Dali Enjoyed Alice Cooper

12/15/08 12:57pm

by Keith Carman (CHARTattack)

Shock rocker Alice Cooper is quite proud of his recently released Along Came A Spider — and rightfully so.

It's a conceptual album telling the tale of a serial killer struggling with his own mortality while trying to morph into an eight-legged freak. The plot is interesting, the music is edgy, and it finds Cooper back in his comfort zone of cryptic, eerie rock 'n' roll. Even Cooper has to admit he's outdone himself this time.

CHARTattack: Along Came A Spider is one of your tightest efforts in a few years.
Alice Cooper: To me, this is really one of the best-written albums as far as melding together and making the story work. It's an interesting story about a serial killer that definitely has flaws.

When you think of Hannibal Lecter, he's perfect. He's a serial killer, a psychologist, a meticulous planner. This guy thinks he's that, but the more the album goes on, the more you find all these flaws in his personality. He has a romantic side that will get him in trouble. He eventually falls in love with one of his victims and can't kill her. Of course, that's one of his downfalls.

He also has a religious side. In the middle of the album, he has an epiphany. "What if I'm wrong?" That's a great, complex thing to have happen to a serial killer. I can write about that, the one that got away, his salvation... these songs round out the album and make it work.

It is that imperfection that makes people interesting.
Even though he thinks he's infallible, he's totally fallible. He's got everybody on the run, he's created this spider and wraps his victims in silk — very clever. He takes one leg and the police finally realize: eight legs and silk? This guy thinks he's a spider or at least becoming that.

But then you realize it's written in a diary form. Just when you think you've got it all put away, the epilogue comes on and he says, "Well, we've been in this cell for 28 years. We couldn't have done that." All of those murders only happened in his mind and showed up in the diary... or there could be another killer. The audience thinks they have it figured out, but it twists.

Very sneaky.
As a lyricist, I can get away with that.

I tried to figure out what's gonna be the vehicle for this album. Welcome To My Nightmare? Everyone has nightmares, so they can understand that. Alice Cooper Goes To Hell? It's gonna be sort of Damn Yankees: Alice is gonna go to hell and try to con his way out. From The Inside is an insane asylum, anything can happen in there. All those are devices.

With this one, I wondered what the device was to give the audience. At first I wanted to do a radio drama like the old The Phantom Knows with the cliff-hangers.

But then I realized that 95 per cent of the audience has no idea what that is. I only know about it because I like them, but in this world, nobody knows what that is, so I had to figure out something. The best thing at that point was the diary. He was writing it all down and then I had an insight into his brain.

The radio serial seems like a great idea. People would think it was something totally new.
You're right. It would have been great as a radio drama.

When I first thought about it, I thought it would be great to have Billy Bob Thornton and Michael Douglas — my friends — to play the parts of the psychiatrist, the cop or the insane asylum orderly. I think everybody would've loved to do that, but I got to the point where I realized if I explain it too much or explain what'll happen, if I don't give the audience a chance to use their imagination, it won't work.

Great art forces the audience to use their imagination. When I see a Salvador Dali painting, I know what I see. But you'd say, "No, he's not saying that. He's saying this." We all have our own values we place on a crutch or a tongue or a melting watch. It's the same with my show. When you come see it, there are so many images going on, you create your own story. I think that's why Dali liked our show. He saw all these images and created his own stories behind them.

It's like you've always said about bringing a snake on stage: one person finds it sexy, one scary… it's subjective.
Everyone's gonna have a different take on those things. I know a lot of people, when I bring the crutch out to do "I'm Eighteen," they're going, "How dare you make fun of crippled people." Or "I get it, he's saying he's 18, but he's 60. The crutch is very funny. He's making fun of himself." Other people think it's a phallic symbol. Then they ask me and I go, "I dunno… I'm just doing it.'"