Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
No More Mr. Nice Guy (1973)
It's kind of crazy to think that "shock rock" has been around for nearly 60 years, and that its main purveyor is in his mid-70s now, but here we are. Alice Cooper doesn't shock anybody anymore, but he can still entertain.
Vincent Furnier started playing music in a Phoenix high school band called the Spiders. After graduating, they named themselves Nazz and released a single, but soon discovered that Todd Rundgren also was in a band called Nazz. They chose the name Alice Cooper and played a brand of psychedelic rock that got them a record deal from Frank Zappa; their debut was 1969's Pretties for You.
The shock rock image happened by accident at first; at a concert in Toronto in September 1969, a chicken got on stage and Cooper picked it up and threw it into the crowd, thinking it would fly away. The chicken, however, fell into a wheelchair section and the concertgoers there reportedly tore it to pieces. The incident made the front page of national newspapers, which reported that Cooper had bitten off the chicken's head and drank its blood on stage. Zappa asked Cooper if the story was true and the latter denied it; Zappa said he should keep that to himself and take advantage of the publicity.
The band's 1970 album Easy Action failed to chart on the Billboard 200; the band moved to Pontiac, Michigan, where crowds were more receptive to harder rocking acts like the Stooges and MC5. The band's stage theatrics and costumes were getting more elaborate, emphasizing dark, violent themes that reflected where the 1970s were going after the hippie flower power of the late '60s.
Producer Bob Ezrin began working with the band starting with 1971's Love It to Death, which featured the hit "I'm Eighteen." Warner Bros. purchased Alice Cooper's contract from Straight Records and reissued the album. The 1971 tour featured mock fights and torture, with a staged execution of Cooper by electric chair; artists including Elton John and David Bowie attended Alice Cooper shows in Europe.
The band's next album was 1971's Killer and the first single was "Under My Wheels," a sub-3-minute blast of hard rock that featured Cooper at his straightahead best. The following summer, Cooper released "School's Out," which went top 10 in the U.S. and topped the charts in the U.K. Cooper's androgynous stage look and anti-establishment attitude had British officials trying to ban the group from performing there.
The general reaction to the band inspired "No More Mr. Nice Guy," a single off 1973's Billion Dollar Babies, which went #1 in the U.S. and U.K.
"I used to be such a sweet, sweet thing/'Til they got a hold of me/I opened doors for little old ladies/I helped the blind to see/I got no friends 'cause they read the papers/They can't be seen with me/And I'm gettin' real shot down/And I'm feeling mean/No more Mr. Nice Guy/No more Mr. Clean/No more Mr. Nice Guy/They say 'He's sick, he's obscene."
Cooper said he wrote the song about the reactions of his mother's church group to his stage performances; as it turns out, his father was an evangelist in The Church of Jesus Christ, which acknowledges the Book of Mormon as scripture but doesn't consider itself to be a Mormon church.
"My dog bit me on the leg today/My cat clawed my eyes/Ma's been thrown out of the social circle/And dad has to hide/I went to church incognito/When everybody rose, the Reverend Smith/He recognized me/And punched me in the nose, he said/No more Mr. Nice Guy/No more Mr. Clean/No more Mr. Nice Guy/He said, 'You're sick, you're obscene.'"
The song went to #25 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #10 in the U.K. "No More Mr. Nice Guy" has been covered by Megadeth and Pat Boone (on his "metal" album) and featured in Dazed and Confused, Family Guy and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Billion Dollar Babies also had hits with the title track and "Elected." The band's stage show got increasingly elaborate, with special effects, decapitated baby dolls and mannequins and a working guillotine designed by magician James Randi, who appeared on stage at some shows as the executioner. 1973's Muscle of Love album was the last to feature the classic lineup of the band (guitarists Glen Buxton and Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway and drummer Neal Smith). The album didn't perform as well as its predecessor and the band went on hiatus.
In 1975, Furnier officially changed his name to Alice Cooper and returned as a solo artist with Welcome to My Nightmare; he worked with Ezrin and Lou Reed's backing band (including guitarists Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter). The album featured the top 20 hit "Only Women Bleed" and went top 10; it was a concept album that featured narration from Vincent Price and an accompanying prime-time TV special in April 1975.
Cooper decided to continue as a solo artist, while Bruce, Dunaway and Smith formed a short-lived band called Billion Dollar Babies, making one album. Cooper had a few more hits before going into rehab for alcoholism; at his peak, he was reportedly drinking up to two cases of Budweiser and a bottle of whiskey PER DAY. He sobered up for a while and released a few more albums in the late '70s, as well as appearing on The Muppet Show and in the movie Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as a villain.
Cooper's early '80s musical output has been called his "blackout albums" because he can't remember making them, thanks to his cocaine addiction. He went new wave on 1980's Flush the Fashion and sales were dropping. He was hospitalized again in 1983 for his alcohol problem; he got sober and has remained so to this day.
In 1986, Cooper re-embraced his old image and put on the black snake-eyes makeup for his album Constrictor, which had hits with "He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)" (also the theme for Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives) and "Teenage Frankenstein." His hard rock sound was embraced by the mid-'80s metal scene; his band included Kane Roberts on lead guitar (who made his career on looking like Rambo) and Kip Winger on bass (yes, THAT Kip Winger).
Cooper has continued to release albums and remain part of pop culture, appearing in Wayne's World and Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, appearing on albums by Guns 'N Roses and Insane Clown Posse and playing Herod in the London cast recording of Jesus Christ Superstar. He reteamed with the original Alice Cooper band for six songs in 2006 at his annual charity event in Phoenix. Cooper was inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame in 2011.
I saw Cooper in 2012 opening for Iron Maiden at the amphitheater in Mansfield, Mass., and he was great. He's 76 now and touring this summer with Rob Zombie. Old shock rockers never die, they just keep going.
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