ALICE COOPER: 'The Guys In SLIPKNOT Look Like They Work At The Gap'

Jeff Kerby of KNAC.COM recently conducted an exclusive interview with ALICE COOPER. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

KNAC.COM: How do you manage in a career as illustrious as yours has been to not get trapped in that, "Oh, no, this was a climactic moment — I'll never be able to top this!" kind of mindset?

Alice: "It is probably the same as it is with the [ROLLING] STONES or THE WHO. For me, I've never lost my thrill of rock and roll. If you write a great rock song, and the chords are right and it has a great opening with the drums coming in just right…it is something amazing. I'm listening to the new STONES record right now, and those guys are about five or six years older than us, and 'Rough Justice' could be 'Street Fighting Man' or any of the songs from that era. They haven't lost one bit of their edge. I am left to sit there and just go, 'I guess it really has nothing to do with your age.' It has everything to do with your attitude in rock and roll. I get onstage now with more attitude at fifty-seven than I had when I was twenty. When I was twenty, my attitude was kind of like, 'Yeah, yeah…I'm a big rock star.' Now, when I get onstage, I go up there, and I am the Moriarty of rock. I am the consummate villain. I am the Hannibal Lector of rock, and I play it like that. Alice just seems like an arrogant bastard or villain who is making the audience feel as though they are lucky to be there when in reality that is exactly the opposite of my personality. With Alice though…it is great to play him or portray him as an Alan Rickman type character who is very condescending. That’s what makes him fun to watch — he's Captain Hook."

KNAC.COM: There had to have been times when maybe even you were a little blurry on the distinction as well.

Alice: "In the early days when I was drinking, that was like yeah, I had a very blurry line about where those two were."

KNAC.COM: That's what I would have figured. I’m sure though that people have confused the person with the persona throughout your career.

Alice: "Yeah, but I mean, that happens when you drink twenty-two hours a day. I would just sit and drink. I didn't know whether or not I was supposed to be Alice when I went out for dinner and was a little lit. Then there was the question about whether or not I should wear the makeup because I didn't really want to disappoint anyone. Was I supposed to get into trouble? Was I supposed to get arrested that night? All of those questions went through my mind. You have to remember though who my older brothers and sisters were though — guys like Jim Morrison and Keith Moon and all the people who were living that life. After they all died, I just sat there and went, 'If one generation is going to learn from the next the truth is going to have to be that you don't have to die to be your character.' I figured then that I had better be able to separate the two. When I go onstage as Alice to this day, I play Alice to the hilt — I play him for everything he is worth, but when I'm offstage, I never think about Alice Cooper. He never occurs to me."

KNAC.COM: Aren't there a lot of people out there though who have this insatiable need and desire to believe that Alice is a living, breathing being out wreaking havoc twenty-four hours a day?

Alice: "I've tried to believe it myself even though I don't believe it about MARILYN MANSON. The guys in SLIPKNOT look like they work at The Gap when they aren’t in SLIPKNOT. I was more stunned than anyone on that one. They all came and sat down after the show, and they were all wearing these Gap shirts with little short haircuts. It was like… 'So the guys in SLIPKNOT are where? Where are the guys in SLIPKNOT?' I was like, 'Really?' So that was funny to me, but I totally get it. If I tried to be Alice Cooper all the time…"

KNAC.COM: You wouldn’t be around, would you?

Alice: "I'd either be in an insane asylum or in jail or dead. Alice is just too intense, and you just can’t be Alice all the time. Jim Morrison couldn't be Jim Morrison, so he died. Jimi Hendrix couldn't be Jimi Hendrix, so he died. That's really what killed Janis Joplin, Keith Moon and all the way down the line. They were all animated characters who couldn't live up to their lifestyle, so I said that I needed to be able to separate the two — that’s why I'm still here."

Read the entire interview at KNAC.COM.