Alice Cooper Gets Bored

12/03/08 3:43pm

by Keith Carman (CHARTattack)

Alice Cooper is renowned for creating the shock rock genre. The likes of W.A.S.P., Gwar and Marilyn Manson have all shamelessly stolen from him. He cuts off his own head, licks pythons and strangles nurses on stage. It apparently all gets a little boring, though.

"A show like ours has a tendency to get stagnant," admits Cooper, who recently toured Canada in support of his solid new album, Along Came A Spider.

"Well, at least it does for us. It's the kind of show that's written, directed and choreographed. We have to do that in order to apply all of the theatrics.

"When you're doing the same thing every night, hitting your marks exactly, it runs the risk of becoming dry. I don't want it to get stagnant, so we change it every night. We keep it organic so the show keeps changing.

"The first part of the show is very loose. I tell the band to stay loose and rock. I don't want to make it so stiff that it looks like a Broadway play. It's rock. There's not one moment in the show that's not guitar rock. I'd never let it get soft, syrupy and stupid."

Cooper recently completed the successful tour and says despite all the planning, staging and rehearsing that goes into his exhibitions, nothing ever comes off perfectly.

"There are always mistakes," he says with a laugh. "Sometimes they end up being the things you keep in the show. I've spent thousands of dollars on an effect and the people go, 'Meh.'

"I go, 'Wait a minute! That was great! Why didn't the audience go for that?'

"Then, someone might slip and fall at exactly the right time, and everyone loves it. I go, 'OK, do that again tomorrow night... Slip and fall down again at that same spot as tonight and, if the audience loves it, we're keeping it in the show.'

"Every once in a while you get a mistake or something that just happens out of nowhere and if it makes an audience react, do it again. If it works, it works."

Along Came A Spider works. It might be Cooper's best album in the last decade. Cooper's inherent ability to tell a warped tale (this time it revolves around a serial killer and his infatuation with turning victims into a spider) and his guttural musical drive translate perfectly to the stage. Then again, as the principal writer and visionary for the stage show, Cooper says it couldn't have gone any other way.

"Spider is just so set up for a stage show. I have to admit that I cheat towards the stage when I'm writing the lyrics. I know it'll read better than if I don't write a line. I can get away with something if I write a certain line.

"That's the beauty of being the writer and the performer: it's your show so you can cheat all you want."