Following is an excerpt from a new Billboard interview with shock rock legend Alice Cooper, conducted by Hilary Hughes:

Q: Given how surreal and escapist the Alice Cooper show is, how has this been, touring throughout the last two years specifically, and watching people come to see you? Do you find that people come to you for an escape from that?

Cooper: "One of the great things I’ve learned is that I could care less about politics. If you’re coming to my show, there will not be politics involved. I’m taking you away from CNN. I’m not plugging you into it. You’re coming to me the way you would go see Harry Potter, the way you would go see Lord of the Rings or the Avengers: I take you away into Alice Land for two hours, hopefully to give you a relief from what’s going on in the world. To me, people are desperate for that right now.

Isn’t it interesting that the girls are the ones doing all the big productions? Lady Gaga does an amazing production, and she really knows what she’s doing up there -- same with Shakira, same with Rihanna. It’s amazing that the girls are taking over the big productions and the guys have become very introverted. I don’t quite understand why a young rock band would be introverted rather than, 'I’m a rock star. Let me loose! Get me up there and let me rock that place!' I see young rock bands being introverted; they don’t want to be rock stars, almost. They’re anti-rock star."

Q: What is it about these women who are filling that void that audiences are really responding to right now? They’re mounting these massive productions like yours, but they’re not necessarily playing a part. Gaga’s direct about where she’s coming from, and she wears her heart on her sleeve.

I think Gaga in particular is very similar to Alice Cooper. When I met her and got her autograph, I brought my daughter to see her, and it said, "Dear Alice, Thank you for letting me steal your show (laughs). No, she didn’t steal my show, but the idea behind the fact that she created a character named Lady Gaga, and what did she do? She wrote songs for Lady Gaga. I write songs for Alice Cooper. I don’t necessarily write songs for me: What would Alice say here? What would Alice do here? It gives me an opportunity to be a little bit more outrageous in a lot of ways, and be a little politically incoherent. I totally understand the Lady Gaga thing. It’s just amazing to me that more guys haven’t jumped in and done big productions.

I think there’s gonna be a resurgence of the ‘80s, where you’re going to see young bands trying to be Mötley Crüe, and young bands trying to be Bon Jovi. That was a fun period. They call them the hair bands, but think of it -- the songs were great, the records were great, the videos were great, the stage show was great, and they had personality. All of these bands, you look at them, and you go, 'Wow, these guys really knew what they were doing.' And then it went away. So I think there’s going to be a resurgence of that."

Read the complete interview here.