STACK #197 Mar 2021

FEATURE MUSIC

they’re just partying like crazy, and you’d look down and there would be Smokey Robinson, and there would be one of The Supremes, and there would be two of The Temptations. Because the Motown guys loved rock’n’roll – they loved the energy that we were producing up there, and they were giving us high-fives and, ‘Yeah, man, that’s the coolest!’ And then we would go to their concerts. "If a bunch of rock’n’rollers with long hair showed up at a Marvin Gaye concert, nobody was in the least bit surprised, because nobody saw it as 'black' music and 'white' music; it was just music. So we were as close with the Motown guys as we were with the rock’n’roll guys.” When asked which of the Detroit Stories particularly tickles his fancy, Cooper admits, “I think Independence Dave might be the funniest character on the album.” This scribe’s favourite album track at present is $1000 High Heel Shoes ; with its sassy brass parts and proper doo-wop BVs, this is Detroit Stories ’ ‘Alice Does Motown’ moment. “I had written that as a hard rock

When writing lyrics and thinking of concepts for Alice Cooper, we wonder whether it feels like the sky’s the limit or can also be a bit of a delicate balancing act. “The balancing act is in how Alice says it,” Cooper offers. “The only person that knows Alice Cooper as well as I do is Bob Ezrin. We talk about Alice in the third person, because he’s a character I play. So we’ll be writing a song, and I’ll write a lyric, and he’ll look at it and he’ll go, ‘Ah, I don’t think Alice would say that,’ and I go, ‘Yeah, you’re right; Alice wouldn’t sing it that way’. So we treat Alice as a character and Bob is the only person I would trust to even know what that character is about. He’s a villain, but he’s funny And he’s very arrogant, but at the same time he can slip on a banana peel any time, you know? And so it’s fun to play a character that you’re nothing like. I mean, this Alice character is my favourite rockstar, because I get to play him!” Love It To Death (“the album that broke us out of Detroit”) was released 50 years ago this month. “People thought that I did this Detroit

Nobody saw it as 'black' music and 'white' music... We were just as close with the Motown guys as we were with the rock'n'roll guys

song,” Cooper reveals, “and then [producer] Bob Ezrin and I both looked at each other and went, ‘This thing really wants to go Motown, doesn’t it? Let’s let it go where it wants to go.’ And we just said, ‘Absolutely!’ Any other album we

Cooper chuckles and then enlightens, “Now this is a wonderful love song, you know, because the people that lived under the bridge – in every single city you have

album to honour that anniversary, but it was just a coincidence,” Cooper tells. “I don’t live in the past at all.” After pointing out that the material for both Pretties For You and Easy Action – Love It To Death ’s successors – was written “when we were in high school... pre-Alice Cooper,” Cooper acknowledges, “ Love It To Death was the first time that we played a record all the way through, and I went, ‘Alice Cooper now has an identity; we have a sound.’ And Killer sounded like Alice Cooper, School’s Out sounded like Alice Cooper, Billion Dollar Babies ... So when people heard [songs from these Ezrin-produced albums] on the radio, they went, ‘Oh, there’s Alice Cooper!’ “I mean, think of the Bee Gees: when you hear the Bee Gees, it can only be the Bee Gees, you know? When you hear AC/ DC, that could only be AC/DC. And so that’s what we wanted. We wanted that signature sound, and that’s what Bob gave us…What George Martin did with The Beatles is what Bob has done with me..."

the homeless, and they have their own society, they have their own way of doing things. And here’s a guy that lives in a box, and he’s got a bottle of wine, and he has a

never would’ve done that – we would’ve said ‘no, no, no’ – but I said, ‘This is gonna be a welcome song on this album.

girlfriend that lives in a box. And he’s going to her, ‘Hey, why don’t you come over and

“And same thing with the blues song [The Velvet Underground cover, Rock & Roll ]. I said, ‘We’re gonna get Joe Bonamassa to play blues on this; he’s the best blues player around right now. And I’m gonna play harp on it, and Steve Hunter’s gonna play guitar on it.’ So you’ve got blues, you’ve got punk, you’ve got all these different Detroit sounds coming off, and it’s one band doing the whole thing!” And then there’s that contender for Best Opening Line Ever: “I saw you, baby, and I pissed my pants...” ( Drunk And In Love ).

live in my box with me?’ And it’s just as valid a love story as Romeo And Juliet ; they are just as much in love as any classic love story. So I was trying to say that it doesn’t matter where you are; if you’re in love with somebody, it’s valid. Just because you’re poor, doesn’t make it not valid.”

Detroit Stories by Alice Cooper is out now via earMUSIC/ Sony.

Continue to read the full interview online at stack.com.au

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