Rock's most enduring
villain is far from ready to hang up his straitjacket - or his
putter. . Photographs by Sean
McCormick.
ALICE COOPER snickers while telling the story of his onstage
midair skewering of a doll thrown from the audience, done with a
sword formerly owned by
Errol Flynn. Moments later, I'm standing
just a few feet away from the original shock rocker as he raises
another potential instrument of death and prepares to whack away at
a small object. But instead of aiming for my head, Cooper sends a
dimpled
golf ball
sailing out over a grassy expanse, courtesy of a
highly polished titanium driver and a powerful but elegant swing.
It's my first lesson in a good golf swing. To be honest, it's my
first golf lesson of
any kind - and from
Alice Cooper, no less.
My 1970s and '80s childhood was laced with Cooper. Actually, every
rock fan born within the past 30 or 40 years has grown up with
Cooper - even if heavy metal isn't his or her music of choice. His
face, eyes wedged inside thickly smudged black eyeliner, is one of
the most enduring images of rock's devilish side. His song
"School's Out" is the anthem of generations of high school
graduates. Really, who doesn't know Cooper?
I don't, it turns out.
I had no idea who Cooper really is - or at least is now. The
scariest thing about spending time with offstage Cooper is trying
to figure out, premeeting, what I should wear for heading out onto
a golf course with him. A pale green straitjacket (sleeves
dangling, of course)? Sherbet-pink bondage pants? A sun visor with
chains? After all, until that first moment I meet him at the
Riverview Golf Course in
Mesa,
Arizona, he is still an angry rock
god to me - not Coop, as his friends call him, a 59-year-old father
of three who loves to shop (he has 17 televisions), prefers golfing
in the earliest hours of
Phoenix daylight when he's home, and goes
head-to-head with
Kenny G - yes,
that Kenny
G - at pro-am golf tournaments. His recent memoir,
Alice Cooper, Golf Monster: A Rock 'n'
Roller's 12 Steps to Becoming a Golf Addict, is as
much Cooper's rules for a great game as it is a romp through
a life in rock.
And even though a quick premeeting
Google search of the terms
Alice Cooper and
golf puts my mind at ease, I am relieved to see him
wearing a standard-issue sun visor and
polo shirt when he arrives
at the golf course with his longtime teacher and friend, golf pro
Jim Mooney.
JUST ABOUT the only things Cooper and his
stage persona have in common are a name and a mischievous sense of
humor. Actually, Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier) is pretty sure
that Alice wouldn't have much respect for his offstage life. "I
don't have lunch with him. I don't talk to him," says golf Cooper
of the stage villain. "I know what he's going to do because I
control him, but I am totally entertained by him myself. When you
get to be the Sheriff of Nottingham and not
Robin Hood, when you
get to be
Bela Lugosi and not Van Helsing - that's the most fun
thing in the world."
While modern rock is littered with "now you hear them, now you
don't" bands,
Alice Cooper has some serious staying power. "I think
a lot of [Alice Cooper] records of the '70s, the hard-rock stuff,
are really solid," says
Phil Freeman, a rock critic and the
managing editor of
Global Rhythm. "If you
go back to it, it's really well-played, well-produced, really good
hard rock, with good melodies and interesting lyrics. Yeah, Alice
is hugely important. I don't think underrated, but he should be
listened to more." The original band released its first album,
Pretties for You, in 1969. It took a while
for Cooper to trust that anybody really got his band. "I honestly
thought we were the black sheep of rock and roll. I thought that
until we had platinum albums and number one albums," he says. And
later, the Alice Cooper action figures and comic books, along with
a turn as a clue on
Jeopardy!, really
convinced him he had made it. "If you become a Pez dispenser, that
means you are recognized around the world," he says.
IN PERSON, Cooper is instantly familiar,
but sans makeup, there's a kindness about his face that the stage
Cooper would certainly sneer at. He smiles easily (especially when
he's poking fun at me or cheering me on). His golf attire won't win
any villain points either: Instead of wearing the theatrical
outfits rock fans know him for (not every man can pull off a black
leather jacket bedecked in giant sequins), Cooper dresses in a
white polo shirt piped with black and black pants, making him a
lean, country-club-ready figure. His black hair is pulled back into
a ponytail, and a white Callaway visor - he's the golf brand's
hardest-rocking pitchman and devotee - is snuggled onto his head.
I hadn't warned them that I am a lefty. So after switching out the
equipment already set aside for me, and with Cooper joshing me,
saying, "I play with a guy who's a lefty every day; we put up with
it," we head outside to the driving range. A line of people are
wrapped up in their own little worlds, just swinging, swinging,
swinging. Nobody takes notice of the rock god. It's clear that
Cooper is a familiar sight on the nine-hole course. In fact, the
Riverview is home to the annual Alice Cooper Bloodbath - "the
tournament that benefits no one," says Cooper.
After Mooney positions my hands on the club, the swinging begins.
"She's got a great grip already," says Cooper. I'm trying not to
beam, to remain the journalist and not switch into adoring-rock-fan
mode, but … it's difficult. "You're proud of me?" I ask. Then,
after swinging at - and purposely breaking - a few tees to make
sure I can connect, Mooney loads a tee with a ball. After a few
misses,
thwack. "Well, excuse me … up in
the air and down the middle," Cooper beams back, shooting his arms
into the air as though he himself just collected a big win.
"I'll be on the tour with you very soon - and I used to play
violin, if you need that onstage," I say.
His reply: "Hit another million balls, and you'll be ready."
COOPER STILL PLAYS 100 shows a year,
and though his songs don't get dropped into the rotation on
many radio stations, he still records new albums and believes
that his last five or six are among the best he's ever done.
As for that lack of airtime? "I don't get disappointed,
because I understand it now. I was, for a long time,
outraged. I said, 'This song that I've got right here is so
much better than what they're playing on the radio,'?" he
says. "That song they're playing on the radio every hour - we
would have thrown away. Bowie would have thrown it away.
Elton would have thrown it away.
Rod Stewart would have said
[it's terrible]. But it's getting played because they're the
new band. Every once in a while, they come up with a good
song, and you go, 'Oh, turn it up; that's a good one,' but
it's rare."
That's not to say that Cooper has disdain for every new band. He's
keen on the eclectic sound of Panic! at the Disco and is clearly
agog over the White Stripes. "I was so curious to see that band
live," he says. "I like the records, and I hear the
Detroit garage
rock in it, and I hear that this guy [Jack White] has so much stuff
going on in his voice and in his guitar playing. Then I went and
saw him live in
London, and they got me. This guy pulls it off
onstage. He never stops moving. He's always playing, and it's a
little off, but it doesn't matter. I bought into all of it."
But Cooper doesn't record for radio; he does it for his fans - and
the range of ages at his shows makes it clear that the fans
wouldn't be pleased if he decided to hang up his straitjacket.
Mooney, a longtime fan (though when the rocker first showed up at
Mooney's golf club all those decades ago, he had no idea what or
who Alice Cooper was), nearly gave up going to Cooper's shows at
one point, afraid he was too old. "I thought,
You
can't go anymore; you're the oldest guy here," he says. "But
I wasn't. I look around, and there are guys older. He's crossed all
those generational lines."
Though Cooper wishes more artists would put a theatrical edge on
their shows, he's hardly sitting around lamenting the past. He
still crafts his own theatrical stage show and has found his own
way to give the monsters of classic rock airtime: He hosts
Nights with Alice Cooper, a syndicated
program that airs five to six nights per week on 110 stations
around the
United States,
Canada,
Australia, the UK, and Ireland.
"Dick Clark's company said the one slot in radio that's dying
around the country is seven to midnight. [They asked], 'What do you
think about taking that spot syndicated?'?" recalls Cooper. "I
said, 'I'll take it if you let me play what I want to play.'?"
So at least five nights per week, Cooper summons tunes by the
Yardbirds, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and, of course, Alice
Cooper, and gives his underserved-by-radio audience the chance to
listen in on conversations between him and his rock contemporaries,
including AC/DC's
Brian Johnson,
Rush's Geddy Lee, and Aerosmith's
Joe Perry.
COOPER FIRST took up golf more than
30 years ago, when he was trying to give up his life as "the
most functional alcoholic on the planet," who never missed a
show and "never slurred a word" onstage. "I have a totally
addictive personality, [and] this game feeds itself," he
says. "I would hit bad shot, bad shot, bad shot … great shot
- right down the middle, and it was perfect. And I would say,
'I want to feel that again.' Bad shot, bad shot, bad shot,
great shot. Then I would realize I want to hit more great
shots because I want that buzz."
At the time, it wouldn't have done much for Alice's hard-rocking
image to be outed as a golfer. "In the beginning, I had to be a
closet golfer," he admits. But as he and other rockers, including
Lou Reed, played on, things changed. "We basically hijacked this
game," says Cooper.
His early golf obsession hasn't let up. He plays at least five days
a week. Actually, there are few activities Cooper signs on for that
he doesn't go at whole hog. He sleeps just four hours a night, and
in addition to devoting time to his music, the radio show, golf,
his family, and his hard-core shopping habit, Cooper runs the
Christian-based Solid Rock Foundation, which is dedicated to
helping Phoenix kids stay out of trouble.
I CONNECT with the ball after my backswing,
and it's a glorious moment. The ball sails out, as Cooper says,
"100 yards down the middle, with a little hook on it.
"I can tell already you're going to be addicted," he adds. "Very
few people can take a backswing and hit the ball [on their first
time out]."
But, now that he’s confident that I’m hooked (and, somehow, I think it actually matters to him that I fell for his game of choice), Cooper has to leave. Ozzy is waiting. Yes,
that Ozzy. Coop — now he’s Coop to me — has to cut through local traffic to record another conversation with Ozzy for his radio show. (“I told my producer, ‘You’ve got to give me at least a couple seconds’ delay so I can decipher what he’s saying,’?” he says.)
So Coop the golfer changes back into the “Prince of Darkness” — maybe he’ll do a little sword sharpening later on. After all, a new tour’s about to begin. The dolls await.