Alice Cooper on How He Influenced David Bowie
Alice Cooper details in a new interview how he influenced David Bowie, especially when it comes to on-stage theatrics.
Speaking to Metal Hammer, Cooper says, “David used to come to the show when he was a mime artist, he was Davy Jones back then. I remember at one of our ‘Welcome To My Nightmare’ shows, he brought his band the Spiders From Mars and he was saying, “This is what we should be doing.'”
Cooper continues, “But he never did it the way we did it. When we started doing theatrics and still had hit records, that opened up a huge door for Bowie, Lou Reed and Velvet Underground because you could be theatrical and commercial at the same time. I wanted there to be an artistic movement, I created Alice as a villain and Bowie created all of his characters to fit who he wanted to be, so I never really saw him as competition, I encouraged him.”
Cooper added, “Bowie and I talked all the time, we’d compliment each other. There was a whole thing about Bowie and Lou Reed talking about my androgynous thing being fake and they were right, of course, it’s fake. It’s a dark vaudeville show and I play a character. Lou and David knew me and knew I couldn’t be more down-the-middle American but I just happened to tap into this character and the image – I knew how to make that character scary, sexy, revolting and funny at the same time!”
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