In a recent interview with U.K paper, The Sun, shock rock icon, Alice Cooper has revealed that the only person to call him by his birth name, aka Vincent Damon Furnier, is none other than legendary Rolling Stones guitarist, Keith Richards.
“The only person who calls me Vince is Keith Richards,” said Cooper. “He’ll say, ‘Vinnie, Vinnie, how long has it been since you had a drink?’”
“And I’ll reply, ‘More than 30 years’. And he goes, ‘Ah, begs the question, why?’ ”
Alice Cooper was originally given to the band in which he sang lead vocals, but in 1975, following the breakup of the band, he adopted the name both legally and as his stage name from Welcome to my Nightmare onward.
In the same interview, Cooper reflected on the difficulty he found in future years as he trying to separate the character from the person, saying: “There was a long time when I couldn’t separate the two. When I was drinking and drugging, I didn’t know if I was supposed to leave the house with make-up on. I felt I was going to disappoint people if I walked out without a snake around my neck.”
Alice Cooper | "Welcome to my Nightmare"
He continued: “When I got sober, I went, ‘Okay, I have to co-exist with this guy.' I mean, Alice is my favourite rock star but he stays on stage and I go back up to my normal life. That’s why I can speak about Alice in the third person. Somebody will bring in a costume and I’ll go, ‘No, Alice would never wear that!’”
Cooper also shared some fond memories of allies he found coming up in the hard-rock scene of Detroit in the late 60w and early 70s, saying: “I had never heard of Iggy And The Stooges or The MC5 or Bob Seger or Suzi Quatro — all local acts.”
“Iggy was like a miniature Mick Jagger, a contortionist who wore very little on stage. Nobody was called punk at the time but Iggy was the original punk.”
He also threw his informed support behind fellow Detroit trailblazer/rock icon, Suzi Quatro, who's omission from the recent Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominations kickstarted fresh debate on the topic.
“We did lots of shows with Suzi opening for us,” remembers Alice. “And she’s never stopped hard rocking.”
“I know Suzi really well and if anybody belongs in the Hall Of Fame, she does.”
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