilet of time. They can even laugh at the memory of bikers using a makeshift battering ram to attack the stage at a festival in Michigan. They are beaming with pride about the new album. The first full Alice Cooper band release since 1973 even includes a posthumous appearance by Glen Buxton. Michael: “I wish Glen was still here. It’s sad that he’s not.” Dennis: “He is here in spirit. Glen is always here.” What are you most proud of? Dennis laughs. “Surviving.” Michael: “We broke up prematurely. We were high school kids, we had a dream, and now we’re achieving our dream again all over again. Who gets a chance to do that?” It’s a big deal. They’re having more interviews than showers, they say. Dennis: “It’s a validation of the band, reclaiming our legacy. Who’d have thought, half a century later, we’d be putting our new music?”
*The Revenge Of Alice Cooper by the Alice Cooper Band is released on Friday 25th.