In the Sixties and early Seventies, Alice Cooper was simply a rock group, but as their lead singer, Vincent Damon Furnier, developed his modern-day Grand Guignol character, Alice Cooper became his stage name. Then, on a wave of global success, he legally changed it to his own. As his story will tell, the two Alices became schizophrenically, almost fatally intertwined; after a harrowing journey to Hell and back, there are today two very different Alice Coopers: the deeply religious sober man behind the mask and the Godfather of Shock Rock who wears a snake around his neck.
With a career spanning six decades, Alice’s story features witty, intimate anecdotes featuring Salvador Dalí, Bob Hope, John Lennon, Groucho Marx, Vincent Price, Frank Sinatra, Erroll Flynn, Bette Davis, Jim Hendrix, Gerald Ford, Andy Warhol, Tiger Woods, to name a few, but he’s also an acute observer of dysfunction and despair, wildness and criminality, urges and addictions, transgressions and human goodness. And so he tells his story from both perspectives: angel on one shoulder, devil on the other.
“I’ve written this book to track Alice’s ‘evilution’, and how I’ve tamed him at last,” says the rock icon. “Just as he and I became almost fatally intertwined, the story of Alice Cooper after over thirty records and sixty-plus years has become a tangle of embellishments, elaborations and outright fabrications, and I think it’s time to sort reality from myth.”
“We are delighted to be publishing Alice Cooper’s autobiography – and as a music icon with a career spanning six decades what a remarkable life story it is,” says Ebury Spotlight Publishing Director Charlotte Hardman. “In this brilliantly written and vividly told memoir he is incredibly honest about the push and pull of the two sides to his life. This is Alice Cooper as his fans have never heard him speak before.”
Cooper continues to tour endlessly through the years; he’ll launch a spring US trek next month.
Pick up some Alice Cooper for yourself here.