Alice Cooper

"If you confine it, youre confining a whole thing. If you make it spontaneous, so that anything can happen, like we dont want to confine or restrict anything. What we can do, whatever we can let happen, you just let it happen. ... were taking sex, which is probably another half of American entertainment, sex and violence, and were projecting it, and were saying this is the way everything is right now. Biologically, everyone is male and female, so many male genes and so many female. And so what it is is were saying "OK, whats the big deal. Why is everybody so up tight about sex?" About faggots, queers, things like that. Thats the way they are. ... People dont accept that they are both male and female, and people are afraid to break out of their sex thing because thats a big insecurity thats doing that. Consequently, people will make fun of us. We dont mind that, thats making them accept more, making fun that we accept that. The thing is this is the way we are. We think its a gas. ... We like reactions — a reaction is walking out on us, a reaction is throwing tomatoes at the stage, thats a healthy psychological reaction. Reactions applauding, passing out or throwing up, and all of that is a reaction, and as much of that we can get, the better. I dont care how they react, as long as they react."

"I used to be such a sweet, sweet thing Til they got a hold of me. I opened doors for little old ladies, I helped the blind to see. I got no friends cause they read the papers. They cant be seen with me and Im gettin real shot down And Im feeling mean. No more Mister Nice Guy, No more Mister Clean, No more Mister Nice Guy, They say hes sick, hes obscene."

"We can only take it so far, because man can only take it so far, lower self can only take it so far, and you have to realize that the public is only at a certain place. We wont see the day when the public accepts what we wanna project, even though they are accepting a lot now. By the time theyre accepting it, maybe theyll be too old. ... If its total freedom, I guess the ultimate thing you can go into is total silence between the audience and performer, with the performer projecting something he doesnt even have to play. A total silence trip is the ultimate. ... We do antagonize them psychologically. People look at us and react. They either go "Wow! Hey-hey-hey, baby!" and we say thats great. Theyre reacting and thats wonderful. Its better than them sitting there doing nothing. I say make them react — do whatevers in your power to move the audience, and if thats where it is, and there where it is with America, sex and violence, then I say project it."

"Well we cant salute ya Cant find a flag If that dont suit ya Thats a dragSchools out for summer Schools out forever Schools been blown to pieces."

"I call it treason against rock n roll because rock is the antithesis of politics. Rock should never be in bed with politics. ... When I was a kid and my parents started talking about politics, Id run to my room and put on the Rolling Stones as loud as I could. So when I see all these rock stars up there talking politics, it makes me sick. .... If youre listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, youre a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because were morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal."

"Its so funny that people think I actually ran for President. I am maybe the most un-political person youre ever going to meet. When I put "Elected" out, it was definitely a satire ... "Alice Cooper for President" ... when everybody realized I was running against Nixon, you known, even on a joke level, I think I got a lot of write-in votes."

"To me, if you are in the same building with Peter Sellers or John Cleese, or any of those guys and holding your own making other people laugh, that’s a compliment."

"In the early days when I was drinking ... I had a very blurry line about where those two were... 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 make up 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. .. I walk off stage though and I turn away from the audience, I go back to being me again. Whenever I see an audience, that’s when I turn into Alice. If there was no audience there, there would be no reason to be Alice. … If I tried to be Alice Cooper all the time — 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."

"People that havent seen us yet are shocked because they think that Alice Cooper must be a female folksinger. They dont expect the whole thing. And the whole thing is a direct product of television and movies and America, cause thats where Americas based. Thats where their heart is from the sex and violence of TV and the movies, and that was our influence."

"How old are you? Sixteen? S-seventeen? [asks security guard] Is seventeen legal?"

"Mans got his woman to take his seed Hes got the power — oh Shes got the need She spends her life through pleasing up her man She feeds him dinner or anything she can. She cries alone at night too often He smokes and drinks and dont come home at all. Only women bleed..."

"Nobody and nothing beats The Simpsons. Even after all this time, its still the best satire since Monty Python. I havent had an alcoholic drink in 22 years, but when I did drink Id go for either Canadian whisky or Budweiser. Sometimes both. For a long time I used to think "Hey you, get off the floor!" was my name."