50 Fun Facts About Alice Cooper

Which live bird did Alice Cooper throw into the crowd at a 1969 Toronto festival, expecting it to fly?

A chicken had wandered on stage at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, and Cooper assumed anything with wings could fly. The press coverage that followed helped create shock rock.

Which sport does Alice Cooper credit with helping him overcome alcoholism, naming his 2007 autobiography after it?

Golf was, by his own account, a case of replacing one addiction with another. He called the book Alice Cooper, Golf Monster.

In which 1992 comedy does Alice Cooper lecture two fans backstage on the history of Milwaukee?

Wayne's World sends its two heroes to a Cooper concert with all-access tickets. On stage he performs 'Feed My Frankenstein', a song from his 1991 album Hey Stoopid.

Which musician signed Alice Cooper's band to his label after they showed up to audition at seven in the morning?

Frank Zappa had meant seven in the evening. Being woken by the band's psychedelic rock impressed him enough to offer a three-album deal on his new label, Straight Records.

Which horror film star delivers a spoken monologue on Alice Cooper's 1975 album Welcome to My Nightmare?

Vincent Price speaks as a character called the Curator, leading into the song 'The Black Widow'. He also starred with Cooper in the television special built around the album.

Which artist saw an Alice Cooper show in 1973 and then made a hologram portrait of the singer's brain?

Salvador Dalí described the show as surreal. Three of the band had been art students who admired his work, so the compliment came from one of their heroes.

What was the vinyl of Alice Cooper's 1972 album School's Out wrapped in, until it proved to be flammable?

Paper panties were only one gimmick of the packaging, which also had the band members' names carved into the cover like graffiti. The album reached No. 2 in the United States.

What part did Alice Cooper play as a 1978 guest on The Muppet Show, where he sang three of his songs?

A devil's henchman was the role, trying to dupe Kermit the Frog, Gonzo and Miss Piggy into selling their souls. One of the songs was his ballad 'You and Me'.

Alice Cooper paid for an O when the Hollywood Sign was rebuilt, in memory of which comedian friend?

Groucho Marx was a close friend, and Cooper gave more than $27,000 toward the letter. He also led other celebrities in raising money for the new sign.

Which magician designed Alice Cooper's stage guillotine and appeared on the 1973 tour as his executioner?

James Randi, later famous for debunking psychics, also played a mad dentist in the show. He and Cooper met again at Dragon Con in 2012 to talk about their work together.

Which film star formed the rock supergroup Hollywood Vampires in 2012 with Alice Cooper and guitarist Joe Perry?

Johnny Depp and his bandmates borrowed the name from a celebrity drinking club Cooper ran in the 1970s. Its regulars included Keith Moon, Harry Nilsson and Micky Dolenz.

Which 1989 single gave Alice Cooper his first US top-ten hit since the ballad You and Me in 1977?

Poison climbed to number seven in the United States and number two in Britain. Its main guitar riff had been used two years earlier on a John Waite track.

In which city was Alice Cooper born in 1948, before childhood illnesses led his family to move to Arizona?

Detroit drew the band back in 1970. After Californians shrugged at their act, they moved to nearby Pontiac, Michigan, where they felt they fitted in far better.

Under which insect name did Alice Cooper's first group parody the Beatles at a 1964 high school talent show?

The Earwigs were Cooper and four fellow cross-country runners in wigs and costumes, singing Beatles tunes rewritten about the track team. They soon renamed themselves the Spiders.

What was Alice Cooper's surname at birth, before he legally took the band's name as his own in 1975?

Furnier became Alice Cooper by law once the original band had broken up, and he launched a solo career that same year. The band had used the name since 1968.

John Lydon is said to have auditioned for which punk band by miming to Alice Cooper's I'm Eighteen?

Sex Pistols singer Lydon later called Cooper's Killer the greatest rock album of all time. In 2002 he presented his own tribute programme to Cooper on BBC radio.

Which movie killer is the Man Behind the Mask in Alice Cooper's 1986 single He's Back, a horror sequel's theme song?

Jason Voorhees returned in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, which used the song as its theme. Cooper has a cameo in the video as a deranged psychiatrist.

Alice Cooper appears in a 1991 horror sequel as the abusive man who raised which famous movie villain?

Freddy Krueger gets his backstory in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, where Cooper's character is named Edward Underwood. Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold also make cameo appearances.

Which role did Alice Cooper sing in NBC's 2018 live broadcast of Jesus Christ Superstar, having recorded it in 1996?

King Herod was his part when NBC aired the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical on Easter Sunday. The earlier version was the 1996 London cast recording of the show.

Which rock star called Alice Cooper's Elected a great record, but said Paul McCartney would have done it better?

John Lennon counted the 1972 single among his favourites, and Cooper agreed with his verdict. The song recycled the riff of 'Reflected', from the band's 1969 debut album.

Manager Shep Gordon signed Alice Cooper's band in 1968 after watching them do what to a Los Angeles club crowd?

Empty the room is just what they did, in about ten minutes, at the Cheetah club in Venice. Gordon saw a band that could provoke so strong a reaction as one he could sell.

Which producer of Pink Floyd's The Wall first worked with Alice Cooper on the 1971 album Love It to Death?

Bob Ezrin shaped the group's sound so thoroughly that Cooper has called him their George Martin. The Canadian has also worked with Peter Gabriel and Deep Purple.

Which famous lyricist co-wrote Alice Cooper's 1978 album From the Inside, about his stay in a New York asylum?

Bernie Taupin, Elton John's writing partner, arrived with two of Elton's band, Davey Johnstone and Dee Murray. Each character in the songs was based on someone Cooper met during treatment.

Which British morality campaigner got flowers from Alice Cooper after campaigning against School's Out at the BBC?

Mary Whitehouse pressed the BBC to keep the song off television, but Cooper believed the publicity helped send it to number one in Britain, so he thanked her with a bouquet.

Alice Cooper's smeared black eye makeup was inspired by which actress in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Bette Davis wore caked, smeared makeup in the 1962 film, a favourite of the whole band. The villain of Barbarella, played by Anita Pallenberg, shaped the rest of the look.

Which wrestler did Alice Cooper escort to the ring at WrestleMania III for a match against The Honky Tonk Man?

Jake Roberts, nicknamed The Snake, lost the match. Cooper then got involved himself, throwing the wrestler's pet snake Damien at the winner's manager, Jimmy Hart.

Which fantasy author wrote a three-part comic book series to go with Alice Cooper's album The Last Temptation?

Neil Gaiman's comic follows a boy named Steven and a mysterious showman who tempts him to join a travelling show. Steven is also the boy whose bad dreams fill Cooper's 1975 album Welcome to My Nightmare.

Which star of stage and screen sang backing vocals on Alice Cooper's Teenage Lament '74, alongside Ronnie Spector?

Liza Minnelli joined Ronnie Spector and the Pointer Sisters in the chorus. The single comes from Muscle of Love, the band's 1973 album.

Alice Cooper's band wrote a theme for which James Bond film, only to lose out to Lulu?

The Man with the Golden Gun went out with Lulu's song instead; by Cooper's account, the band's entry arrived a day too late. Their version is on the album Muscle of Love.

Which 1960s folk-pop star shares the vocals with Alice Cooper on the title track of Billion Dollar Babies?

Donovan sang on the track during sessions at Morgan Studios in London, and described it as a horror story in song. The album reached number one in Britain and America.

Which pop star co-wrote and sings on What Baby Wants, from Alice Cooper's 2011 sequel album Welcome 2 My Nightmare?

Kesha caught Cooper's attention at the Grammys, where he decided she had the qualities of a rock singer. He said many of her lyrics had to be toned down for the album.

Four of the five members of which band guest on Alice Cooper's 1989 comeback album Trash?

Aerosmith were Cooper's contemporaries in the 1970s and were making a successful comeback of their own. Only guitarist Brad Whitford did not take part.

Which songwriter behind Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer produced Alice Cooper's 1989 album Trash?

Desmond Child was the collaborator Cooper sought out to make a comeback album. Joan Jett and Diane Warren also contributed to the songwriting.

Which thrash metal band opened for Alice Cooper on his 1980s comeback tour, when he tried to help them get clean?

Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine has stayed close to Cooper ever since and considers him his godfather. The band later recorded their own version of No More Mr. Nice Guy.

Which band's 1998 song Dreamin' sounded so like Alice Cooper's I'm Eighteen that a plagiarism suit followed?

Kiss put the track on their album Psycho Circus, and Cooper's publisher sued a month after its release. The case was settled out of court in Cooper's favour.

Which guitarist hired for Michael Jackson's This Is It shows became the first woman in Alice Cooper's band in 2011?

Orianthi, an Australian, was announced as Cooper's new guitarist in August 2011. She had been Jackson's lead guitarist at every rehearsal for the residency that his death cancelled.

Alice Cooper appears as a piano-playing disco waiter in Sextette, the final film of which Hollywood legend?

Mae West led a cast that also included Ringo Starr and Keith Moon, two members of Cooper's old drinking club. She reportedly saw his early stage shows as a kind of vaudeville revue.

Alice Cooper plays a possessed homeless man in Prince of Darkness, a 1987 horror film by which director?

John Carpenter wrote, directed and co-scored the film, in which Cooper's character is credited as Street Schizo.

In which 2012 Tim Burton film does a vampire take Alice Cooper for the ugliest woman he has ever seen?

Dark Shadows has Cooper appear as himself and sing No More Mr. Nice Guy. The 18th-century vampire Barnabas, newly awake in 1972, assumes that Alice must be a woman's name.

Which 1976 Alice Cooper ballad did he call an alcoholic confession, a year before he entered treatment?

I Never Cry reached number 12 in the United States. Cooper wrote it about his own drinking, which put him in a sanitarium after his 1977 tour.

Which kind of snake joined Alice Cooper's stage act for the Killer tour, hugging him as he performed?

A boa constrictor shared the stage with a gallows, where the show ended with Cooper's mock execution by hanging. An axe for chopping up baby dolls completed the props.

What did Alice Cooper wear on stage to perform Ballad of Dwight Fry, a song about an asylum inmate?

A straitjacket appeared mid-song, after Cooper had been dragged offstage. The title honours Dwight Frye, the actor who played the madman Renfield in the 1931 film Dracula.

Which clean-cut 1950s crooner covered Alice Cooper's No More Mr. Nice Guy on a 1997 album of heavy metal songs?

Pat Boone gave the songs a big band treatment and promoted the record in black leather and a dog collar. The stunt got him dropped for a time from a gospel show on Christian television.

Which original Alice Cooper lead guitarist, who died in 1997, co-wrote both School's Out and I'm Eighteen?

Glen Buxton had been in the group since its high school days in Arizona. Illness dogged him through the Billion Dollar Babies sessions, when three extra guitarists were brought in to cover for him.

Which guitarist, formerly of the tribute band the Iron Maidens, joined Alice Cooper's touring band in 2014?

Nita Strauss was hired to finish that year's tour dates and became a fixture of the live show. She has also toured as guitarist for the pop singer Demi Lovato.

Guitarists Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter came to Alice Cooper's Welcome to My Nightmare from which singer's band?

Lou Reed's players were recruited by the album's producer. Wagner stayed on as a writing partner, composing the music for From the Inside with Cooper three years later.

Hello Hooray, the Alice Cooper band's cover on Billion Dollar Babies, was first recorded in 1968 by which folk singer?

Judy Collins recorded it for her album Who Knows Where the Time Goes. The song was written by a Canadian singer-songwriter, Rolf Kempf.

Alice Cooper starred in a 1979 comic book from which publisher, loosely adapting From the Inside?

Marvel Comics put him in issue 50 of Marvel Premiere, a series used to try out new characters. Fifteen years later he returned to comics with a series tied to The Last Temptation.

Alice Cooper's band gave up the name Nazz in 1968 on learning which musician already led a band called that?

Todd Rundgren's Nazz already had a major-label deal, so the Arizona band needed something new. They chose Alice Cooper largely because it sounded innocuous and wholesome.

On the 1977 album Lace and Whiskey, Alice Cooper played Maurice Escargot, a hard-drinking comic character in which job?

A private detective in the mould of Inspector Clouseau, Escargot appears on the album's back cover. The change of image followed years of playing a sinister villain.