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Seeing musicians crawling around on stage in frightening make-up is old hat. It’s been done a thousand times over, from the ghoulish punks of The Misfits to the sacrilegious iconography of Marilyn Manson. But before anyone else had a chance to scare their fans’ parents, Alice Cooper was strutting on stages across the country. Cooper is the original shock rocker. There have been other bands and artists whose onstage antics rival anything you’ll see today—people like David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Black Sabbath all turned to either unpredictable costumes or spontaneous stage drama, such as cutting themselves and bleeding on the audience or, more famously, biting the heads off bats. But none of these artists experienced the early commercial appeal of Cooper, whose music climbed the American charts in the ‘70s and proved to be an easy hit with teens. It helped that Cooper wasn’t just a pioneer of theatrical provocation, but also a master of metal, and would pave the way for the genre through the ‘70s. Born Damon Furnier in 1948 in Detroit, he formed his first group while living in Arizona as a teen. There was a long succession of rock groups, from the Earwigs to the The Spiders, before Furnier eventually crafted the persona of Alice Cooper. The name is rumored to have been acquired during a Ouija board session, when Furnier learned he was a reincarnated witch. More likely it was a calculated decision made to impress fans and earn the band some recognition. Frank Zappa signed Cooper and his band in 1968, releasing their first record, Pretties For You, a year later. They struggled to earn any notice at all, moving from Los Angeles to Detroit and tweaking their controversial stage show and their music. Their next two records went gold, with the title track of their third, 1972’s School’s Out, becoming a smash. Cooper appeared on stage in dark makeup and sometimes carrying a live python. They would quickly find enthusiastic audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, and their music continued to grow more and more popular with each album. "No More Mr. Nice Guy" was an especially big hit song after "School’s Out." After 1973’s Billion Dollar Babies, Cooper and the band would part ways, with the former pursuing a solo career. He had the act down, and performed well through the ‘70s. Sadly, the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle and waning interest in his brand of heavy metal made things rough by the end of the decade. Cooper would roar back into the national spotlight in the mid-‘80s, when hair metal had finally taken over the radio again. Not surprisingly, metal fans still covet Alice Cooper tickets. This article was written by Andrew Good and sponsored by StubHub. StubHub sells Alice Cooper tickets as well as sports tickets, concert tickets, theater tickets and more to just about any event in the world.
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