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Q & A with Alice Cooper Posted: Wednesday October 09, 2002 12:33 PM
The 54-year-old shock rocker and restaurateur -- he owns Alice Cooper'stown sports bars in Phoenix and Cleveland -- contemplates the Hall of Fame, Little League baseball and his hometown Phoenix Suns.
Cooper: What about the Big Unit? In Phoenix we have a two-foot hot dog called the Big Unit. That's our most popular item. I mean, can you believe we get away with calling it that? SI: As the Suns' most famous celebrity fan [Cooper has season tickets at courtside], how do you rate the trade of Jason Kidd for Stephon Marbury? Cooper: Boy, was that a bad idea. SI: Should Alice Cooper really be coaching a Little League team? Cooper: When Wayne's World came out [in 1992], I was coaching 11- and 12-year-old kids, and we had a practice the Monday after the movie opened. The kids were just standing there stunned. Finally one little kid comes up to me and says, "Coach Cooper, how did you get in Wayne's World?" I said, "Well, I got this little band." SI: You're currently on a world tour to promote your Dragontown CD. Can you outlast the Stones? Cooper: At this point I'm in better shape than all of them put together. SI: In high school you ran a 4:32 mile. How long does it take you now? Cooper: I recently ran a 6:10 mile, and I still run two miles every night. SI: Has the Baseball Hall of Fame called to complain about the name of your restaurant? Cooper: Not yet, but I think the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame should be calling me. I think I'm being blackballed. But it's great to be the Pete Rose of rock and roll. I bet on my own bands. SI: Your Web site says Kerri Strug has eaten at Cooper'stown in Phoenix. What would have happened if a gold-medal-winning gymnast had come on stage with you back in the 1970s? Cooper: We would probably have barbecued her. A little Kerri Strug rib roast would have gone a long way. SI: Was tossing a live chicken into the audience good preparation for becoming a restaurateur? Cooper: You know what I wanted to do with the restaurant? You know how you go into a lobster restaurant and pick your own lobster? I wanted people to come in and pick their chicken. And then you go back in and hear the screams. SI: Best athlete in rock 'n' roll? Cooper: You’re going to laugh: Michael Bolton SI: Who is the most famous person in sports who you've hung out with? Cooper: I play a lot of golf with Randy Johnson. SI: Who wins? Cooper: I beat Randy by at least eight strokes. He hits it a long way but I keep it down the middle all day. SI: One game on the line: Randy Johnson or Curt Schilling? Cooper: Gotta say Johnson. Johnson gets stronger as game goes on. He’ll throw 100 miles per hour in the ninth inning and he’s just more intense. SI: You’re a huge golfer. What’s your golf handicap? Cooper: I am a seven. SI: Best round you’ve ever shot? Cooper: I shot a 67 at Camelback in Phoenix. It was just one of those days. I was a 2 handicap at the time and playing with three pros and I got to the last hole and I asked one of the guys: ‘I’m playing pretty good, right?’ They said I could par the hole for a 69. I hit a driver, a three wood and chipped it in for an eagle. The next day I went out and shot 81. SI: Which name do you like better: The Darth Vader of rock 'n' roll or the Johnny Appleseed of bad taste? Cooper: I’m definitely more of the Darth Vader type, but I’ve heard plenty of people say the Vincent Price of rock 'n' roll, which I kind of like. SI: Greatest sporting event you’ve ever attended? Cooper: I was at the Super Bowl in 1978 in Miami with Dallas and the Steelers, and it was star-studded. Racquel Welch, everybody was there. It was more Mardi Gras than a football game. I think the football game was incidental. The Super Bowl was the Academy Awards. And I can’t remember why I was there. SI: Could pro sports benefit from a halftime show in which one of the stars gets decapitated at the guillotine? Cooper: I think they should have some kind of a deal where people are allowed to decapitate any coach they want. And why in hockey should the guy who gets a penalty have to go to his own box? He should have to go to the other team’s penalty thing where they can beat the hell out of them for two minutes. That way you’ll see a lot less penalties. SI: Wouldn’t the Coopers be a much better reality show than the Osbournes? Cooper: Well, the only problem is you’re not allowed to swear at our house. We’d lose ratings all over the place right there. SI: According to your Web site, your rock group was spending more than $32,000 a year on beer alone back in the 1970s. How are you still here? Cooper: And that’s when beer was cheap. When you’re a rock 'n' roller and in your mid-20s and literally on a five-year tour without living anywhere except the road, you feel indestructible. You can drink as much beer as you want. Right now one beer would put me back in the hospital. I haven’t had a drink in 20 years. SI: Why no Oscar for Wayne’s World? Cooper: That’s one of the great mysteries. It ranks up there with how is Keith Richards is still alive and why anybody ever goes to a Grateful Dead concert? SI: You said in a recent interview that you’ve actually sung along to a Britney Spears song. Say it isn’t so. Cooper: Well, it’s impossible not to sing to a Britney Spears song but to make up for that, on our stage show, we cut her head off every night. And Pepsi comes out instead of blood. SI: What shocks Alice Cooper today? Cooper: CNN. Nothing is scarier to me than CNN, although Anna Nicole Smith is pretty close. -- Richard Deitsch Issue date: Oct. 14, 2002
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