ALICE COOPER Talks About Today's ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME Induction

Tonight (March 14) the 2011 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame will induct its 26th annual group of inductees at New York City's Waldorf Astoria. Alice Cooper will be inducted by recent touring partner Rob Zombie; Elton John will induct recent collaborator Leon Russell, Paul Simon will do the honors for Neil Diamond, and Neil Young will induct Tom Waits.

DOORS drummer John Densmore will do the honors for Jac Holzman, who founded the band's label Elektra; Bette Midler will induct "Wall Of Sound" legend Darlene Love; Dr. John will be inducted by John Legend; and Art Rupe, the founder of Specialty Records, will be inducted by Lloyd Price. To many onlookers, the 2011 ceremonies already seem historic, if for no other reason than most of the inductors overshadow the people that they're inducting.

Alice Cooper tells The Pulse Of Radio that more often than not, actual Rock Hall inductees couldn't believe that the Alice Cooper band wasn't already within their ranks. "I mean, I think there were people that we're in the Hall of Fame — this is, we've heard this from five or six people that said, 'We already thought you were in!' Y'know, it was almost like an oversight, people thought we were — I was surprised to hear Neil Diamond wasn't in. When somebody said 'Neil Diamond's going in with you,' I went, 'What?'"

Alice went on to say that the importance of Alice Cooper to the theatrical side of '70s rock can never — and should never — be undervalued or underestimated. "Y'know, you can't ignore Alice. When you say '70s, and you say (David) Bowie, and Elton (John),and you say. . . y'know, you can't say KISS without saying Alice. That whole era of theatrical rock — you really can't mention that era without mentioning Alice. I don't know how you can keep pretending like we didn't happen. I mean, we were like the beginning of all that! And on top of that, if we were just the beginning and didn't — and weren't successful, if would be different — but, I mean, we had 14 top 40 singles, we sold 50 million albums — very hard to ignore Alice."

He went on to tell The Pulse Of Radio that he's proud that tonight the original Alice Cooper band will be on hand, reunited, firing on all cylinders and fully prepared to devastate the industry audience at the Waldorf. "We're gonna get up there, the original band, we're gonna do three or four songs," he said. "And the original band's playing really good; Neil (Smith),Dennis (Dunaway),and Mike (Bruce) are playing great — and we added Steve Hunter as the other guitar player now to take Glen (Buxton's) place, so you've got one of the great American lead guitar players of all time up there — and it sounds really darn good!"

Highlights of the 2010 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame will air on Sunday, March 20 on the Fuse network.