Alice Cooper takes on the ‘roll’ of the happiest man in rock
By Brandon Daviet
You wouldn’t guess by looking at him, but Alice Cooper is quite possibly one of the happiest men in rock and roll — the reigning godfather of shock rock is currently in the midst of a world tour to support one of his best albums in years, the recently released Dirty Diamonds.
In fact, Dirty Diamonds is quite possibly one of Cooper’s best ever. Dirty Diamonds is a strong, rocking record that could easily stand alongside classics like Billion Dollar Babies and Trash. As if that’s not enough to keep Cooper busy, he is also enjoying smashing success as a DJ. Cooper’s open rock and roll format, coupled with descriptive and often-sordid tales of Cooper’s legendary career, has proved just what the struggling classic rock radio format has been looking for.Cooper, who just completed the European portion of his current world tour, was kind enough recently to catch The Marquee up on his current comings and goings.
“The radio show is great, I am having more fun with that than with anything. I can play whatever I want and almost everybody I play are friends of mine,” said Cooper. “The show is currently in over 80 markets and keeps getting bigger, and it’s great not having to play the same AC/DC song 100 times.”
In addition to a nightly set of electric tunes, Cooper is also turning fans on to cuts off of Dirty Diamonds, something that many “classic rock” artists don’t have a chance to do. “I think regular radio has a play list of like thirty songs, so it’s no wonder that the fans are enjoying the variety, I have been getting e-mail from all over the world,” said Cooper.
Variety is also the name of the game for Cooper’s new album. Dirty Diamonds is the continuation of a more “organic” recording (translation: playing live in the studio) that Cooper started working on with the release of 2003’s The Eyes of Alice Cooper. The organic records are something that Alice Cooper had been shunning for more conceptual works like Brutal Planet, an album that also spawned a haunted house of the same name, and the recent grease-like street epic Dragontown. “I think I may have started the concept album and I really enjoy doing them, but it was time to do something else,” said Cooper.
For fans familiar with Cooper’s work, Dirty Diamonds is a different beast, indeed. It has a lot of parallels to Trash, Cooper’s 1989 answer to the explosion of Hollywood bands like Motley Crue and W.A.S.P. Filled with unrelenting rockers and “power ballads,” Trash, just like the new record, showed that Cooper can easily gauge what his fans want to hear. “I was listening to bands like Jet and The White Stripes and I was thinking that this was all really retro music,” said Cooper. “Most of those bands are really just like late ’60s , early ’70s garage bands and the time was just right to make a good rock record.”
Alice Cooper :: Budweiser Event Center :: September 4 ::
Spectate if you Gravitate:
• GWAR • W.A.S.P. • Jane’s Addiction
