Alice Cooper has been called many things over the years. The Godfather of Shock Rock. A theatrical genius. A menace to society and youth. A Bible thumper, hardcore alcoholic, benevolent husband and father. And—most controversially—an obsessive golfer. But one thing that hasn’t been clear until now and by the man himself is that he’s also a compulsive liar.
Well…with a caveat. Perhaps a former embellisher, exaggerator, or teller of tall tales, especially when it came to grabbing attention and headlines early in his career for “Alice Cooper.”
First the name of his band, and then his own persona and legally adopted name. The flip side to the fresh-faced high school track star and avid churchgoer born Vincent Furnier. And at the age of 78, it’s finally time to come clean.
That he does and much, much more in the lengthy and detailed Devil on My Shoulder (464 pp., $32.50, Da Capo). As he merrily regales his life story in and out of music, the text is sometimes interrupted by “Alice” who challenges the author (and himself). About things he’s said in decades of interviews, claims by bandmates and manager in their books, and even in his own previous two autobiographies: 1976’s Me, Alice (written with Steven Gaines) and 2007’s Alice Cooper, Golf Monster (written with Keith and Kent Zimmerman).
Take the famous “Chicken Incident.” The group of musical misfits known collectively as “Alice Cooper” was a late addition to the lineup of 1969’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll Revival” concert held in Toronto. That’s where a number of the genre’s originators (including Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Jerry Lee Lewis) shared the stage with contemporary acts like the Doors and, most famously, the ad hoc concoction of the Plastic Ono Band featuring John Lennon (in his first major solo appearance) and a ramshackle group that included both Yoko Ono and Eric Clapton.
The story that got passed around in the pre-internet age is that Alice himself, in a bit of stage show climaxing, bit the head off a live chicken, voraciously quaffed its blood, and then threw the spent carcass into the crowd. That morphed years later into Cooper assuming that a winged creature could fly, tossed it into the audience, where rows of wheelchair-bound fans in the front tore it apart in a frenzy and regurgitated it back onstage forthwith.
The truth that Cooper finally admits to is much more sanguine: Manager Shep Gordon picked up a stray chicken as a possible stage prop and when it was thrown from the stage, a fan simply tucked the animal under his arm for safekeeping. Though the chunks of watermelon that Cooper had also just chopped up on stage did look like bits of raw meat…
Thus, Devil on My Shoulder is the most truthful account of the preacher’s son who got his idea for a guillotine to “execute” him onstage nightly from a high school shop class. And with a group of friends including Neal Smith (drums), Dennis Dunaway (bass), and Glen Buxton and Michael Smith (guitars) decided to throw their influences and likes of horror movies and TV shows, comic books, Broadway musicals, women’s and biker fashions, and whatever other fun or weird thing they embrace into a blender. To create music and a show that was largely unprecedented and sure to shock any self-respecting PTA board.
Cooper covers the band’s early struggles—including performing in front of indifferent and sometimes hostile audiences, the flush of success, the inevitable problems with artistic control and substances, and the split of the original group. After which Cooper found significant solo success but clearly listened to that devil on his shoulder more than any better angels.
Interestingly, throughout Devil on My Shoulder he explains (fairly successfully) how he justifies being a decent guy and devout Christian in real life with having his evil alter ego delve into the most violent and sadistic levels of physical, mental, and emotional horror acted out on stage and in his lyrics. It’s all a show (‘70s pals Groucho Marx and George Burns even recognized it as a “new sort of vaudeville”). And that exploring the Dark Side of humanity in rock and roll doesn’t mean succumbing to it.
And while he’s written and talked extensively over the years about his alcoholism and bottoming out/recovery/relapse cycles and even dabbling with cocaine, here he goes in detail for the first time about his hidden addiction. Cooper was heavily freebasing cocaine years before the term “crack” appeared in mainstream media. And revealing that he occasionally partook with his wife, who he met as an 18-year-old dancer on the Welcome to My Nightmare tour.
(Note: For years, wife Sheryl portrayed the sadistic, blood-spattered nurse onstage who tortured Alice nightly. That role eventually passed to their daughter, Calico, and then back to Sheryl!).
In fact, during this time in the early ‘80s, Cooper released four records he calls his “blackout albums.” Meaning he has little recollection of their writing or recording, his shockingly gaunt frame only gracing one of those covers.
Thankfully, Cooper is one of rock’s best survivor stories, and after getting truly clean (and replacing his addiction to booze and drugs with golf and Jesus), he had a comeback in the early ‘90s with the Trash and Hey Stoopid records, and has continued to write, record, and tirelessly tour since then, with detours into acting and graphic novels.
In fact, at a time when he’s just two years shy of being able to sing “I’m Eigh-tee” instead of “I’m Eigh-teen,” Alice Cooper continues to envision his alter ego’s stage shows, be it his current collaboration with illusionist Criss Angel or a fantasy show where he plays a Halloween concert at the Las Vegas Sphere—lit to resemble a pumpkin—with musical progeny Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson.
Throughout Devil on My Shoulder, Alice Cooper (and likely an uncredited ghost writer) tells his life story with wit, aplomb, joy, and honesty—even giving critics and formerly disgruntled bandmates their say. It’s easily the best, fullest, and most accurate of his three autobiographies. And a sometimes dark journey both in fantasy and reality that nonetheless emerges in light.
