Pheaturing Alice Cooper

Hey, kids, welcome to the Phile for a Tuesday. How are you? Man, phourteen entries to go. In the past week, The New York Times reported that the Taliban seized over a dozen provincial capitals in Afghanistan. At the time of writing this, the Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until the invasion of U.S. forces after 9/11, now has power over more than half of the country. This all comes just months after President Biden announced the end of a 20-year military occupation of Afghanistan. His administration sent a deployment of troops to aid in the evacuation of Americans and allies. Amidst all this news, the 24-year-old activist Malala Yousafzai is voicing her concern over the Taliban's growing control. Malala first came into the international spotlight when she was just 15-years-old, after being shot in the face by a Taliban gunman while pursuing education in Pakistan. Since then, she's been an outspoken advocate for human rights, with a special emphasis on making education accessible for young girls globally. In 2014, Malala made history as the youngest person to win a Nobel Peace Prize for her advocacy.

U.S. troops were first sent to Afghanistan in 2001 by former President George W.Bush. In the years since original deployment, over 2,000 U.S. troops and more than 100,000 civilians have died or been injured in the conflict. Back in April, Biden made a speech from the White House emphasizing the importance of bringing troops home, with the goal to have forces withdrawn by September 11th 2021, marking 20 years since the 9/11 attacks. "It is time for American troops to come home. We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan hoping to create the ideal conditions for our withdrawal, expecting a different result," Biden said. 

During a summer that has turned out to be as stressful as the music on "The White Lotus," the Bennifer reunion has proven to be the most reliable source of entertainment. Violence abroad and the Delta variant at home have only increased the nation's thirst for photos of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez thirsting for each other, and they're giving the people what they want with this highly-publicized reunion. The latest headlines about the saga zeroed in on J.Lo's Instagram. J.Lo deleted all the photos of them together, including the ones taken on the steps of the Capitol Building at President Biden's inauguration. Republicans can relate: they're all about forgetting things that happened at the Capitol.   

"SNL" alum Horatio Sanz is being sued for alleged sexual assault. A lawsuit filed in the Manhattan Supreme Court accuses Sanz of grooming and sexually assaulting a then-17-year-old girl at a "Saturday Night Live "afterparty back in 2002 as his fellow cast members looked the other way. According to the lawsuit, "In January 2000, Defendant SANZ and co-cast member Jimmy Fallon emailed Plaintiff (then 15) from an NBC email account." She ran a fan site, and they invited her to parties. The details of the law suit go beyond just Sanz. It describes a culture of openly drinking with underage girls at afterparties after recruiting them online. The suit alleges that Sanz's actions included "kissing her, groping her breasts, groping her buttocks, and digitally penetrating her genitals forcibly and without [her] consent" in front of everybody at the party. A witness allegedly said "Are you fucking serious?" while it was happening, but did nothing to stop it. You can read the full lawsuit here... iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=PHfgrAF4J5zKa3usCZ7dBw==. It's incredibly disturbing. Here's a Bennifer palate cleanser. You deserve it. 

Virginia Giuffre, a sex-trafficking victim of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, filed a civil case in New York. Giuffre claims she was assaulted by Prince Andrew in London and New York. Andrew has refused to cooperate with the FBI's investigation, but he can't hide in mummy's castles forever: Giuffre's lawyer has told The Independent that Andrew is expected to be served court papers in person. Because his alleged crimes are back in the news, the British press is trotting out Meghan Markle's dad and giving the story a quarter of the Oprah interview's coverage. Priorities. 

The Suicide Squad may have failed to live up to its box office potential but it's easily one of the best films Warner Bros. has produced in the DC Extended Universe. Certain factors affected the film's box office standing but the rave reviews alone would be enough for the studio to greenlight a sequel which I'm pretty sure James Gunn would have no problem helming in the future. Before its release, The Suicide Squad has dropped hints that Superman would make a cameo appearance but obviously, that never happened. Now, director James Gunn has confirmed that there were actual plans to cast Henry Cavill in the film but he ultimately rejected it and instead chose Starro the Conqueror as the DCEU flick's main attraction. In a recent interview with Script Apart, the Guardians of the Galaxy filmmaker revealed his reason for not including, despite his apparent DCEU history with Robert DuBois aka Bloodsport. According to Gunn, he wasn't sure at first whether the film would take place in the DCEU or not. Secondly, Cavill's intriguing status in the franchise was also one of the factors that prevented him from appearing in the film. Gunn explains, "There was a time when I thought the Suicide Squad should fight Superman. At the time, there were a lot of questions like, 'Who is Superman in the DCEU? Is this movie outside the DCEU?’ I just didn't want to deal with it all that much." I gotta say, a cameo from Henry would've made the film 10 times better than it already is but on the other hand, it didn't really need any cameo appearance from "established" DCEU characters. That's not to say though that I wouldn't be interested in seeing the Man of Steel in an R-rated flick because his clash with Bloodsport that led to him being sent to the ICU still has me intrigued.

If you fear that you are not living up to your intellectual potential, or simply aren't the most knowledgable person around... fear no more. As long as you know what the Delta variant is, basic spelling, and that it's physically possible (and indeed quite common!) for a woman to know more about something than a man, you are an absolute genius compared to this person...

If I had a TARDIS I would go and get a tattoo from British tattoo artist George Burchett, the “King of Tattooists” in 1930. But knowing my luck he'd be too busy tattooing a beautiful woman for hours.

He was expelled from school at 12 for tattooing his classmates. He joined the Royal Navy at 13. Among his customers were King Alfonso XIII of Spain, King Frederick IX of Denmark, and the ‘Sailor King’ George V of the United Kingdom. Today's guest is Alice Cooper, which I am so excited about. Did you know he once did an ad for toilet paper? No? Check this out...

Told ya. Haha. Speaking of ads, did you see this one?

Hahahahahahaha. You're welcome, people. One thing I love is when children draw. Can you imagine if what they drew was spot on? Lemme show you what I mean.

That's scary! Okay, now from the home office in Port Jefferson, here is...

Top Phive Things Said By Someones Wife

5. My husband is a "do it yourself" type. When I ask him to do something, he says, "do it yourself."

4. My husband's ability to clog the bathroom sink with his beard trimmings is only matched by mine to clog the bathroom drain with hair. We complete each other. 

3. It's a simple fix. All I have to do is remind my husband 67 times that it needs to be fixed. 

2. Peak marriage is retiring to the bedroom, and instead of embarking on a romantic encounter, examine each other for worrisome freckles and moles instead. 

And the number one thing said by someones wife is...

1. My husband bought me a new refrigerator today so don't you dare tell me romance is dead. 

If you spot the Mindphuck let me know. Okay, let's take a live look at Port Jeff, shall we?

Not a whole lot going on there. I miss that place though. 

This is fucking cool! Today's guest is an American singer, songwriter, and actor whose career spans over 50 years. With a raspy voice and a stage show that features numerous props, including pyrotechnics, guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, reptiles, baby dolls, and dueling swords, he is considered by music journalists and peers to be "The Godfather of Shock Rock." He has drawn equally from horror films, vaudeville, and garage rock to pioneer a macabre and theatrical brand of rock designed to shock audiences. His latest album "Detroit Stories" is available on iTunes, Amazon and Spotify. Please welcome to the Phile... Alice Cooper!

Me: Alice! Holy shit! I am so glad to have you hear on the Phile. I interviewed Tommy Henriksen, your guitarist on the Phile a few times. But it is greta to have you here. How are you? 

Alice: I am great. 

Me: So, you have't been on tour in a while because of COVID. What was it like not touring? 

Alice: Not being on tour for a year and a half is very weird for us. We're not used to three weeks off, let alone a year and a half. 

Me: This has to be the longest time you've been off the road in your life, right? 

Alice: Oh, yeah. I started when I was 16. I've been touring for ever. We average a 150 to 200 shows a year. So when the whole thing went down, the pandemic, we had to cancel a 150 shows. 

Me: What was your last show like? Do you remember? 

Alice: It was kind of interesting. Our last show was in Sydney, Australia. Remember when that country was on fire? We did a show with Queen there, Alice Cooper and Queen at the big stadium. Ninety-five thousand people not realizing that was the last time we were going to be on stage until next year. I thought the pandemic would last a month maybe. 

Me: I was furloughed from my job for about three months. 

Alice: Exactly. No one thought it'll be so huge. But the vaccine has taken over now and everybody is seeing the other side, the light at the end of the tunnel hoping it's not a freight train coming. LOL. 

Me: I saw you in concert with my son a few years ago and I am glad you're going back out on the road. So, your new record is all about Detroit. What is it about the Detroit sound you wanted to have on this record? 

Alice: Well, for one thing Bob Ezrin who worked on 20 albums together, he was our George Martin, he was the one that took Alice Cooper and turned our music into "Alice Cooper" that we are now. We decided to do a real good hard rock, we always do concept albums. Almost every album we've ever done has been a conceptual album and I said let's just do 12 great rock and roll songs. We said Nashville, no not Nashville. L.A.? No. New York? No. The only place we could do a really do a great hard rock record is Detroit. That's the home of hard rock. As far as I'm concerned the heart beats right there, in Detroit. So we went there and the concept started happening. Since we're here let's write the album here. Let's record it here and let's use all Detroit players. So now we're going to get pure influence of Detroit. We'll write songs of characters that we know, we'll write songs and do some covers from Detroit bands. We've got Wayne Kramer, you can't get more Detroit than Wayne Kramer. 

Me: My dad, who you know was Lonesome Dave from Foghat and when we were kids would send us postcards from the road now and then. He sent me one from Detroit which had this huge jukebox on it overlooking the city and I always wanted to go to Detroit as a kid thinking that jukebox was real. Hahaha. So, what was it like when you out this band together? 

Alice: We brought these songs in and instead of layering the album like we did with "Welcome to My Nightmare" or "Billion Dollar Babies" which was conceptual albums, I said this band needs to play live. We just let them play, we'll just teach them the songs and let them play it live and then I'll sing to it. Basically every track you're hearing on that album is a live take. 

Me: That's cool, but why did you do it that way? 

Alice: Because we didn't want to waste that band by layering it. We wanted them to play together. We had no idea it was going to debut at number one. It was like a total shock to us. 

Me: What is it about Detroit that has some great music coming out of it? 

Alice: It always has been. It's an industrial city. It's sort of a no frills city. You go to New York it has that New York sound, you go to L.A. and you got the Doors and you got that L.A. sound San Francisco's got the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. Just talk about the history of those. Detroit has the Stooges, the MC5, Ted Nugent, Alice Cooper, Bob Seger, Suzi Quatro, all hard rock bands. The only white guys that ever had what I consider had a lot of success in rap were all Detroit guys. Kid Rock, Eminem, so there's something about the Detroit no frills kind of in your face rock and roll. That's what we depend on. Every band that I know, when they look at their schedule they look and this and this and see Detroit and they have to kill it in Detroit. 

Me: But why Detroit? 

Alice: Because that audience in Detroit is a rock and roll audience. We have to bring it. They could tell if we're half there. They want us to bring it and knock their faces off. 

Me: Okay, after all Kiss had a song called "Detroit Rock City." Did you live in Detroit? 

Alice: Yeah, in '69 the band left California and moved to Detroit. 

Me: Why was Detroit a better home for the band back then than L.A.? 

Alice: When we were in L.A. we scared everybody too much. Everybody was on LSD. Everyone was peace and love and groovy then we'd show up own stage and everybody was like what is this. We were more Clockwork Orange than anything else. In fact there were parts of Clockwork Orange that was taken from our show. People would watch this and would run for the doors, trying to get out of the room. 

Me: What? Why? 

Alice: It was too strong, there was make-up on the face and there was this whole thing. We didn't fit into L.A., didn't fit into San Francisco... didn't fit in. We fit in kind of in New York in the underground. But as soon as we hit Detroit we were got g to play a big festival there and I never heard of there Stooges or the MC5 or any of those bands, they were just local bands. I saw the Stooges and MC5, I went, "Oh my gosh, competition." First time I saw anybody was going to compete with us on this theatrical kind of thing. Of course we got on the stage and we were louder than the Stooges, we were more aggressive than the MC5. Then they found out I was from Detroit that made me the long lost son and I was immediately moved there. It was there greatest hard rock scene anywhere. 

Me: So what you think of those bands at first? 

Alice: When I saw the MC5 I went wow, a show band. They were like a review. Only they were White Panthers and I'm going what the hell is White Panthers? They were political and in the face and I went man, that's really good. It didn't matter what they were singing, it was the energy behind it was incredible. Then here comes the Stooges, I've never seen Iggy before. There's this guy with no shirt on... barely anything on... walking on the hands of the audience and he's covered with peanut butter. And I'm going okay, the gauntlet has just been thrown down. I loved watching the Stooges. They were so basic. Nothing got in the way. He was the ultimate punk. The music was cool and the lyrics were cool. But very basic. Then we got on and we were a pure Yardbirds type of rock and roll band. Except there was all this insanity going on ands there was this character that was menacing. I mean truly menacing, this Alice Cooper character looked like he could be a serial killer. The audience got not only the drama and the power, they got the comedy behind it. There was a certain amount of humor in what we were doing. I think once we nailed them with the music then they accepted everything else. They loved that Alice and Iggy were in the same world together. 

Me: So, they treated you good, these other bands? 

Alice: Yeah, it was a fascination of seeing something new like that. No one has ever seen anything like what we did up there. And it was backed up by really guitar rock. I mean loud guitar rock. A little more sophisticated musically than what they were doing but still, it was rock right there in the face. I think people always wanted there to be a feud between Iggy and I and they always wanted to be a feud between Bowie and I. Bowie used to come to our concerts early on when he was David Jones and he would being the Spiders From Mars to the concert and say this is what we should be doing. So Bowie never had a problem, we were just two different artists. We was taking it in a whole different direction that I am. He's creating this space oddity guy and I'm the phantom of the opera, or whatever in Vaudeville somehow. Iggy is the ultimate punk so I never saw there competition, I just saw this whole new brand way of presenting rock and roll. Kiss came along after that so if anything we kind of proved that we can be a theatrical band and have a Top 40 record. 

Me: What's the wildest memory of shows you had back in that era in Detroit? 

Alice: Well, we would do let's say on a weekend, this was a normal weekend, we would be at the Grandy let's say with the MC5 and Bob Seger... and the Who. Eleven hundred people, right. Then across the street would be Iggy and the Stooges and Ted Nugent and Elton John. Then down the road was Steppenwolf and Suzi Quatro and all in the same night and every place was packed. They were rock dungeons. It was all music. The next week it would all switch around, I'd be with the MC5 the next week or the Stooges the next week and we'd be playing with the Kinks. The big British bands were playing clubs, they were not playing arenas. That didn't come until later. Everybody wanted to play the Grandy. 

Me: I was lucky to interview Pete and Roger from The Who. How did they go over? 

Alice: Are you kidding me? They were so Detroit. Everybody would look at the itinerary and say Detroit is the pinnacle of American rock. 

Me: When I think of Detroit I think of Motown though, is that weird? 

Alice: The funny thing is we co-existed with Motown. We'll be on stage and we'd look down and there would be Smokey Robinson. Or two of the guys from the Temptations. All those guys would come to the concerts. 

Me: Really? I'm surprised. 

Alice: There was no racial thing going on. There was no black and white, it was just music. When those guys would play we would go down and see their shows and nobody blinked at all at these long haired guys watching these Motown shows. With us it was just music. 

Me: And Funkadelic was happening in Detroit at same time, right? 

Alice: Funkadelic was so great because they were so high. They were just so ridiculously high. There's a spaceship coming down on stage and their music was funk. It wasn't necessarily hard rock. But everybody loved it, it was because they had the audacity to do that. 

Me: Why do you think you got so big and so popular? I mean, you were on "The Muppet Show" for crying out loud.

Alice: I had two secret weapons. I had Shep Gordon my manager who I've still been together for 52 years. Jimi Hendrix introduced him to us. And 52 years later he's still my manager, we still don't have a contract together. And Bob Ezrin, he was the one that took what we had, the energy what we had, the songs what we had, he would take the best parts of the songs that we had and taught us how to write again. He taught us how to redo everything. He was our George Martin. He was just as crazy as we were, in fact, he might've had a darker sense of humor than I did. He would say, "Why can you tell it's the Doors when it's the Doors when you hear a Doors record? Because they have a signature sound. It's the same with the Stones. You know it's the Stones. What you don't have is that signature. You could be any great psychedelic band." So we spent six months in a barn in Pontiac, Michigan relearning how to do everything. "Love it to Death" came out and everybody said that's Alice Cooper. We suddenly had that signature sound. That's what Bob gave us and we kept that sound all the way through. Twenty-eight albums later, that's our bible, that's our constitution is that sound. 

Me: What did you learn in Detroit that most transformed you as an artist? 

Alice: That I had to bring it every night. I couldn't just go up there and do a show. I had to give it everything I had because that audience could sense fear. I had to go up there and grab them by there throat and shake them. I couldn't go up there and say calmly, "Gee, I hope you like us tonight. Here's a song I wrote in 1970..." I had to go up there and say "come here" and just shake them and let them go at the end. I think Detroit might've been the most fun rock and roll scene. Everybody was buddies. After every show, after every weekend it'll be "where's the party tonight?" Two hundred people would show up and it'll be like an after party show. That was normal, everybody knew everybody and knew everybody's wife's and girlfriends so it was a really cool rock and roll scene. 

Me: I think it's cool you knew Jimi Hendrix, Alice. What was he like? 

Alice: He was one of my best buddies. He took us under his wing a bit. We went to see them when we were the Spiders in Phoenix. He invited us back to his hotel room, he handed me a funny cigarette, he was the first one that I ever tried that with. And then the crazy thing was we were living in the Chamber Brothers basement during the riots in L.A. We were so poor we were just trying to make it. Jimi knew Shep Gordon at the Landmark Hotel, that's where Janis Joplin died. He said, "Shep, you ought to be our manager. I know this band that needs a manager." And he introduced us. Jimi and I also had the same girlfriend that we didn't know about. It was funny, we burst out laughing when it happened. 

Me: Hahaha. He had a sense of humor? 

Alice: He was the best. He was always laughing. I never saw him in a bad mood. 

Me: So, why did you want to go back to this Detroit sound now? 

Alice: I'm kind of incoherent when it comes to anniversary of albums. Someone mentioned is was the 50th anniversary of "Love it to Death." That we developed and recorded in Detroit and it was our first big hit. We were in Detroit doing "Detroit Stories" and none of us had any idea that that was the 50th anniversary. I'm a real fan of hard rock, I want hard rock. Of course I throw the theatrics in. Bob and I can't help it. We have to create certain weird characters but we never go away from the basic in your face guitar riff rock and roll. I think it was just time to do a hard rock album. Coming out of the pandemic, everyone is just in a lull. I said let's do a hard rock album that's going to booster everybody. I think not was time for the album. That's what the world needed right then. The Beatles came around at the exact right time, with the exact right stuff. Dylan came around at the exact right time, there's no figuring out what that is, it just happens. 

Me: What do you think of Gene Simmonds saying rock and roll is dead? 

Alice: I'm guaranteeing you, there's going to be a tidal wave of hard rock coming out because it's almost time for it again. There's always rebellion against what's going on. There's going to be a bunch of young rock bands that are just snotty rock and roll bands, and people are going to be hungry for that. 

Me: What would you say to new bands? 

Alice: I'd say go see Pete Townshend, go see go see the Foo Fighters, go see Green Day, see us, see Aerosmith, see Guns N Roses, these are the bands that bring it every night. They shake the audience. Be a rock band, if you're going to be a rock star be a rock star. Study what Keith Moon did. First of all, bring fun back into rock and roll. This whole idea of rock and roll is fun. 

Me: Do you think it got serious? 

Alice: Yeah, and it got political. The last thing you want to do in rock and roll I think. I tell rock and roll bands "tell me about your girlfriend." That's what rock and roll is about. But with an attitude. You can't go up there with a soft attitude, go up there with an attitude. Look at Mick Jagger, he's still strutting around the stage like he owns the world. And he does. 

Me: Alice, thanks for finally being on the Phile. Take care. 

Alice: Thanks, can't wait to go out next month and finally go back out on stage. Maybe I'll see you there.

Me: I hope so.

That about does it for this entry of the Phile. Thanks to Alice Cooper for a cool interview. The Phile will be back on Monday with Sir Bob Geldof from the Boomtown Rats. Spread the words, not the turd. Don't let snakes and alligators bite you. Bye, love you, bye.

Give me some rope, tie me to dream, give me the hope to run out of steam, somebody said it could be here. We could be roped up, tied up, dead in a year. I can't count the reasons I should stay. One by one they all just fade away...