Alice Cooper Sets the Record Straight in New Memoir — SkimNews
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- Alice Cooper is promoting his third memoir "Devil on My Shoulder," which uses his "Alice" alter ego as a conscience to correct stories he previously exaggerated over decades.
- Cooper, 78, now disowns his 1976 first memoir "Me, Alice" as fabrication he made up while drunk and describes 2007's "Golf Monster" as a life story interrupted by golf tips.
- Cooper details growing up in the Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonites), a Book of Mormon–believing sect not affiliated with mainstream LDS, under a preacher father named Ether Moroni who worked with the Sioux and Apache.
- Cooper has maintained sobriety for 43 years, a change his pastor framed as permission to rock & roll: "You were the Fonz in the camp of the Philistines," so long as he lived as the Lord wanted.
- Cooper still plays close to 100 tour dates a year — with roughly two dozen gigs left this year — and says he approaches 80 with a positive outlook.
- Cooper explains he built the Alice character as his "ultimate rock star," combining Emma Peel's black leather with Bette Davis's caked makeup from "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" in 1970.
- Cooper says the band prioritized music over theater in rehearsals — five of every six — because, as he puts it, "we're up against Led Zeppelin."
Why it matters: At 78 and still playing close to 100 dates a year, Cooper is reframing the origin stories — the 1969 chicken incident, the theatrical villain act, the faith-versus-rock conflict — that have defined his legend since the Seventies. His self-corrections will likely become the canonical Cooper narrative for new fans discovering a catalog that still sells.
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