Alice Cooper really wanted to make The Rolling Stones look like ‘choirboys’

As per Louder Sound, Alice Cooper recently sat down for an interview with Metal Hammer magazine.

Reflecting on his massive career, Cooper revealed that his parents’ reaction to the Rolling Stones is what actually inspired his lifetime dedication to shock rock.

As per Louder Sound, Cooper what was asked if he remembered the first time that an artist had shocked him and if it impacted his career choice?

And oh, does he!

Cooper recalled, “I was seven when I first saw Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show and we were so used to doo-wop music when I was a kid, all of a sudden we didn’t know if Elvis was the hero or the villain, but I knew my parents liked him.”

He goes on to say, “The second time was when we saw the Beatles – we all went, ‘Wow look at that hair, look at the boots, look at the suits! These songs are the best songs I’ve ever heard!’”

“Then the Rolling Stones came and I got the reaction from my parents that these guys were scruffy, they could be drug addicts – that appealed to me. I looked at them and thought, ‘If I ever get a band together, I’m gonna make these guys look like choirboys!’”

Bringing things forward to the present, in another recent interview Cooper acknowledges that he achieved delivering on that same shock factor he recognised when he was young.

Cooper told The Independent, “We gave the audience everything their parents hated. The way we saw it if you’re driving by and you see Disneyland on the left side and a plane wreck on the right, you’re going to look at the plane wreck. We were that plane wreck.”

He told The Independent, “You could cut off your arm and eat it on stage and it wouldn’t matter. The audience is shockproof.”

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