Alice Cooper Ringtones

American rock singer Alice Cooper was born Vincent Damon Furnier on February 4, 1948, and has a five-decade career. Many music journalists and peers refer to Cooper as “The Godfather of Shock Rock” because of his raspy voice and elaborate stage show that includes guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, reptiles, baby dolls, and sword dueling. He has influenced horror movies, vaudeville, and garage rock in equal measure, creating a macabre and theatrical style of rock that is meant to frighten listeners.

“Alice Cooper” began as a band in Phoenix, Arizona in 1964. Its roots were in a group known as the Earwigs, which featured Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar and backing vocals, Glen Buxton on lead guitar, and Furnier on lead vocals and harmonica. The three members were joined by Michael Bruce on rhythm guitar in 1966, and Neal Smith on drums in 1967. The group was given the name “Alice Cooper” by the five, and Furnier eventually started using it as his stage name. Their 1969 studio debut album saw only modest chart success when it was released. The band achieved their commercial peak in 1973 with their sixth studio album, Billion Dollar Babies, after making their breakthrough with the 1970 single “I’m Eighteen” and the third studio album Love It to Death. Furnier legally changed his name to Alice Cooper after the band disbanded, and he launched a solo career in 1975 with the concept album Welcome to My Nightmare. Cooper has sold well over 50 million records in his career.

In addition to hard rock, glam rock, and heavy metal, Cooper has also dabbled in new wave (1980–1983), art rock on DaDa (1983), industrial rock on Brutal Planet (2000), and Dragontown (2001). The man who “first introduced horror imagery to rock’n’roll, and whose stagecraft and showmanship have permanently transformed the genre” is credited with helping to shape the sound and aesthetic of heavy metal. The Rolling Stone Album Guide dubbed him the world’s most “beloved heavy metal entertainer” and noted that he was also well-known for his wit offstage. Apart from music, Cooper’s career includes acting in movies, being a well-known golfer, running restaurants, and, since 2004, hosting the legendary rock radio program Nights with Alice Cooper.

Vincent Damon Furnier, the son of Ether Moroni Furnier (1924–1987) and his wife Ella Mae (née McCart; 1925–2022), was born in Detroit, Michigan, on February 4, 1948. He was given the names Vincent Collier Furnier, his uncle, and Damon Runyon, author of short stories. His paternal grandfather, Thurman Sylvester Furnier, was a leader and eventually the president (1963–1965) of The Church of Jesus Christ, where his father served as an evangelist.

A few blocks from Eastland Mall, on Lincoln Ave. close to Kelly Road, lived the Furnier family in East Detroit. In addition to attending Kantner Elementary School, Cooper remembered watching scary films at the Eastown Theatre, where he would eventually play, and going door-to-door in his neighborhood on Halloween, the “biggest night of the year,” which he took “very seriously.” At the age of eleven or twelve, Cooper was involved in his church.After suffering several illnesses as a child, he and his family relocated to Phoenix, Arizona, where he enrolled in Cortez High School. “A million record seller” was his aspiration, according to his high school yearbook.

In 1986, Cooper declared the Yardbirds to be his all-time favorite band in an interview with Jonathan King for the Entertainment USA program. As early as 1969, Cooper claimed that the music of the mid-1960s, especially that of the British bands The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, and The Yardbirds, had the biggest impact on him. Later, Cooper would honor the Who by performing a cover of “My Generation” on the Brutal Planet tour in 2000 and singing “I’m a Boy” for A Celebration: The Music of Pete Townshend and The Who at Carnegie Hall in New York in 1994. In a May 22, 2007, interview with Ozzy Osbourne for the radio show Nights with Alice Cooper, Cooper reiterated his debt of gratitude to these bands—the Beatles most especially. Cooper and Osbourne lamented the frequently subpar songwriting of modern rock musicians during their conversation. Cooper expressed his belief that some contemporary bands “had forgotten to listen to the Beatles” as the root of the issue.

Cooper remarks, “Can you imagine the young Alice Cooper watching that with all his make-up and hellish performance?” after witnessing shock rock pioneer Arthur Brown perform his US number two hit “Fire” in 1968. It seemed as though every Halloween arrived at once.” Arthur Brown’s flaming helmet was mentioned in a 2014 piece on Alice Cooper in The Guardian, which said, “British rock always was more theatrical than its US counterpart.” That’s why most people thought we were British at first,” Cooper retorted, “because this involved destruction or macabre gimmickry often.”

The former lead vocalist of White Zombie, Rob Zombie, says that watching Alice Cooper on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert was his first “metal moment”. Cooper’s costumes are said to have had a major influence on Zombie as well. As Bob Dylan put it in a 1978 Rolling Stone interview, “I think Alice Cooper is an overlooked songwriter.”

John Lydon of the Sex Pistols declared Killer (1971) to be the greatest rock album of all time in the foreword of Alice Cooper’s CD retrospective box set The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper. Lydon also hosted a tribute show to Cooper on BBC radio in 2002. “I know the words to every Alice Cooper song,” Lydon declared to the BBC. The truth is that I began my musical career by miming to “I’m Eighteen” on a jukebox, if you can call what I’ve done that.”

Loves of Alice Cooper for a long time, The Flaming Lips borrowed the bassline for their song “The Ceiling Is Bending” from “Levity Ball,” an early track from the 1969 album Pretties for You. They performed a cover of “Sun Arise” for an album honoring Alice Cooper. (Cooper’s rendition, which comes in at the end of the album Love It to Death, was originally a Rolf Harris cover.)

Humanary Stew: A Tribute to Alice Cooper was released by Cleopatra Records in 1999. It featured several contributions from rock and metal all-star teams, such as Steve Jones of Sex Pistols, Dave Mustaine of Megadeth, Roger Daltrey of the Who, Ronnie James Dio, Slash of Guns N’ Roses, Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden, and Dave Mustaine of Megadeth. It was called “intriguing combinations of artists and material” by Sonic.net and “the novel approach will definitely hold interested listeners’ attention” by AllMusic.

13 songs by Alice Cooper are mentioned in the song “Why Must I Be Sad?” by alternative rock group They Might Be Giants, which is taken from their fifth studio album John Henry (1994). The song is titled “From the perspective of a kid who hears all of his unspoken sadness given voice in the music of Alice Cooper; Alice says everything the kid has been wishing he could say about his alienated, frustrated, teenage world.”

Fans of Alice Cooper who aren’t musicians include comedian Groucho Marx and actress Mae West, who regarded the early shows as a kind of vaudeville revue. Artist Salvador Dalí also created a hologram, First Cylindric Chromo-Hologram Portrait of Alice Cooper’s Brain, after attending a show in 1973 and describing it as surreal.