Catching up with Alice Cooper ahead of his Dallas show

In an age of book-banning and classroom censorship, Alice Cooper is as relevant today at 75 as he’s ever been.

A quick history lesson: In the ‘70s, the former Vincent Furnier became one of rock’s biggest stars with a theatrical show chock full of snakes, beheadings, hangings and sundry other scenes borrowed from B horror movies.

But part of mainstream America lost its mind. He was pulled from TV and had concerts canceled and records burned by religious fanatics who claimed he was promoting satanism.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The son of a preacher and a born-again Christian himself, Cooper said the uproar was the classic case of people jumping to the wrong conclusion.

“Our show is so over-the-top theatrical that people forgot to listen to the music,” he says today. “We pissed off every parent in America because we had hit records and nobody was expecting anything like us.”

I talked with Cooper by phone from a recent tour stop in Columbia, Mo. (He performs Aug. 24 in Dallas at Dos Equis Pavilion). These are edited excerpts from our conversation.

On Aug. 25 you’re releasing your new concept album, Road, which you recorded with your touring band and longtime producer Bob Ezrin. How different is life on the road today, compared with the late ‘60s and early ‘70s?

Well, the road’s so much easier now. The hotels and tour buses are a hundred times better. But back when you’re 20 years old, everything’s cool. You don’t care. You’re bulletproof. You could do 25 shows in a row and not be tired, you know?

I’m guessing one big difference between then and now is sobriety. Was there a turning point that caused you to quit drinking in the early ‘80s?

Yeah. You know, I could have easily been in “The 27 Club.” I used to drink with Jim Morrison all the time. I used to get high with Jimi Hendrix. Janis Joplin would drink us under the table, but what we didn’t know was she was also doing heroin. Honestly, if we would’ve known that, we would’ve [tried to get her to stop]. I didn’t know anybody who did hard drugs back then.

I used to drink all day, but I was highly functioning. Never missed a show. But then one day I woke up and threw up blood and my wife said, “OK. That party’s over.” And I went in the hospital. Forty years later, people say, “You were a cured alcoholic.” But no, I was a healed alcoholic. I was a modern-day biblical miracle. God just took it away from me. I walked in that hospital and never even had a thought of having a drink or a drug after that.

Your grandfather and your dad were both evangelical pastors. What did your dad think of your life and your career?

My dad was one of the coolest human beings on the planet. He was a big band fan, but when he first heard the Beatles and the Stones and the Yardbirds, he went, “Those bands are really good.” So he had no problem with the music.

He said, “As a pastor, the only part that I can’t condone is the lifestyle, the drinking, drugs and sleeping around.”

He knew my sense of humor, so he understood the Alice Cooper part. There was never anything in the Alice Cooper show that was satanic or anti-Christian. There was really no politics at all. I always kept it on a dark comedy vaudeville level.

I read something recently that said, “The smartest people in the world enjoy the darkest humor.” Well, there you go. Look at Monty Python. That was some of the darkest stuff ever, and yet we can’t get enough of it.

Yet your dark humor really riled up the religious right in the ‘70s and ‘80s. It’s almost like they went on a witch hunt for you and other rock musicians. Was there a particular moment back then that seemed like the height of absurdity?

Right now is the height of absurdity. We are living in such a Kurt Vonnegut world right now, where “he” is “she” and “they” is “them.” You don’t know what pronoun to use. Now you can’t call your mother “Mother.” You have to call her your “birth person.” You’re sitting there going, “When did this happen?” It’s just one of those things where I can’t keep up with it.

Of course you respect everybody. And I don’t have any problem with [transgender people]. But it’s become a fad now. The thing that bothers me the most is when we start instilling into a 7-year-old kid that he can be a boy or a girl. I think we should quit confusing our kids. It’s cruel to them. Let them be what they are until they get to be the age of sexuality, and let them choose then.

It’s gotten ridiculous. If you say the wrong thing now, you’re fired. That really frightens me. That [free speech] part of America’s gone now. It’s just weird.

But again, I don’t get political. I think everybody understands I’m sort of like Mel Brooks: Make fun of everybody, but nobody’s insulted.

One of your most memorable Dallas concerts was in 2015 at Good Records, when you joined a surprise reunion of the original Alice Cooper band. The show was the brainchild of Good Records co-owner Chris Penn, a huge fan, and it turned into the album/DVD Live From the Astroturf. What was that experience like for you?

It was so funny because, first of all, when the band broke up [in 1974], we didn’t break up with bad blood at all. We didn’t even divorce. We separated. We just became totally dysfunctional with each other. We made five giant albums, did the biggest tours and then we just burned out and everybody wanted to go out and do their own albums.

But I stayed in touch with Dennis [Dunaway] and Neal [Smith] and Mike [Bruce] and they called me up and said, “We’re going to do this thing at this record store when you’re in Dallas on tour.” And I said, “Oh yeah? I’ll be right down.” I didn’t know it was going to be a record. But I listened to it afterward and I said, “Great! That’s what the original Alice Cooper band sounded like!” It was like we hadn’t ever separated.

You’ve lived part-time in Maui for years. Did the fires affect you and your neighbors?

We live in Kihei, on the other side, in a house that overlooks the whole ocean, and the fire didn’t get near us. You have two mountains on each side, and it creates a wind tunnel, and at the end of that wind tunnel is Lahaina, so when it sparked it was just like getting hit with an atomic bomb. I still can’t picture Lahaina being absolutely wiped off the map.

My manager, Shep [Gordon], lives right on the beach below us and I told him, “Use our house, it’s got six bedrooms, find somebody that lost their house and put them in there.” Well, he found a guy and his wife and five kids and we said, “Stay there as long as you want. We’re going to be there in January, but stay as long as you can.”

Everybody on the island that owns a house has got people living in it now that are homeless. The whole island’s like that. It shows you the kind of community that’s there. It’s the whole “aloha” thing. Everybody’s helping everybody out.

Details

“Freaks on Parade” with Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie, Ministry and Filter, 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 24, Dos Equis Pavilion, Dallas. Livenation.com