Interview With Michael Bruce – The Original Alice Cooper Group

Recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with the other original members of the Alice Cooper GroupMichael Bruce was the band’s guitarist, keyboard player and backing vocalist. In an exclusive interview by Nightwatcher for Nightwatcher’s House of Rock, Michael Bruce talks about his experiences as a member of the Alice Cooper Group (for the Zappa/Mother of Invention fan, though, one will find a lot of interesting historically relevant information – both in the interview, and on Michael Bruce’s website):
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Billion Dollar Baby — BBC Documentary

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John Lydon (also known as Johnny Rotten) presents a profile of Alice Cooper — whose theatrical persona was perhaps America’s most significant ally with the British glam movement and who also influenced John’s own band, the Sex Pistols — on “Billion Dollar Baby: The Alice Cooper Story”, a BBC Radio 2 Documentary first broadcast in November 2002.

Two episodes of approximately 30 minutes each.

Part One:
[audio:http://www.killuglyradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/Billion-Dollar-Baby-The-Alice-Cooper-Story-Part1.mp3]

Part Two:
[audio:http://www.killuglyradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/Billion-Dollar-Baby-The-Alice-Cooper-Story-Part2.mp3]

Around the 6:40 point of Part 1, there’s an intriguing account of what Frank Zappa saw in, and attracted him to sign this initial Alice Cooper group to a record contract.

Alice Cooper Group — Sun Arise (Live) & Black JuJu (Studio)


Some music listeners (born after the 1970s) don’t understand the early appeal of the original Alice Cooper Group. They had a unique sound and image (which like all great rock ‘n roll mortified our parents) that was very appealing to those of us born in the 1960s and were obviously quite cynical about just about everything that came out of that decade (hippies metamorphosing into yuppies). Yet listening to Love It To Death (first issued on Straight Records), one can still hear the sound of the band which Frank Zappa originally signed before Warner Brothers completely morphed them into the mainstream (leading to the original band’s eventual demise). The first clip, Sun Arise (Live), is somewhat choppy, but rare footage. The second, Black JuJu (Studio Version) is the one track I always recommend to anyone wanting to explore the true, real sound of The Alice Cooper Group (before Vincent Damon Furnier took on the band’s nom de plume as his own, and the self-parodying that followed the band’s break up).