Alice Cooper
Mon., August 29
If you're a right-wing rock journalist," says Alice Cooper, "I'm in your corner all the way."
Well, that's all that's needed if I'm looking for support from rock icons making great music into their fourth decade. If he's looking to confound expectations, Alice has already succeeded with a string of fine albums beginning with 2000's Brutal Planet. His latest is Dirty Diamonds, which continues to combine all the best of modern Alice: daring lyrics, offbeat characters and sharp melodies couched in a big metal sound.
Alice also continues to celebrate his proud Christian beliefs. Let other rockers dream of running with the devil. Alice dreams of vengeful mayhem with songs like "Run Down the Devil." Stryper would be proud to come up with lyrics like, "I want to take him to the Mercury grill/I hope he's ready for the big blast/ He'll be my ultimate road kill/I'll kick his future up his past."
Alice isn't afraid to take his beliefs on the road, either. "I'll go to where the death-metal bands are in Denmark," he says, "and I'll tell them that they're inviting Satan into their life. These guys think Hell is lying around and getting high with the devil. People wonder what's wrong with me, but I totally believe what I'm saying. This is one of the only times in my life when I'm not going for an effect. This is what I need to say."
Alice won't stand by while some Aussie talk-show host gets some facts wrong, either. Glib douchebag Andrew Denton was frustrated earlier this summer when his guest eloquently defended the war in Iraq. Denton made the wrong assumptions about Alice-not that the rock star was offended.
"I revel in that kind of thing," Alice explains. "It angers me so much when I realize that people are jumping on some anti-Bush bandwagon. I've been misquoted lately on that. Some people are claiming that I said certain rockers were traitors to America. I think they're traitors to rock 'n 'roll. When I was a kid, I'd put The Yardbirds on when my parents talked about politics. Rock 'n' roll was my escape from politics. It still is. Why do you think we're rock 'n rollers? We're morons."
Alice is being modest. He's always built a proudly post-modern path, whether appearing on Hollywood Squares or watching from backstage while being covered by Frank Sinatra. He knows a lot about timeless cool. Check out Alice praising The Stooges in the recent liner notes to the band's reissued debut, or praising his own backing outfit that makes Dirty Diamonds a vital rock record.
"We did this whole album live in the studio," Alice says. "I wouldn't try that with other bands I've had, but these guys are tight. If I want to go glam, they can go glam. If I call out for something that's kind of 'Train Kept A-Rollin,' they can go there. We didn't care about echo on the drums, or defining the bass for depth. We just wanted to be a great rock 'n roll band."
Dirty Diamonds also boasts bizarre settings and sounds worthy of another fine period in the Cooper discography. Alice easily outclassed the challenge of new wave with four albums of skewed garage-pop between 1980 and 1983. Sadly, Flush The Fashion, Special Forces, Zipper Catches Skin, and DaDa remain as criminally underheard as his most recent work.
Those albums were almost forgotten to Alice, too. "I call that my Black-Out Period," he recalls. "I don't remember writing those records, or recording them, or touring with them. I was a totally functional alcoholic, and must've been writing from pure muscle memory. Those are the albums I listen to the most now. I think, 'Wow, what a great song. I wonder what the hell I was thinking when I wrote that?' The only song I've ever regretted writing was 'No More Love At Your Convenience,' because I was trying to do a goof on disco. It ended up being a pretty good disco song."
Alice would make a proper comeback before the end of the '80s, of course. Now he continues to tour off impressive new work and a back catalogue that's properly classic from any period-although you might want to skip '86 to '91. It's no surprise to see him crediting that continued success to more American values.
"Look at the bands from 1968 who are still around," Alice says. "What we have in common is a lot of hit records that still get played, and a different work ethic. You used to make an album, do a world tour, and then do it again. Sometimes you made two albums a year. To me, that still goes. I'm always thinking about the next album. That's old school, but that's me. That's show business." Monday, August 29 with Cheap Trick-PNC Bank Arts Center, Holmdel, NJ, Exit 116 off Garden State Parkway, 201-507-8900; 8 pm.