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Just another neo-depraved, decadent, transvestite rock band

Author: Meridee Merzer

America deserves a rock group like Alice Cooper — a rock group that would send anybody's parents up the wall in disgust and horror.

Every decade of rock has had it deliciously repulsive and immoral demi-gods. In the fifties, it was Elvis; in the sixties, the Stones. And now, in the seventies, we have a neo-depraved, decadent, semi-transvestite band that would make most parents retch — good old Alice Cooper. Their music is loud and sensual; their act has the lead singer straitjacketed and electrocuted.

Wow, are they ever appalling! Alice Cooper should really make it big. "Sure," says Alice, "We're anti-heroes."

"Once the parents hate you, the children suck you up," noted drummer Neal Smith, looking the very picture of neo-depravity. "I suck the children up, especially those little 14-year-old sweethearts."

You know Alice Cooper are a bit out of the ordinary when you discover Alice, the lead singer, is a man. He's used that name before that?

"Mary," he deadpans.

"We picked Alice Cooper because it's such an American name, and aren't we the most all-American group you've ever seen?"

"He used to be Miss America," Neal adds helpfully.

"We're third generation rock," Alice explains. "First generation with the fifties. Second generation was the Beatles, Stones, Airplane, and all the English groups.

"You take a second-generation San Francisco group. You get a little tired watching them onstage, right? But when you see us, there's so much energy flowing off the stage. That's third-generation rock. We're bringing stage presence back. What's interesting, man, is sex-rock. You don't want to sit and watch a guitarist tune up."

One reason Alice Cooper might have seemed so strange was that they were so original. And being original's pretty strange in the music business. Still, the group wasn't satisfied just having people like Frank Zappa think they were solid and innovative.

They wanted to reach a mass audience, especially younger kids. They've just begun to do that with a hit single, "Eighteen" and their third LP, "Love It Do Death" (Warner Bros.).

"We play better for the younger kids," Neal notes. "They're a lot more open-minded. At a lot of colleges we play for, they just sit there and go, 'Big deal.' They've already made their decision about how a group should be — like the Beatles, the Stones.

"We were in a plane the other day, and there was this little kid, about 8 or 9. Somebody was wise-cracking about who we were, that we were the Beatles or something, because we had long hair. And the little kid goes, 'They're not the Beatles. The Beatles are for old people.'"

"That was the best thing that I'd ever heard, man — fantastic. You see, he's growing up, and his mother and father are saying how the Beatles are great, and the little kid goes, 'Well, I've always heard them, and now I'm looking for my own group. That's what kids are looking for now — their own group to relate to."

That's what A.C. are — hard core, third-generation rock. And the reason Alice won't tell you his real name is because he fears that his father, an Arizona minister, will get defrocked or something for producing a son who's notorious rock 'n' roll freak, a son who wears lame jumpsuits and eyes ringed with sunbursts of black eyeliner onstage. Alice might have a good point there.

"Actually, you have to realize that Alice Cooper offstage is much different from Alice Cooper onstage," Alice explained while relaxing after a Spectrum concert, lying prone on a table in his black body stocking.

Although their onstage manner is weird and rather menacing, Alice and Neal — once they'd stopped sending up local journalists — turned out to be remarkably straight-thinking guys. A friend who visited them at their Detroit home said they spent the afternoon drinking beer, eating pizza and playing baseball. Maybe Alice was Miss America.

They feel their early transvestite image is exaggerated. They don't do that onstage anymore, though they do wear make-up, leading to homosexual connotations. Contrary to rumor, they seem very hetero.

"We haven't had any trouble with the gay lib, but we have had trouble with women's lib, because they think we're using them because we're dressing in their clothes. But we're not really," Alice says, pointing to his flat chest. "Does this look like a woman to you? If I'm a woman, I'm the ugliest woman in the world.

"Our trip is a theatrical thing. A lot of people forget that musicians should be actors. Groups like the Bonzos did that but they came off funny. We came off vicious. It should be like rabies. Our act used to be terrifying, but not it's more sensual than terrifying."

A.C. have been through many image changes in the six years together since high school and college.

"We changed names a few times," Alice recalls. "We were the Husky Babies. Then we were the Spiders. In fact, every once in a while, we think of changing back to that — Alice Cooper and the Spiders, mmmmm."

Early Alice Cooper seemed like the group would all eventually end up in a private insane asylum in the wilds of Nebraska. "Yeah," Alice admits. "But we didn't want to carry it to the freak level. That's what Frank (Zappa) thought when he first saw us, because we repelled a lot of people. People walked out from us by the hordes."

"That was also because we couldn't play very well together," Neal suggests. "It was raw, so raw people couldn't relate to it."

"So as it is now," Alice says, "the music comes first with us, and the theatrics always come natural."

Now, let's not give the wrong impression of Alice Cooper. Like we said, they're a real American group. Wholesome, loveable. The Warners promo woman helpfully notes that the only person who sent her a Valentine this year was Alice Cooper.

"My mom loves me," Alice declares staunchly. "My parents came in for one of my shows. They don't really understand it, but they like it. I just built them a pool in their backyard, so they may not understand me. But they can't criticize me."

Gee, gosh, and golly! What a relief to know that Alice Cooper are just regular guys. So what if Neal carries their pet boa constrictor around in his tapestry shoulder bag? You know, Neal used to have a surfer haircut just like Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. Wonderful, wholesome boys, all of them. Hooray, America!

"Excuse me," Alice Cooper says, "I have to do a one." End of interview. Neal says I can pet the snake.