Independent article

[recoop]

Independent article in News section-fascinating. Interviewer certainly asked some challenging questions and Alice showed his thich skin and stayed with it..even mentions 'crack'..have read Alice deny this elsewhere I believe..personally I'm never bothered what the interviewer thinks of Alice but more concerned re the resonse it brings from Alice and some of the old stuff it pulls together..some bits new to me like the Caroline Coon quote..I thoroughly enjoyed this interview..so thanks for posting..

[A_MichaelUK]

>Independent article in News section-fascinating.

It is about 99% garbage, for all sorts of reasons.

[Guilty]

tomorrow's fish and chip paper. thats all it is!

[Si]

I thought it was terrible. Made up facts and errors etc. Unprofesional (*if* you are asked politely to avoid something, you do so), and full of disrespect.
Said more about the journalist then the subject.

[ElectedPlus]

Possibly the worst interview I've read with Alice, why the intense disrespect of the interviewer? It reads as if the interview was only a platform for Robert Chalmers to say what he thinks of Alice.

[TeresofBlood]

At the same time, it is every journalist's responsibility to ask the hard-hitting questions. If he didn't, it would have been the same old fluff BS. The interviewer tried to stick it to Alice a few times and Alice gave it right back to him. It is one of the most compelling interviews I have ever read. At first I found myself saying, "What an ass!" Then I was saying, "What balls!" Then I was saying, "What a great question!"

It seems like Alice didn't get bored either. He seemed to have enjoyed going toe to toe with this guy. Dig it.

[Dannorama]

I just read the whole thing twice. There are pluses and minuses throughout, but in the end, I am glad to have had something substantive written about Alice.

Si, I like the fact that you picked up on the "more about the journalist then the subject" thing. That was my first impression as well. Then, on the second time through, I concentrated on the Alice quotes only. I, too, think he enjoyed going "toe to toe" with this guy. It may have been refreshing to have a skeptic pepper (not skewer) him with honest questions.

Alice loves playing poker. This time, I think we got a better glimpse at his hand. I think he won this round, anyway.

[pitkin88]

>Independent article in News section-fascinating.

It is about 99% garbage, for all sorts of reasons.

I agree. It was very bizarre. I'm not quite sure If the guy was a fan ( now ex-fan ) or just did a lot of research.
I'd like to hear the interview as I doubt It went down as written. Would Alice's publicist say don't talk about golf when he's just written a book called " Golf Monster "? I rarely read Alice interviews as he tends to give the same ones over and over so at best this interview was different. Maybe he was a Bowie fan

[ElectedPlus]

Really awful interview - the guy just seems to be on a mission to expose a more pathetic Alice Cooper, and does so aggressively throughout - from the first run in with the PR and manager, the 'what if I get bored?' I'm bored already' comments to these kinda statements:

"And – let's be frank – they will also see some total bullshit."

"the only time I have seen him in the flesh before today was when he was eating dinner alone at the Ivy"

"(Cooper tends to volunteer circumstantial excuses, rather than analyse his own motives for taking the drug.)"

"I wondered if you knew that campaign would coincide with them discarding UK employees like old socks."

And these questions: ""In 1969, you said: 'Live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse.' That hasn't worked, has it?"

"Did you ever think those lines might be about you?" (about the Randy Newman song).

This doesn't seem like a guy digging to get a deeper understanding out of Alice's stock answers, he hasn't got a good thing to say about him that would suggest that he's taking a more firm stance to gain a deeper understanding. Robert Chalmers just seems more interested in 'exposing' Alice as something that he imagines Alice to be - (for isntance rubbish, un-thoughtful, wrong to his faith.)

Despite all that, it makes a change from the usual 'any answer will do' approach - and he's really gone to town about digging up things from past interviews and then mentioning several publications etc.. So more research has been attempted than other interviewers. (inaccurate as it may be).

He must have at least some interest in Alice in order to take that approach with him, rather than just not caring.

[daytripper]

Boy.....that was ugly.
But Alice came out smelling like a rose while the inverviewer just copied others quotes.

[ElectedPlus]

Reporter gets the last laugh usually .. the power's in his hands, especially when it's a written thing like this. There's so much scope for manipulation.

[pitkin88]

Alice should have just bitten him on the neck.

[recoop]

interesting to read all views as always..have been following Alice since early 1970s...I am not always sure what is true and what is not..So I wondered Si if you could tell me what you consuder to be the "made up facts and errors" you refer to..you may be quite right but would like some enlargement on wich bits to believe etc in your opinion.thanks in anticipation.

[Shoesalesman]

That interview was, er... interesting.

[BellaDonna]

I didn't think it was all that bad, a bit overly aggressive, perhaps, on the interviewers part. Overall, Alice's quick wit holds up well in his retorts (answering a question with a question)and his responses. He IS quick, gotta give him that.

Also, it's possible that the interviewer is trying to use Alices practice of being 'the villain': villainous interviewer gets more readers than the standard...

[glamprincess]

I just read the whole thing twice. There are pluses and minuses throughout, but in the end, I am glad to have had something substantive written about Alice.

I agree with Danno and I felt there were pluses and minuses throughout this interview too.

While Robert Chalmers tried over and over again to prick through Alice's cool demeanor with hard-hitting comments, Alice remained cool and unflappable. And it was at least more interesting to read an interview where Alice was challenged and asked more probing questions rather than reading the usual spin.

There were times that Chalmers was simply antagonistic. He asked Alice if the Randy Newman song about an aging rock star who has nothing left to say could be about him. Alice's response was that Randy Newman is great. Alice has been in the business too long and has too thick a skin to let comments like that get to him. Then Chalmers tried to antagonize Alice with his insinuation that the show is not as cathartic as Alice says because he claims people do not have such bloodthirsty dreams. So Alice, unflappable as ever, just turned it around and asked Chalmers what he dreamt about. The things that Chalmers said he dreamt about sounded really stupid and Chalmers ended up looking like the total dweeb. Alice won again.

While Chalmers was antagonistic at times, he also paid Alice some

[glamprincess]

For some reason, when I tried to add more comments to my previous post, it cuts me off and won't let me do much editing. So this will be the continuation of my previous post.

Part 2

While Chalmers was antagonistic at times, he also said things about Alice that were real compliments. After questioning whether he would get bored interviewing Alice, he did admit that Alice was "articulate, funny and engaging". He also went on to say that Alice "can justly claim to have invented the notion of rock as an essentially visual medium, an idea that would be exploited by Kiss and Marilyn Manson and, in a different way Madonna and the late Michael Jackson". This comment could be considered a bit insulting in that Alice Cooper never made the visuals more important than the music. But at the same time, Chalmers is giving Alice credit for bringing theatrics to rock music (something not done much lately) and even points out that icons like Madonna and Michael Jackson do indeed owe Alice Cooper something.

So Chalmers does give Alice credit and relevance which Alice has not been receiving enough of lately. Also Chalmers ends up asking questions which challenge Alice and Alice proves that he's definitely more than capable of handling the challenge.

So the interview does end up having its interesting moments.....

[Maurice]

> Chalmers does give Alice credit and relevance which Alice has not been receiving enough of lately. Also Chalmers ends up asking questions which challenge Alice and Alice proves that he's definitely more than capable of handling the challenge.<



As a fellow fan, I can agree with your summary glam; but perhaps to the 'casual' review reader of The Independent - who perhaps may know only 'Schools Out', 'Poison' etc - I think this would read very differently.

I got the distinct feeling that it is written, quite purposefully, on two levels - harsh criticism, thinly disguised as obsequious adulation.

I agree Alice handled it well, but, for me, it (potentially) did more harm than good.

In essence, I felt it would have been a good opportunity for Alice to re-state his 'when Jagger retires, I'll retire at same age', manifesto - which at least would have gone some way towards answering the, very glib, rhetorical starting question.

[glamprincess]

> Chalmers does give Alice credit and relevance which Alice has not been receiving enough of lately. Also Chalmers ends up asking questions which challenge Alice and Alice proves that he's definitely more than capable of handling the challenge.<

As a fellow fan, I can agree with your summary glam; but perhaps to the 'casual' review reader of The Independent - who perhaps may know only 'Schools Out', 'Poison' etc - I think this would read very differently.

I got the distinct feeling that it is written, quite purposefully, on two levels - harsh criticism, thinly disguised as obsequious adulation.

I agree Alice handled it well, but, for me, it (potentially) did more harm than good.

In essence, I felt it would have been a good opportunity for Alice to re-state his 'when Jagger retires, I'll retire at same age', manifesto - which at least would have gone some way towards answering the, very glib, rhetorical starting question.

You raise a very good point. Perhaps some of us are reading the article too much from the point of view of big Alice fans. I can see your point that those who are a lot less knowledgeable about Alice Cooper could interpret things in a different and more negative way. For those of us who are knowledgeable about Alice Cooper, we know that Alice is intelligent and still puts on a great show, so we can ignore Chalmers' antagonistic comments and just focus on Alice's answers. But I suppose the less knowledgeable would be more affected by what Chalmers had to say.

[Dave Conway]

Read this, quickly, just the once. A bit harsh in places, but I think Alice wins over in the end. Concluding paragraphs give a reasonable synopsis.

I agree 99.99% 'Get it'. It seems to me Alice just plays the monster in stories with highly moralistic themes, i.e. he takes the opposite line to make his point. Futher, there is lots of rock and roll, fun and irony included. You have to see beyond the superficial to get to the underlying message (it thats the right word).

I suspect Alice enjoys a challenge like this now and then.