ALICE COOPER - "Young Metal And Rock Bands Are Always Asking Me To Help Them"
July 13, 2009, 15 years ago
Lake Times has issued the following report from Brendan Crabb:
ALICE COOPER said that while audiences could no longer be shocked by a rock ‘n’ roll show, that doesn’t mean we all can’t have fun.
“I don’t think you can (shock people), short of cutting your arm off and eating it on-stage,” he said. “You can’t shock an audience, but you can entertain an audience. “Marilyn Manson and I talk about this all the time. He says that people are shock-proof, so make it a good show.”Speaking from Russia while on tour with German rock institution SCORPIONS, the rock icon is currently touring in support of his 18th solo album, Along Came A Spider, which has proven to be his most successful studio album in some time.
The album’s theme revolved around a serial killer named Spider. Police are baffled by the bodies of Spider’s victims, which are cocooned in a silk web, with each missing a leg. Spider's task is to collect eight legs in order to complete the construction of his own spider.
However, things get complicated when he falls in love with his eighth victim.
“I think that’s maybe been the case because the story was very well thought out,” Cooper said. “I wanted the audience to work a little bit and leave them in suspense to try and solve the mystery, so they have to go back and find the clues throughout the album.“I learned a long time ago to write a song that tells a story in three minutes. So I thought, why not do the same thing but have 12 songs tell one longer story?”
Cooper, 61, is as prolific an artist as the majority of bands half his age, many of whom actively seek his advice about going to the “next level”. His solution? Go back to the original source material – THE BEATLES.
“Young metal and rock bands are always asking me to help them. So I go see them and I say, ‘great performance, great image, great stage show, but you don’t have any songs. You have riffs and you’re angry, I get it. But there’s no songs'."
Read the full report at Lake Times.
