ALICE COOPER On Still Touring At Age 77: 'I Never Get Tired Of Doing It'

In a new interview with Marianne Sierk of Baltimore's 98 Rock radio station, legendary rocker Alice Cooper was asked where he gets the energy — at the age of 77 – to still tour as much as he does. The singer, whose real name is Vincent Furnier, responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I never get tired of doing it. I never get tired of playing Alice. I mean, I've been doing it for 60 years. And the character I play on stage… There were two Alices. There was the original Alice, who was sort of the whipping boy. He was society's problem. And when I got sober, I said, 'I can't play that character anymore. So now I'm gonna play Alice as an arrogant villain. He's going to be this really arrogant villain.'

"I never get tired of playing it," Alice repeated. "You'd think I'd get tired of doing '[I'm] Eighteen' and 'Under My Wheels' and all that. It's so much fun. And you surround yourself with the best players. And it just so happens that the best players [in my current band] are all best friends. No egos. Nobody complaining. I mean, [guitarist] Nita [Strauss] is just like an angel. She can't wait to get on stage. She's been with us 10 years. And she has her own band. And she played with [pop superstar] Demi Lovato for a year. So, we just had different guitar players. I told her, 'Go do it. Our show's always gonna be here. And it's an open door. You can always come back in.'"

Cooper pioneered a grandly theatrical brand of hard rock that was designed to shock. Drawing equally from horror movies, vaudeville, and garage rock, the group created a stage show that featured electric chairs, guillotines, fake blood and boa constrictors. He continues to tour regularly, performing shows worldwide with the dark and horror-themed theatrics that he's best known for.

In an interview with the 96.1 KLPX radio station, Cooper stated about how his stage show has evolved over the years: "It's so funny because it used to be easy to shock an audience in the '70s. Now nobody's really trying — we're not really trying to shock an audience. I don't think anybody is 'shock rock' anymore, but those elements still remain in the show because they're fun to watch. It's still fun to watch the guillotine and the fact that you really buy in to it because of what happens before that. You're really concerned about this character Alice up there, what happens. And that's what I like about it. I want the audience to get involved in the show. We don't do a lot of lasers. We don't do things like that, because I want the emphasis to be on the character Alice, what happens to him and what he what exactly he's doing. But all that happens during all these songs that everybody knows — 'Feed My Frankenstein' and 'Poison' and 'No More Mr. Nice Guy' and, of course, 'School's Out' at the end."

Fresh from the success of his latest album "Road", a concept album about the thrills and spills of touring, Alice is accompanied, as always, by his long-running live band of Ryan Roxie (guitar),Chuck Garric (bass),Tommy Henriksen (guitar),Glen Sobel (drums) and Nita Strauss (guitar).

With a schedule that has included six months year in and year out on the road, Cooper brings his own brand of rock psycho-drama to fans both old and new, enjoying it as much as the audience does. Known as the architect of shock-rock, Cooper (in both the original ALICE COOPER band and as a solo artist) has rattled the cages and undermined the authority of generations of guardians of the status quo, continuing to surprise fans and exude danger at every turn, like a great horror movie, even in an era where CNN can present real-life shocking images.

With his influence on rock and roll and popular culture long since acknowledged, there is little that Cooper hasn't achieved in his remarkable career, including platinum albums, sold-out tours and any number of honors and career achievement awards.

The surviving members of the original ALICE COOPER band — Alice, guitarist Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway and drummer Neal Smith — recently reunited to release a brand-new studio album, "The Revenge Of Alice Cooper", due on July 25 via earMUSIC. This highly anticipated LP is heralded as the successor to their iconic records "School's Out", "Billion Dollar Babies", "Love It to Death" and "Killer".