Alice Cooper

I have never made fun of religion. Religion is something I don't even want to mess with, because I am really afraid of the clouds opening up and my being struck by lightning.

We like reactions - a reaction is walking out on us, a reaction is throwing tomatoes at the stage, that's a healthy psychological reaction.

We play it differently now. If we did the album now it would be different.

We started combining the use of light and the use of theatrics and the use of as many art forms as possible, and it's still growing - that's the whole idea of it.

We try to be as much involved in our product as possible, because then it's us.

We wanted it more live and raw. We didn't want a studio sound.

Well, we were all in high school and we got together, and in college - we were in art college together.

When we get together and rehearse, which is always living with each other, we always talk about what would make it better, what would mean more, what would say more. So we're always improving and growing.

You can't get the visual thing on the record as much as you'd like to. We produced this album, and we'd never done that before, except when we produced singles for ourselves.

You just let your lower self go, and then it takes on all these aspects of the society - the city with horns blowing, the people yelling things at each other, and the all-in-all violence and chaos of the city. Put that on stage with music, and that's what this is.

I'm 18 and I like it!

From the moment I leave my house or my hotel room, the public owns me. The public made Alice Cooper and I can't imagine ever turning my back on my fans.

All I really wanted to do was make an album that was going to be just back to what I like to do... And it was a coincidence that these new bands, this new wave of bands, were doing Alice and Iggy rock.

We just set it up and recorded it the way we played it. But that was the way we played it then.

Why be boring? Have some fun. Rock shows should be like movies: I don't go to a movie hoping it'll change my life.

The late sixties and early seventies were kind of a breeding ground for exciting new sounds because easy listening and folk were kind of taking over the airwaves. I think it was a natural next step to take that blissful, easy-going sound and strangle the life out of it.

Oh, I love to lie. That's one of my favorite things in the world, coming up to somebody, especially press people, and telling them some enormous lie that couldn't possibly be true.

On stage, I'm this figure, this actor, who does things that people aren't used to seeing and I relish in that reaction. In real life, though, I play golf, I shop and I walk around with no makeup on and my hair in a ponytail. I may not be the typical middle-aged Joe, but I'm closer to normal than you think.

When you believe in God, you've got to believe in the all-powerful God. He's not just God, He's the all-powerful God and He has total control over everyone's life. The Devil, on the other hand, is a real character that's trying his hardest to tear your life apart.

I'm very romantic, I'm extremely romantic. I date my wife.

I'm not crazy about country-western music. But the lyrics are good.

They should invent some way to tape-record your dreams. I've written songs in my dreams that were Beatles songs. Then I'd wake up and they'd be gone.

Hard rock will always be hard rock, but you don't really know what is rock - and what isn't - anymore. I don't consider a lot of the pop things I hear on the radio to be rock n' roll. It's just kind of fragmented.

I always think that you should be striving to write your best song.

There was a period of time when I thought I had to be Alice Cooper all the time.

My granddad was an evangelist, and my grandma, she was as tough as nails. She watched 'American Bandstand' every day when she was in her 80s, 90s. She loved rock music. I never had anyone in my family that was anti-rock n' roll.

We got on his label, and the Bizarre organization is just going up and up. So we have faith.

Drinking beer is easy. Trashing your hotel room is easy. But being a Christian, that's a tough call. That's rebellion.

If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are.

My fastest time in high school was a 4:29 mile. I think cross-country has something to do with my longevity in my business. When you're in an eight-mile race, you never give up.

Throughout my life, there are four people I've met who were truly original people. The other three were Groucho Marx, Jim Morrison, and Pablo Picasso.

What most people don't understand is that UFOs are on a cosmic tourist route. That's why they're always seen in Arizona, Scotland, and New Mexico. Another thing to consider is that all three of those destinations are good places to play golf. So there's possibly some connection between aliens and golf.

Yet I was Marilyn Manson - times 10.

The minute you step onstage, you get eight feet taller.

City people live the city. We live in L.A., New York, we live in places where it's chaotic and you never know what's gonna happen. And that's the music - you never know what's gonna happen.

I appreciate an audience that reacts to the music, even if they jump on stage and try to beat us up, I think that's a fantastic reaction. I think that they're really hearing something then.

If it's total freedom, I guess the ultimate thing you can go into is total silence between the audience and performer, with the performer projecting something he doesn't even have to play.

If you confine it, you're confining a whole thing. If you make it spontaneous, so that anything can happen, like we don't want to confine or restrict anything. What we can do, whatever we can let happen, you just let it happen.

It's a big flash of all these things and whatever you take out of that statement's one statement, one mind, one statement, one act, one show, and all the songs are one.

It's Frank's painting on the cover. We were originally going to use a Salvador Dali painting that we got permission from Salvador Dali to use, and Frank found this one, and it really did fit the music much more.

It's like this - these five members have been influenced of course by other groups, because that's where this generation's groups came from - an environment like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and The Who. People like that.

It's not an anti-sex trip. Like, we're taking sex, which is probably another half of American entertainment, sex and violence, and we're projecting it, and we're saying this is the way everything is right now.

People that haven't seen us yet are shocked because they think that Alice Cooper must be a female folksinger. They don't expect the whole thing.

So what this is is us, our personalities refined down on to a stage performance. In other words, the way we play is the end product of the way we live - we live in the cities, you see.

That's like making fun of a maniac because his brain isn't completely right, because he isn't in the norm.

They pick all of us out, and then they decide, they computerize, decide if they like it or don't like it, and then they go home, and then they come back again because they're not sure what they saw.

They're reacting and that's wonderful. It's better than them sitting there doing nothing. I say make them react - do whatever's in your power to move the audience, and if that's where it is, and there where it is with America, sex and violence, then I say project it.

We can only take it so far, because man can only take it so far, lower self can only take it so far, and you have to realize that the public is only at a certain place.

The hippies wanted peace and love. We wanted Ferraris, blondes and switchblades.

The two most joyous times of the year are Christmas morning and the end of school.