ALICE COOPER - "I Don't Have Any Physical Problems At All - I Feel Great"
October 18, 2008, 16 years ago
The following story is courtesy of Times & Transcript:
There was a time that ALICE COOPER the man and Alice Cooper the character couldn't be separated.
At the peak of his fame in the mid-'70s, after the original Alice Cooper band broke up and Cooper took the name on to even greater heights, he sunk into a battle with alcoholism that nearly destroyed his career.
"There was a time when I didn't know where I started and where Alice ended," he explains. "And really, what it was, I had to figure out after I saw all my friends dying up there, I realize that they were just trying to live their image all the time."You can't be JIM MORRISON all the time without dying. You can't be Jimi Hendrix without dying . . . JANIS JOPLIN."
Cooper learned his lesson, and now he knows when to be Alice Cooper and when not to.
"Does Alice ever come home with me? No. That way, I can co-exist with him. I can have fun with him. I can look forward to playing him, but I don't have to be him."Cooper compares it to an actor playing a role in a film.
At 60, one has to wonder how difficult the energetic stage show and constant touring is on Cooper. His band is made up of musicians all 20 years his junior.
But Cooper says he's feeling great and that the more he tours, the better he seems to feel.
"Never better," he says when asked how he is. "Honestly, it's the oddest thing. I keep telling them, 60 is the new 30. Except that when I was 30, I was a mess."I was a total mess before I stopped drinking. So it's been 25, 26 years without a drink. And I never did smoke, and I wasn't a druggie. I am now probably in my peak physical condition that I've ever been in my life.
"I do five shows a (week), an hour and 45 minutes, 28 songs, all out. Whereas I know a lot of guys my age can only do two shows a week because physically either they smoked and their lungs are gone, they don't have the lung capacity or they're just too tired to do it or physically they can't do it. I don't have any physical problems at all. I feel great."
Read more here.
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