ALICE COOPER Explains How He Keeps His Live Performances Fresh Year After Year

In a new interview with Larry Mac of the 96.1 KLPX radio station, legendary rocker Alice Cooper was asked how he keeps his live performances fresh every time he embarks on a new tour. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “First of all, I surround myself with the best players. Everybody in my band are the best of the best. Our drummer won ‘Best Drummer In Rock’. Nita Strauss was ‘Guitarist Of The Decade’. These are the best players you could find. And they’re all best friend, which is no egos. I said, ‘I want the ego on stage.’ I said, ‘But offstage…’ And they’re just like that anyways. Most bands hate each other. This band hangs with each other every night. And that’s what makes them so good. So if somebody comes up with an idea — somebody might say, ‘You know it would be good here if we did ‘Go To Hell’,’ that song. And I go, ‘Yeah, we could have [my wife] Sheryl do the whip dance,’ and this and this. ‘Let’s try it tomorrow.’ And if it works, we keep it in the show. But I allow everybody to give their ideas about what should happen. In the end, I make the decision, but we try so many things. If it sounds right, then we’ll try it. And same with the [Alice’s side project] HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES. You’ve got Joe Perry and Johnny Depp and myself, and that band has been together eight years. There’s never been one argument in that band.”Asked if there are any plans for the HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES to tour again, Alice said: “We were supposed to last year, and Johnny got two movies that he had to do. And Joe’s sort of in limbo not knowing what AEROSMITH’s gonna do next. But Joe has his own band that he tours with.”The problem with that band is my schedule has to open, [Joe’s] schedule has to open, Johnny’s… And so we have to do it a year in advance and just say, ‘When are you open, Johnny, to be able to tour? Give us two months. Joe, give us two months. Alice, give us two months.’ And then we can go out on tour,” he explained.”Everybody’s got their own projects going. I mean, especially Johnny. He works like crazy. But [he’s the] nicest guy and a great guitar player.”As previously reported, former GUNS N’ ROSES guitarist Gilby Clarke made his live debut with Alice Cooper on January 31 at Bell Auditorium in Augusta, Georgia. Clarke filled in for Strauss, who unfortunately had conflicting obligations of her own. Previously, guitarist Orianthi had been planning to fill in for Strauss, but due to a recent injury she sustained, Orianthi was unable to do the tour.Cooper pioneered a grandly theatrical brand of hard rock that was designed to shock. Drawing equally from horror movies, vaudeville, and garage rock, the group created a stage show that featured electric chairs, guillotines, fake blood and boa constrictors. He continues to tour regularly, performing shows worldwide with the dark and horror-themed theatrics that he’s best known for.In a previous interview with 96.1 KLPX, Cooper stated about how his stage show has evolved over the years: “It’s so funny because it used to be easy to shock an audience in the ’70s. Now nobody’s really trying — we’re not really trying to shock an audience. I don’t think anybody is ‘shock rock’ anymore, but those elements still remain in the show because they’re fun to watch. It’s still fun to watch the guillotine and the fact that you really buy in to it because of what happens before that. You’re really concerned about this character Alice up there, what happens. And that’s what I like about it. I want the audience to get involved in the show. We don’t do a lot of lasers. We don’t do things like that, because I want the emphasis to be on the character Alice, what happens to him and what he what exactly he’s doing. But all that happens during all these songs that everybody knows — ‘Feed My Frankenstein’ and ‘Poison’ and ‘No More Mr. Nice Guy’ and, of course, ‘School’s Out’ at the end.”Fresh from the success of his latest album “Road”, a concept album about the thrills and spills of touring, Alice is accompanied, as always, by his long-running live band of Ryan Roxie (guitar),Chuck Garric (bass),Tommy Henriksen (guitar),Glen Sobel (drums) and Nita Strauss (guitar).With a schedule that has included six months year in and year out on the road, Cooper brings his own brand of rock psycho-drama to fans both old and new, enjoying it as much as the audience does. Known as the architect of shock-rock, Cooper (in both the original ALICE COOPER band and as a solo artist) has rattled the cages and undermined the authority of generations of guardians of the status quo, continuing to surprise fans and exude danger at every turn, like a great horror movie, even in an era where CNN can present real-life shocking images.With his influence on rock and roll and popular culture long since acknowledged, there is little that Cooper hasn’t achieved in his remarkable career, including platinum albums, sold-out tours and any number of honors and career achievement awards.[embedded content]