ALICE COOPER: Jesus Christ Is 'The Core Of Everything. He's Life Itself. He's The Light.'

Legendary rocker Alice Cooper, who has been a devout Christian for many years, once again opened up about his faith during his latest interview with pastor and evangelist Greg Laurie.

Having grown up with a father who was a preacher, Cooper has always had religion in his life. But it wasn't until he quit drinking and drugging in the '80s that he dedicated his life to Christ.

Regarding why he thinks so many successful people, including many of the biggest rock musicians, quietly struggle with drugs and alcohol while seemingly exceling at their craft, Alice said in part (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I think if you don't have the Lord in your life, you're always gonna be trying to fill that hole with something. It's either gonna be drugs or it's gonna be Ferraris or it's gonna be houses or wives or this or that or fame, and you're never going to achieve it. Because there's that inner thing of us that when we're born of reconnecting with God that's there. And even if you're denying it, that's what you're searching for. And so they'll go to, 'Oh, the new fad is this. I'm gonna go be now a Buddhist.' 'I'm now going to be a vegetarian goat yoga person.' 'I'm gonna be this.' And they go through everything and still don't find it. And the last place they look is the Lord."

Asked why he thinks that is, Cooper said: "Well, I think because once you say, 'God, you're my God. You're my savior,' Now you have to answer to him. People do not want to give up their God self, the self that they control. I control my life. Even people that go to church. I go to church. Okay. Yeah. But you given yourself fully. And that's where the fulfillment comes from. But you can't explain that to somebody that's not searching. People are searching, but they don't want… As soon as somebody says 'Jesus Christ', they go, 'Yeah. Well, right. I'm gonna go over here.'

"The most miserable people I knew were billionaires, because they had everything and they still did not, they didn't have that fulfillment yet," Alice added. "'Okay, I'm gonna go climb Mount Everest naked.' The three biggest billionaires in the world are in space. 'I'll go into space. Maybe that's where I'll find it.' Isn't that weird? It's like a James Bond movie."

When Laurie noted that it seems to be that Cooper believes what those people are really looking for is God, Alice concurred. "If that's not your final goal, and that's should be the most important goal," he said. "Everything else is secondary, everything else is thirdary [sic].

"I always said this before, and a lot of people don't like the statement, but if I were gonna put what's important to me in order, Alice Cooper would be about fifth," Alice added. "Once you've answered that knock and once you've committed to that and once you start realizing how merciful that we've been treated and how much grace we've been given, when you look back at your life and you go, 'Wow.'"

Asked who Jesus Christ is to him, Alice responded: "He's the core of everything. He's life itself. He's the light. I mean, if we don't all revolve around Christ, then we're way out in space somewhere. He draws you in. He's the light. You're drawn to that light. And it's nothing you can explain in words. It's something that happens to your heart where all of a sudden you realize who this is and you realize, 'Oh my gosh, I'm not worthy of this.' And yet still being hung on the cross, he knew your name, he knew my name. And that made me go, 'How can I not believe in this?' He changes your heart."

Alice continued: "Now, he didn't say, 'And now that you're a Christian, you can no longer be in rock and roll.' His plan was, 'Now you're a Christian, go be in a rock and roll band. But follow me. Be Alice Cooper.' And that's what Christians don't understand. I can be Alice Cooper. And I can't tell you how many e-mails I get saying, 'You know that song you wrote, 'Hey Stoopid'? It changed my life. I was gonna kill myself. That song spoke to me.' Some of the songs that don't make any sense at all, they go, 'I turned to Christ because of that song.' And I go, 'That song?' It spoke to them differently. It said something differently. So now when I write, I always try to have some lyric pointing towards Christ, some lyric.

"At one point we did an album called 'Brutal Planet' and [another one called] 'Dragontown', and what it was talking about was — it was a heavy metal album," Cooper explained. "And then Christian kids started listening to it and going, 'This is a Christian album. It's talking about how this is a brutal planet.' And 'Dragontown' is the result of it. You get one shot; you don't get another chance. If you end up in 'Dragontown', there's no way out. But 'Brutal Planet''s pointing out all the things that point to Christ — the horrible things, but the things also that point to Christ. That album, and 'The Last Temptation', which was another album about that, it was written sort of like 'something wicked this way comes'. The circus comes to town, the kid goes to circus and they try everything to get him to join the circus. And at the end, he doesn't. [Those albums] were being sold in Christian bookstores. And my record company couldn't figure out why. They're going, 'Why are we selling records in Christian bookstores? 'Because it was Christian albums. Two or three of my songs were used in choirs — a song like 'I Am Made Of You', 'Salvation'. And these stories, it's a murder mystery, but there's a song called 'Salvation', how the murderer's going, 'Is there any chance for salvation?' Well, that's the song that, so you did all this horrible things, but, yeah, there is a chance for salvation."

Back in August 2019, Cooper told Laurie that he dedicated his life to Christ partly at the urging of his wife, Sheryl.

"Sheryl had gone — she had gone to Chicago and said, 'I can't watch this,'" Alice recalled about the moment when he accepted Jesus into his life. "But the cocaine was speaking a lot louder than her. Finally, I looked in the mirror and it looked like my makeup, but it was blood coming down [from my eyes]. I think — I might have been hallucinating; I don't know. I flushed the rock down the toilet. I woke up and I called her and I said, 'It's done.' And she goes, 'Right. You have to prove it.' One of the deals was we start going to church. I knew who Jesus Christ was, and I was denying him. I knew that there had to either come a point where I either accepted Christ and started living that life, or if I died in this, I was in a lot of trouble. And that's what really motivated me. I just got to a point of saying, 'I'm tired of this life.' And I know that this is right when the Lord opens your eyes and you suddenly realize who you are and who He is."

Cooper admitted that he contemplated changing his name after he came to faith in Christ, but his pastor advised him not to.

"I went to my pastor and I said, 'I think I've gotta quit being Alice Cooper now.' He says, 'Look where he put you. 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.'"

When asked if he was ashamed to say he believed in Jesus Christ, the rock star replied with a confident "no."

"People talk about Alice being a rebel — there was never more of a rebel than Jesus Christ," he said. "You wanna talk about a rebel — he was the ultimate."

The now-77-year-old Cooper has been outspoken about his religious awakening for quite some time. In a 2018 interview with New York Daily News, he said: "My wife and I are both Christian. My father was a pastor, my grandfather was an evangelist. I grew up in the church, went as far away as I could from it — almost died — and then came back to the church."

Although he struggled with alcoholism before embracing religion, Alice said that he doesn't have trouble reconciling his shock-heavy musical persona with his religious beliefs. "There’s nothing in Christianity that says I can't be a rock star," he said. "People have a very warped view of Christianity. They think it's all very precise and we never do wrong and we're praying all day and we're right-wing. It has nothing to do with that."

Cooper reportedly attends church regularly and participates in Bible study.