Alice Cooper Caricature

Alice Cooper Caricature, shown here age 24 with his three year old boa constrictor, Kachina in 1972 for Vouge Magazine, a few months after the release of the band’s breakthrough album, “Killer”.

Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier) is an American singer, songwriter, and actor whose career spans over fifty years. With his distinctive raspy voice and a stage show that features guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, deadly snakes, baby dolls, and dueling swords, Cooper is considered by music journalists and peers alike to be “The Godfather of Shock Rock”. He has drawn equally from horror films, vaudeville, and garage rock to pioneer a macabre and theatrical brand of rock designed to shock people.

Cooper, born in Detroit, Michigan, was the son of an Evangelist in The Church of Jesus Christ. Following a series of childhood illnesses, he moved with his family to Phoenix, Arizona, where he attended Cortez High School. In his high school yearbook, his ambition was to be “A million record seller.”

“Alice Cooper” was originally a band consisting of Furnier on vocals and harmonica, Glen Buxton on lead guitar, Michael Bruce on rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar, and Neal Smith on drums. The original Alice Cooper band released its first album in 1969. They broke into the international music mainstream with the 1971 hit song “I’m Eighteen” from their third studio album Love It to Death.

In 1968, they chose the name “Alice Cooper” largely because it sounded innocuous and wholesome, in humorous contrast to the band’s image and music. In 1975, Furnier adopted this stage name as his own to avoid legal complications over ownership of the band’s name. Furnier, now known as Alice Cooper, later stated that the name change was one of his most important and successful career moves.

Nonetheless, at the time Cooper and the band realized that the concept of a male playing the role of a villain, a woman killer, in tattered women’s clothing and wearing make-up, would have the potential to cause considerable social controversy and grab headlines; it worked.
Cooper stated that his look was inspired in part by film. One of the band’s all-time favorite movies was “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” starring Bette Davis. “In the movie, Bette wears disgusting caked makeup smeared on her face and underneath her eyes, with deep, dark, black eyeliner.”

The band has had plenty of hits: “I’m Eighteen”, “Is It My Body”, “Ballad Of Dwight Fry”, “Desperado”, “Under My Wheels”, “Dead Babies”, “Halo Of Flies”, “Be My Lover”, “Only Women Bleed”, “School’s Out”, “Hello Hooray”, “Elected”, “No More Mr. Nice Guy”, “Billion Dollar Babies”, “Teenage Lament ’74”, and “Muscle Of Love”.

The band broke up in 1977, with Cooper going solo and who still currently tours. He overcame his alcohol addiction in the 1980’s, which nearly killed him. In his early twenties, it was rumored that he drank a case of beer every day.

Cooper is an avid baseball fan and golfer and considers himself a born-again Christian.