Alice Cooper Will Not Stop Dying

No musician has died more often or more dramatically in front of more people than Alice Cooper. His highly theatrical rock shows have variously ended with depictions of him being electrocuted, beheaded, and hanged.

In real life, he’s managed to survive very nicely — now in his 60’s, he still performs those over-the-top live shows. He talks with Kurt Andersen about his new albumwith The Hollywood Vampires, a band with Johnny Depp, Joe Perry, and a slew of other rock and rollers that pays tribute to the legendary boys’ club of the same name.

Kurt Andersen: What do your friends call you — Alice?

Alice Cooper: Everybody calls me Coop. And that came from Groucho Marx. I got to know Groucho very well in Los Angeles in his later years. He would go, “Alice is the last hope for vaudeville” — which I thought was the best compliment I ever got in my life.

Unlike punk, unlike rock and roll in the late ’60s, you were never conveying an idea that you were serious about changing the world.

We were never politically motivated at all. There were some bands that were into politics; we were into blondes and Corvettes and all the right reasons to be in rock and roll.

At that time you were living in a mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut?

We had a number one album and by this time we we’re headlining, so we’ve got enough money to get out of the hotels. The band moved into a house in Greenwich, Connecticut, where we way didn’t belong. Greenwich was blue blood bleeding everywhere and here we were — our hair down to our waist. We would go into town and people would hide. And yet we were not the most disturbing thing on the block. Bette Davis lived next door and she was a party in herself. She would come over and ask us to turn the music up. She was something.

How long do you foresee continuing to do “Alice Cooper”?

I have no intention of retiring at all. I’ve never been in better health, really there’s no reason for me to ever retire. I tell people I’m booked into next century.