Alice Cooper, 65, is considered the father of shock rock and heavy metal. The singer-songwriter’s hits include “School’s Out,” “Elected” and “Poison.” When he isn’t on tour, he lives in Phoenix. He spoke with reporter Marc Myers
When our band began to catch on in 1971, we needed a place to live near New York where we could crank up the volume while rehearsing without bothering the neighbors.
Shep Gordon, our manager, found a creepy mansion in Greenwich, Conn., called the Galesi Estate that rented for $2,500 a month. It looked like the house in “The Haunting.”
There were 40 rooms—including a ballroom with a fireplace so large you could walk into the opening. There also was a chapel, a bell tower and 15 bedrooms with fireplaces—perfect for all five of us in the band plus our road manager and a couple of crew guys. My bathroom alone was like something out of “The Great Gatsby.” After we moved in that August, we did some exploring and found secret panels in the walls. You pressed a button and a hidden door opened. It was like the board game “Clue.”
We didn’t have servants—we all had girlfriends and they cooked for us. The housecleaning, lawn-mowing and stuff like that were provided by Mr. Galesi, who lived in New York. We met him only once and never asked what he did for a living. He liked the band and left us alone. What made the house special was being able to set up all our equipment with a full stage in the huge ballroom. There was even a pipe organ that we used on “Love It to Death”—the album in ’71 that put us on the map.
The eeriness of the estate fit our image perfectly. Rock, at the time, didn’t have a villain. There was no Professor Moriarty from “Sherlock Holmes” or Hannibal Lecter. But in creating a rock villain, I wanted him to have a sense of humor. Comedy and horror are so close. As a teen, I had listened to the Yardbirds, the Who and all the British Invasion bands. I just took it to the next level—creating drama but keeping the emphasis on the music by surrounding myself with great guitarists.
Our band’s name—Alice Cooper—eventually became my stage name, but it didn’t come from spending time with a Ouija board. We wanted a name that would be the opposite of how we looked, something that would irritate every mother in America. So we came up with a name that sounded like some sweet little old lady who made cookies. My look with the eyeliner was modeled after Bette Davis in “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” Her makeup was applied thick and was smeared.
The Galesi Estate fed into our dark drama, but it also tested me. I’m not squeamish about much—just needles—but the house had its moments. On New Year’s Eve in 1972, I was down with the flu. While everyone went to New York to party, I was there alone, bundled up in front of the ballroom fireplace. I’m telling you, that house was alive. There was so much mysterious noise going on in the house, it was like a horror movie.
Even weirder was Greenwich—a blue-blooded town. Everybody there was old money and so uptight when we moved in. When we’d go into town, we were treated like the Munsters. Then “Forbes” did an article on us—”A New Breed of Tycoon”—and we wound up on the cover. The town’s attitude changed. We were considered new money and treated like the Beverly Hillbillies.
Despite the mansion’s quirkiness, I loved it. We had a neat place of our own—a bat cave that was a short drive to New York. We felt so cool, living in Greenwich, which was considered the way the Hamptons are today. We even recorded parts of our “Billion Dollar Babies” album in the estate’s ballroom in ’72.
When the album came out in early ’73, we started a yearlong concert tour. By then we were spending more time in Los Angeles than in New York and we were rarely home. While we were in California, the house caught fire and burned to the ground. The official cause was electrical.
But wait—you want to hear weird? Bette Davis lived next door to us in Greenwich. She’d drive by in her burgundy Jaguar XK-E and shout at us to turn up the volume when we rehearsed. She was more feared in the neighborhood than we were. When I finally met her, I said, “I’m Alice Cooper.” She said, “I know who you are.” I told her how much I enjoyed her in “Baby Jane.” She said, “You know, I love that movie myself.” See? There’s a little Alice Cooper in everyone.
(Source: Wall Street Journal)