Sept. 27, 2020, column:
A fan of the man, not the character he plays
By Mike Haynes
I never was a fan of Alice Cooper.
I am now.
The “Godfather of Shock Rock” personified a gory Halloween starting in the late 1960s with his dark, shaggy, shoulder-length hair, black-circled eyes and leather outfits with skulls on the buttons. Peaking in the mid-1970s, his concerts featured headless baby dolls, a guillotine and fake blood. The pythons he caressed on stage weren’t the “Monty” kind.
Alice Cooper’s lyrics included, “I’ll bite your face off,” and “Love hurts good on a bed of nails.”
No, none of that appealed to me. These days, I do recognize songs such as “School’s Out” and “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” but until looking them up, I couldn’t have told you who sang them.
The past couple of decades, what I knew about Alice Cooper was that he lived in Arizona and played golf.
Then a friend told me about his interview with California evangelical preacher Greg Laurie. That’s what made me a fan of the real man, not the character he plays. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_GW7JL0-0k&t=2s)
Around the beginning of 1964, 15-year-old Vincent Furnier was listening to the radio while painting a house in Phoenix. “It was always the Beach Boys, the Four Seasons, Motown,” he told Laurie last year. “And all of a sudden I heard, ‘She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah,’ and I went, ‘What?’ About an hour later I heard, ‘I want to hold your hand…’ and I went, ‘What?’ There were four songs that I heard. And I went, ‘Who are these guys?’
Like many musicians of his generation, the Beatles had ignited a fire in Furnier, who recruited follow cross country runners and others to form a band. Then he saw the energy and wildness of Pete Townsend and the Who and decided to go a step further with theatrics to back up the music.
After playing as the Earwigs and the Spiders, the young band members picked “Alice Cooper” as their name. Furnier wanted something like “Betty Crocker” that was the opposite of their untamed stage antics. At the time, he thought, “It’s going to irritate every parent in America.”
Alice Cooper eventually became Furnier’s own legal name, and by the time “School’s Out” was a Top 10 hit in 1972, the band had made it big – and Furnier, now Alice Cooper, had started a slide into drug and alcohol addiction.
But a backup dancer in the show, Sheryl Goddard, married Alice in 1976 and helped steer him to sobriety – and back to church.
Both were PKs – preacher’s kids – and Alice now compares his rebellious years to the Prodigal Son. After he threw his drugs away, he said, “I’m done,” and Sheryl replied, “Prove it.” They started attending a Baptist church in Phoenix.
“A lot of people say, ‘I came to Christ because of my love of Jesus,’ Alice told Greg Laurie. “I came to Christ because of my fear of God. I totally understood that hell was not getting high with Jim Morrison. Hell was going to be the worst place ever.
“In fear, I came back to the Lord. But I went to another church, and that pastor preached the love of Christ. And you put the two together, and it was exactly right.”
Alice wondered whether he should drop his macabre stage act, but his pastor told him God may have made him Alice Cooper. “He said, ‘He put you in the exact camp of the Philistines, and you were basically the leader. So now, what if you’re Alice Cooper, but what if you’re now following Christ? And you’re a rock star, but you don’t live the rock star life? Your lifestyle is now your testimony.’”
The restored Christian did remain Alice Cooper but with a more tongue-in-cheek, humorous slant. His new songs began pointing to Christ with lyrics such as “Mercy please, I’m on my knees, You’re my temptation, Go way in Heaven’s name,” and “What about peace, What about love, What about faith in God above.”
And Alice started a teen center in Phoenix called Solid Rock. It offers 12- to 20-year-olds free music lessons, and more important, a place to go.
“It’s an alternative to what’s on the street,” he said. “I watched a couple of 16-year-old kids do a drug deal on the corner, and I went, ‘How does that kid not know he might be a great guitar player? Or that the other kid might be a drummer? And it just struck me right then: Why don’t we open that, give them that alternative to go there?”
Solid Rock has a spiritual foundation, starting with Alice and his partners. “We’re all Christian guys, and the Lord told us to do it,” he said. “So we just obeyed; that’s all.”
Alice Cooper still tours occasionally, but he spends more time on the golf course – six days a week, in fact. The Arizona resident told Laurie that hitting a great golf shot is the same as the high of heroin. “Golf is like the crack of sports,” he said.
But he said his top priority is God. “If you were going to put what’s important in my life, Alice Cooper would be somewhere around fifth or sixth place,” he said. “Your relationship with God, relationship with your wife, certainly, your kids, and now, Solid Rock is a very big part of my life.
“If you become a Christian, what you’re saying is, ‘I’m not God anymore.’ Everybody wants to be God. A lot of guys think, ‘Oh, just another religion.’ And the last thing you want is religion in your life. What you want is Christ in your life.”
Alice chuckled when he mentioned a Christian TV show: “They used to tear my albums up on ‘The 700 Club.’ They’d say, ‘This is the worst person …’ – and now, he’s an agent for Christ. What a miracle that is. And I’m still Alice Cooper. I’m still playing this dark character, but he’s an agent of Christ. Very weird.”
* * *
Mike Haynes taught journalism at Amarillo College from 1991 to 2016. He can be reached at haynescolumn@gmail.com. Go to www.haynescolumn.blogspot.com for other recent columns.
I never was a fan of Alice Cooper.
I am now.
The “Godfather of Shock Rock” personified a gory Halloween starting in the late 1960s with his dark, shaggy, shoulder-length hair, black-circled eyes and leather outfits with skulls on the buttons. Peaking in the mid-1970s, his concerts featured headless baby dolls, a guillotine and fake blood. The pythons he caressed on stage weren’t the “Monty” kind.
 |
| Alice Cooper |
Alice Cooper’s lyrics included, “I’ll bite your face off,” and “Love hurts good on a bed of nails.”
No, none of that appealed to me. These days, I do recognize songs such as “School’s Out” and “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” but until looking them up, I couldn’t have told you who sang them.
The past couple of decades, what I knew about Alice Cooper was that he lived in Arizona and played golf.
Then a friend told me about his interview with California evangelical preacher Greg Laurie. That’s what made me a fan of the real man, not the character he plays. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_GW7JL0-0k&t=2s)
Around the beginning of 1964, 15-year-old Vincent Furnier was listening to the radio while painting a house in Phoenix. “It was always the Beach Boys, the Four Seasons, Motown,” he told Laurie last year. “And all of a sudden I heard, ‘She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah,’ and I went, ‘What?’ About an hour later I heard, ‘I want to hold your hand…’ and I went, ‘What?’ There were four songs that I heard. And I went, ‘Who are these guys?’
Like many musicians of his generation, the Beatles had ignited a fire in Furnier, who recruited follow cross country runners and others to form a band. Then he saw the energy and wildness of Pete Townsend and the Who and decided to go a step further with theatrics to back up the music.
 |
| Alice Cooper, left, and Greg Laurie |
After playing as the Earwigs and the Spiders, the young band members picked “Alice Cooper” as their name. Furnier wanted something like “Betty Crocker” that was the opposite of their untamed stage antics. At the time, he thought, “It’s going to irritate every parent in America.”
Alice Cooper eventually became Furnier’s own legal name, and by the time “School’s Out” was a Top 10 hit in 1972, the band had made it big – and Furnier, now Alice Cooper, had started a slide into drug and alcohol addiction.
But a backup dancer in the show, Sheryl Goddard, married Alice in 1976 and helped steer him to sobriety – and back to church.
Both were PKs – preacher’s kids – and Alice now compares his rebellious years to the Prodigal Son. After he threw his drugs away, he said, “I’m done,” and Sheryl replied, “Prove it.” They started attending a Baptist church in Phoenix.
“A lot of people say, ‘I came to Christ because of my love of Jesus,’ Alice told Greg Laurie. “I came to Christ because of my fear of God. I totally understood that hell was not getting high with Jim Morrison. Hell was going to be the worst place ever.
“In fear, I came back to the Lord. But I went to another church, and that pastor preached the love of Christ. And you put the two together, and it was exactly right.”
Alice wondered whether he should drop his macabre stage act, but his pastor told him God may have made him Alice Cooper. “He said, ‘He put you in the exact camp of the Philistines, and you were basically the leader. So now, what if you’re Alice Cooper, but what if you’re now following Christ? And you’re a rock star, but you don’t live the rock star life? Your lifestyle is now your testimony.’”
The restored Christian did remain Alice Cooper but with a more tongue-in-cheek, humorous slant. His new songs began pointing to Christ with lyrics such as “Mercy please, I’m on my knees, You’re my temptation, Go way in Heaven’s name,” and “What about peace, What about love, What about faith in God above.”
And Alice started a teen center in Phoenix called Solid Rock. It offers 12- to 20-year-olds free music lessons, and more important, a place to go.
 |
| Pastor Greg Laurie, left, interviews Alice Cooper at the Solid Rock youth center in Phoenix. (Photos from Greg Laurie YouTube channel) |
“It’s an alternative to what’s on the street,” he said. “I watched a couple of 16-year-old kids do a drug deal on the corner, and I went, ‘How does that kid not know he might be a great guitar player? Or that the other kid might be a drummer? And it just struck me right then: Why don’t we open that, give them that alternative to go there?”
Solid Rock has a spiritual foundation, starting with Alice and his partners. “We’re all Christian guys, and the Lord told us to do it,” he said. “So we just obeyed; that’s all.”
Alice Cooper still tours occasionally, but he spends more time on the golf course – six days a week, in fact. The Arizona resident told Laurie that hitting a great golf shot is the same as the high of heroin. “Golf is like the crack of sports,” he said.
But he said his top priority is God. “If you were going to put what’s important in my life, Alice Cooper would be somewhere around fifth or sixth place,” he said. “Your relationship with God, relationship with your wife, certainly, your kids, and now, Solid Rock is a very big part of my life.
“If you become a Christian, what you’re saying is, ‘I’m not God anymore.’ Everybody wants to be God. A lot of guys think, ‘Oh, just another religion.’ And the last thing you want is religion in your life. What you want is Christ in your life.”
Alice chuckled when he mentioned a Christian TV show: “They used to tear my albums up on ‘The 700 Club.’ They’d say, ‘This is the worst person …’ – and now, he’s an agent for Christ. What a miracle that is. And I’m still Alice Cooper. I’m still playing this dark character, but he’s an agent of Christ. Very weird.”
* * *
Mike Haynes taught journalism at Amarillo College from 1991 to 2016. He can be reached at haynescolumn@gmail.com. Go to www.haynescolumn.blogspot.com for other recent columns.
