Storytime with Alice Cooper

by Nikki M. Mascali
Weekender Editor

Storytelling is an art form that has been around for centuries. At its center is a speaker who uses words to paint a picture in the mind of his audiences. In the case of Alice Cooper, he wants to paint the picture of a nightmare.

“I’ve always been able to tell a story,” Cooper told the Weekender recently while on tour in Melbourne, Australia. “That was the idea behind (‘Along Came a Spider’): Tell a good story about a serial killer with a twist ending to make it something you weren’t expecting.”

Perhaps most unexpected for Cooper was “Along Came a Spider’s” success. Released last year, the CD — Cooper’s 25th — was his highest charting album since the early ’90s.

“Every time you do a record, you just don’t know what’s going to happen with it,” Cooper said. He has a few songs for album No. 26 and will begin work on it next year.

It shouldn’t be shocking that Cooper would tell the tale of a serial killer and his victims. The singer — born Vincent Furnier — spearheaded the shock-rock genre, and his stage show over the years has included guillotines, snakes, electric chairs and the demise of a live chicken.

“I know who my fans are. I’m really at that point where I’m not trying to break new ground,” he admitted. “You really don’t think ‘This record’s going to open up a whole new audience for me.’ If I was thinking like that, I’d probably be doing rap and then just quit the business.”

Despite sticking with what he knows, Cooper is once again pushing the envelope live on his Theatre of Death tour, which brings the macabre to NEPA Tuesday, Sept. 22 at the Scranton Cultural Center. The show showcases four phases of Alice Cooper — and four different deaths of Alice.

“And of course, he just keeps coming back,” Cooper said, chuckling.

Cooper and his band — bassist Chuck Garric, guitarists Keri Kelli and Damon Johnson and drummer Jimmy DeGrasso — rehearsed 10 hours a day for a month to perfect the act.

“It was really worth it in the end,” he mused. “I think you have to step outside your comfort zone every once in a while and do something onstage that you’re really not sure of. When you’re done, you’re like, ‘How’s the audience going to take this?’”

Especially since one scene in particular struck a sort-of disturbing chord with Cooper himself.

“There’s this one part where I attack the nurse and I take her wig off and I have the wig on. I have her dress on and they’re going to hang me,” he paused to laugh. “Being hung in the nurse’s outfit and I’m singing ‘I Never Cry,’ probably our prettiest ballad, and I’m going, ‘How weird is this?’ Even weird for me. That takes it to another level.”

It’s a level that couldn’t be further from the real Alice Cooper. Off-stage he has been married for 33 years, has children and is an avid golfer. The former alcoholic has also been a devout Christian for the past 20 years and doesn’t see why someone can’t be religious and a rocker, even one that shocks.

“I mean, why not?” he said. “Christianity, I think, gets confused a lot of times with church. Church is a byproduct, I think, of Christianity. Christianity is a one-on-one relationship with you and Christ.

“It’s great to have a stress-free life — a lot of that has to do with my relationship with Christ, but I don’t see why that means I can’t be an artist. I’m sort of the opposite of a wolf in lamb’s clothing. I’m a lamb in wolf’s clothing,” Cooper said, laughing.

And what would stage Alice think of Alice on the links?

“Alice and golf never really do meet. The character never would ever play golf,” Cooper said. “The Alice you see on stage would hate golf. Of course, he’d hate everything that I love, but that’s what’s fun about playing a character that’s opposite of you.”

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Alice Cooper, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 8 p.m. at the Scranton Cultural Center, 420 N. Washington Ave., Scranton). Tickets: $33-$48 available at all Ticketmaster outlets, Ticketmaster.com, charge by phone and SCC box office. Info: alicecooper.com, 570.344.1111