Posted on 04/26/2016 8:01:53 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
He has been called the godfather of shock-rock, mixing elements of horror movies into acts that have included an unpalatable array of guillotines, fake blood, baby dolls and boa constrictors. Yet many would be surprised to learn of his Christian roots and his homecoming to the faith after sowing his oats as the ultimate prodigal.
“My father was a pastor and my grandfather was an evangelist, actually both were evangelists,” Cooper told the Harvest Show. “I grew up in the church and all my friends were church kids. I had so much fun. I was in church Sunday, Wednesday night, Friday night. All my social life was based around kids in the church.”
When the Beatles invaded the American music scene in the ’60s, Cooper (born Vincent Furnier) was captivated and formed a band called The Spiders among his classmates, mimicking the Beatles’ style. After a couple years of recording songs, he realized something was missing from the rock scene.
Alice Cooper record cover“I looked around and thought, ‘There’s no villains in rock and roll, why not create rock’s ultimate villain?’ Furnier created a character known as Alice Cooper, who appeared on stage as a debased female killer wearing tattered women’s clothing, with smeared deep, dark black eyeliner on his face.
At first, he didn’t think “playing” the role of an antihero on stage would affect his Christianity. “I didn’t think about how that might affect my faith at all. The Bible is full of villains. I thought, ‘I’ll be this villain.’”
“I gave Alice his perimeters, those areas he wouldn’t go past,” he told the Harvest Show. Eventually, the band adopted the same name as its infamous lead.
Their first big success came with the single “I’m Eighteen,” which reached number 21 on Billboard’s top 100 in early 1971.
Cooper’s 1971-72 tours featured a stage show with mock fights and gothic torture scenes, Cooper hugging a boa constrictor, chopping bloodied baby dolls, and a staged execution.
In 1972 their single “School’s Out” went into the Top 10 in the U.S. and to number one in the UK. The band horrified parents and outraged politicians in the U.K. A British Labor MP petitioned the home secretary to have the group banned from performing in the country and one of their songs was banned by the BBC.
Furnier aka Cooper was drawn into a self-destructive lifestyle and left his Christian roots behind. “The things you heard about us were pretty insane,” he told Mulatschag TV in Austria. “We were probably a threat to the pubic at the time. We were the ones who lived. Most of our friends died trying to be rock stars.”
Cooper counted among his friends Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Keith Moon. “I drank with these guys every night and I watched every one of them go down. The reason is that they tried to be their character off stage,” he recalls.
His heavy drinking began to exact a toll on his body. “I drank for a long time. I was throwing up blood every morning. I was really a bad alcoholic. I wasn’t cruel or mean, but I was definitely self-destructive,” he says. At its worst, reports said he was consuming two cases of Budweiser and a bottle of whisky every day.
Following his 1977 US tour, Cooper checked himself into a sanitarium for treatment of his alcoholism. Six years later, he was hospitalized for alcoholism and cirrhosis of the liver.
“I had to go through the cure,” he told Mulatschag TV. “I came out of the hospital and it was a miracle. My alcoholism was gone. God took it away from me. It was an absolute miracle. In 30 years I have never once had a craving for alcohol. That doesn’t happen every day.”
After Cooper hit bottom and he saw God’s hand in his recovery, it forced him to reevaluate his faith. He reconciled with his estranged wife, Sheryl Goddard, a ballerina instructor and choreographer who had performed in his shows in the 1970s. Her father was a Baptist pastor.
The two began to attend church together in Phoenix. “There was a pastor in Phoenix who was hell-fire. There would be 6000 people there and he was talking to me, every Sunday. Of course he wasn’t, but he was, just nailing me. Every week I’d come out exhausted and I said, ‘I don’t want to go back.’ It was like torture, but I always came back.”
God had been wooing the heart of a prodigal to come home. “I finally decided I had to go to one side or the other. I had to make a decision because I was so convicted. The Lord really convicted me,” he says.
Alice Cooper returned to the Father’s house, and God met him with outstretched arms and the love reserved for every prodigal who comes home.
A God-shaped hole in Cooper’s heart was filled. “When that’s filled you’re really satisfied. That’s where I am right now. I’m very young in the faith even though I grew up in it, so I do a lot of Bible reading and Bible studies,” he says.
He and his wife attend “a good, strong, Bible-teaching church,” but I’m still a rock and roller going out on tour. “I don’t do it in the same spirit I used to do it in. I watch the songs lyrically. Some of the songs I used to do were way over the line.”
“Before I was self-centered. Everything was for me. Self was God. Humans make really lousy gods. We have to let God be God and let us be what we are. My focus changed. Instead of serving me I began to serve Christ.”
“I am the perfect example of the prodigal son.”
Source: ASSIST News Service, GodReports
You can think what you want, but that’s not how he came off to anyone I know. Yes, I agree that Life Is Killing Me could be the unspoken turning point, but there were 5 or 6 albums before that, and all his interviews. Come on. He was a Angry Neurotic Catholic who tossed it all over his shoulder, like the Carnivore song. Then, just like you say, after his Mom he came around.
Freegards
your firstl ink- i had forgotten about that song- His sogns were just wild, liek a really bizarre mix of ballads hard rock, twisted rock- it was like peaceful but either violent or twisted, all at once- Very unique stuff-
pretty funny interview with him here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T5jrqpoynA
So John Tatum, my guitar player in the first band I toured with, was Alice’s guitarist when they were in PHX known as the “Earwigs”.
The world should have cried the day Peter Steele died.
The guy wrote some of the most awesome rock ever, and it will never be recognized by most folks. He could have made it as a stand up comedian, he is also my pick for funniest cool rocker. Alice is also up there.
Freegards
You have not seen my FR profile, I’m guessing.
Since the early 2000’s, it’s said “Type O Negative: The Best Band You Never Heard Of”.
His last album was epic and showed his new leaf.
“These Three Things” is anti-abortion.
In spite of his lifestyle, he was always very socially conservative.
Call me a wuss, but I have not listened to more than a few minutes of TON since he died.
Just can’t.
Nagged hubby mercilessly to let me repaint my bike but it was April and too late so I spent a whole riding season, looking down at his face and it was a misery.
[Dear God, please keep Alice alive...it’s takes a lot of work and expensive materials to repaint a whole Harley..amen]
I have absolutely seen the FR page. VERY VERY COOL, ALRIGHT?
We just disagree on if Peter Steele was more likely to come back to faith than some other rock person. What other rock person wrote and spoke about his atheism so vehemently and with such precision?
Dead Again might be their best album, pound for pound. That is scary, because I wouldn’t scoff at someone that likes Bloody Kisses, October Rust, Life is killing Me more.
Freegards
used to listen to his classic rock radio program, where he did a great job. To the surprise of many, he’s a helluva golfer and loves to play.
True story..... I was travelling with a friend from my company when we decided to have dinner at Alice Cooper’s restaurant in Phoenix (about 2,000 miles from home). We were just about done when we look up and see Cooper walking through shaking hands. My friend grabbed his cell phone and called his wife and said “I think Alice Cooper is playing in a couple weeks at home... get a couple tickets right now.” By the time Alice had made his way to our table, my friend was able to hold up his phone and show Alice “My wife and I have tickets to see you in a couple weeks. We’re in the 16th row.” Cooper was blown away and we ended up chatting with him for about 15 minutes... just a downright nice guy.
I saw that one, and the tour one year earlier. IIRC, BDBs had him climbing the giant spider web. I don’t remember which had the guillotine. :-)
Ha!
I thought of you immediately and it worried me too.
Thank you!
I have never seen that one.
If you get a chance, watch Super Duper Alice Cooper.
Sounds self-aggrandizing but is far from it.
It’s his public confession.
Happy ending, though.
VH1 Classic runs it occasionally.
No idea why you’re so angry.
LOL
Bless you for that.
Talk about a great big *WHEW!*
:)
I’m pretty sure everyone on Earth either has or will eventually meet Alice, be it at a restaurant, concert, golf course or him creeping around some mall...and I never will.
If I had a dollar for everyone who’s said “Hey, I met him!”, I’d have enough for a ticket backstage to his meet-and-greets.
:D
You must be taking me the wrong way or something. I’m not angry. Probably my fault, sorry.
I just think Peter Steele is the best and most unlikely conversion story amongst cool rockers. I tried to express why I thought that.
Fregards
Saw him the first time at the Cowtown Ballroom in Kansas City. Killer had just come out. Pacific,Gas and Electric opened the show and tickets were $2.
After I moved to Phoenix, used to see him at church often.
Ah, okay.
When he went public with the return to church, I was elated.
Even though I adored him, his enmity to God always worried me.
I really did not want him ending up somewhere very bad, should his ongoing health problems finally do him in.
It was ~huge~ relief.
:)
I often wonder if “Dead Again” was not a bit of prescience.
I mean, ‘Halloween In Heaven’?
Too close to the bone.
“After I moved to Phoenix, used to see him at church often.”
See what I mean?
:D
“Most of our friends died trying to be rock stars.”
One of them was my cousin. His band and Alice’s played many gigs together when they were starting out in Phoenix. Alice used to hang out at my aunt’s house pounding down beers. Alice survived his bout with cirrhosis, Mike didn’t.
Trivia: Alice was for awhile romantically linked to Raquel Welch. Erm, don’t even wanna visualize...
I saw him live 2 times in Baton Rouge in the early 70s. He did the thing with the guillotine. Heh heh. We kids always knew he was a “straight” who drank Budweiser and played golf.
Decades later, after Katrina, while driving late at night, I used to listen to his radio show, Nights With Alice Cooper. Funny guy, an encyclopedia of music and pop culture and a hundred other less trivial subjects—history, politics, philosophy.
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