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In the case of Alice Cooper, it means he's saner and more grounded than most of us.
The reason is simple: Alice Cooper, the spooky rock icon and Alice Cooper, the middle-aged father of two who loves golf are two different creatures.
"Alice" is the painted ghoul who gets to sing Welcome to My Nightmare to thousands of fans and writhe around with a live snake while evil clowns plot to do him in. You can see the Alice Cooper Rock Carnival tour on Thursday at the Classic Rock Festival '98 in High River.
In a pinch, "Alice" is also available to perform in melodramas at his kids' school. "This year I was Darth Vader," he says. "I'll always be the villain. They love me as the villain. I get to be the villain every year."
To his family, friends and neighbors, however, he's just "Coop," a regular guy you'd feel comfortable inviting over for a coffee to watch the ball game. He's planning to open a theme restaurant in September, called Cooperstown. He's also a five-handicap golfer who plays in as many Pro-Am celebrity tournaments as he can fit in. He admits that playing golf less than five times a week throws off his short game, but hey, that's the price of rock 'n' roll.
In short, the man behind Alice Cooper is frighteningly normal.
"I don't run around the house with a boa constrictor around my neck, even though people would love that," Coop says on the phone from his home in sweltering Phoenix, Arizona. "They don't really see Alice. They only see Alice if I'm on stage and I'm in full Alice. When they see me on the street, there's Coop. But when they come to the show, they go, geez, that's not the same guy I play golf with or saw at the grocery store. This is a whole different creature. That's the way Alice should be. He should only come out when there's a stage. That's where he lives. That's where he breathes. That's where he's comfortable.
"I think everybody should have (an alter ego). I think there'd probably be no psychiatrists. Luckily, I have a stage and music to back it up. I get done with a tour, I feel totally purged. I just confessed everything up there."
Although Coop turned 50 this year, he has yet to tire of the gig. The character is very versatile, he says. Alice may be a scary dude, but "he's romantic, he's swashbuckling, he's funny. There's a lot of levels to Alice."
More levels than you can imagine. One of several strange projects on the horizon includes a collaboration with Alan Menken. You read right - Alice Cooper is working with the multiple Grammy Award-winning soundtrack composer of Beauty and the Beast. It turns out they have a mutual friend.
"We don't want to release what it's going to be," Coop says, "but trust me, Alan is not doing what he normally does. I'm doing the lyrics, he's doing the music. I can't tell you what it is," he chuckles gleefully. "It's too good."
In other Alice news, the long-awaited boxed set - which has been in the can for two years - may finally come out this year. He's writing songs for Alice's next album, and cool about not having a major label deal at the moment, a situation he compares to "being a .300 hitter whose contract has come up." Along with other projects with Slash, Dweezil Zappa and others, there's even a second Alice Cooper tribute album in the works.
Sixteen years of being clean and sober seems to have done wonders.
"I'm in better shape now than I was when I was 30." he says. "I can do an hour-and-a-half show now and blow right through it and feel great. When I was 30 I couldn't do that. I was a wreck. (Being sober) makes a big difference. The nice thing is that I haven't gained any weight, I haven't lost my hair, I'm much better looking than I used to be.'
"I love performing as Alice. It used to just be a job because I was an alcoholic and it was so hard for me to physically do the show that I didn't look forward to it. Now it's the high point of the day for me."
That and putting for an eagle, of course.