Alice Cooper

Alice Cooper

Alice Cooper is an American singer, songwriter, actor, and presidential candidate. He is considered by music journalists and peers to be ‘The Godfather of Shock Rock’ His band, The Spiders, broke into the international music mainstream with the 1971 hit song ‘I’m Eighteen’ Cooper has experimented with a number of musical styles, including art rock, hard rock, heavy metal, new wave, glam metal, and industrial rock.

About Alice Cooper in brief

Summary Alice CooperAlice Cooper is an American singer, songwriter, actor, and presidential candidate. He is considered by music journalists and peers to be ‘The Godfather of Shock Rock’ His band, The Spiders, broke into the international music mainstream with the 1971 hit song ‘I’m Eighteen’ The band reached their commercial peak in 1973 with their sixth studio album, Billion Dollar Babies. Cooper has experimented with a number of musical styles, including art rock, hard rock, heavy metal, new wave, glam metal, and industrial rock. Away from music, Cooper is a film actor, a golfing celebrity, a restaurateur, and, since 2004, a radio DJ with his classic rock show Nights with Alice Cooper. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Ether Moroni Furnier and his wife Ella Mae, née McCart,. He was named after his uncle, Vincent Collier Furnier, and the writer Damon Runyon. His father was an Evangelist in The Church of Jesus Christ, and his paternal grandfather, Thurman Sylvester Furnier,. was an apostle in and President of that church. Cooper was active in his church at the age 11 to 12. Following a series of childhood illnesses, he moved with his family to Phoenix, Arizona, where he attended Cortez High School. In 1964, 16-year-old Furnier was eager to participate in the local annual Letterman’s talent show, so he gathered four fellow cross-country teammates to form a group for the show: Glen Buxton, Dennis Dunaway, John Tatum and John Speer.

They dressed up in costumes and wigs to resemble The Beatles, and performed several parodies of Beatles songs, with the lyrics modified to refer to the track team: in their rendition of ‘Please Please Me’, the line ‘Last night I said these words to my girl’ was replaced with ‘I ran four laps for my coach’ The group got an overwhelming response from the audience and won the talent show. As a result of their positive experience, the group decided to try to turn into a real band. They named themselves The Earwigs. They broke up in 1975 and Furnier adopted the band’s name as both his legal name and his stage name, beginning his solo career with the 1975 concept album Welcome to My Nightmare. In 1966, the band released their second single, ‘Don’t Blow Your Mind’, an original composition which became a local No.1 hit. In 1968, they released ‘Wonder Who’s Lovin’ Her Now’, backed by Alice Cooper’s future future collaborator Todd Rundgren. By the end of the year the band had relocated to Los Angeles to make regular road trips to play shows. Around this time, drummer Neal Smith was also replaced by Neal Smith, who had learned that Alice Cooper had a regular regular regular gig with him. Around the same time, Cooper learned that he had also learned to play the guitar.