Eyes painted in ghoulish greasepaint and dripping with blood, a broken-glass covered Alice Cooper let loose an evil laugh.

In a dark bedroom, six or seven children sit around a flickering television. As if Fantasy Island wasn't scary enough, Cooper's pioneering horror concert "Welcome to My Nightmare" gave us just that.

"Well, good. Then it worked," laughs Cooper, his voice more mirthful than my memories. "When you think back on it now though, you realize how unfrightening it was. But at the time ..."

Cooper wasn't always a walking horror show. Born Vincent Furnier in early 1948, the Detroit native started a band just to pick up chicks.

But before long, Furnier morphed into Alice Cooper, a rock god with a penchant for combining horror movies with big, bad guitar riffs.

"Most people said if you were theatrical, you couldn't be a good band. In other words, you couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time. My legacy is that rock 'n' roll can be entertaining."

Once Frank Zappa signed the group to his fledgling label, the ensuing public reaction was inevitable.

"People just hated us at the beginning."

But the theatrical aspect took off, securing enough attention for the music to hit its mark.

From teen anthems I'm Eighteen and School's Out to weirdo hits like Dead Babies, Cooper changed the face of rock music.

"Everything was peace and love and here was this Alice Cooper that was, um, not that," he says. "He was the phantom of the opera and he was seriously demented."

Unfortunately, he was also an alcoholic. Trouble ensued when Cooper's "fuel" stopped being fun and became medicine.

But after drying out, Cooper found the music world had moved on, and punk had usurped the bloated beast hard rock had become.

Although reinvigorating his career during the '80s metal boom and nailing his biggest album Trash, Cooper has spent much of the past decade working on his golf game and settling into his legend status.

With a new box set -- the Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper -- and new albums in the works, Cooper seems to have the world by the throat.

"I'm very happy with where I'm at right now. I'm healthy, I'm still making records. I'm not burned out. And I've got a 4-handicap.

"How bad is that?"

SPOOKSHOW

1948 -- Born Vincent Furnier.

Mid-'60s -- Joins the Earwigs, later the Spiders and the Nazz.

1968 -- Ouiji board provides name Alice Cooper, signs to Zappa's label, widely ignored.

1969 -- Cooper throws live chicken from Toronto stage. Fans rip it apart. Urban legend born that rocker bit the bird's head off.

1970 -- First hit I'm Eighteen.

1971 -- Love it to Death tour features Cooper being executed.

1972 -- No. 1 with School's Out.

1973 -- Voted Punk of the Year.

Mid-'70s -- Appears on Hollywood Squares, launches Welcome To My Nightmare tour, widely drunk.

Late-'70s -- Alcohol rehab, records with Bee Gees, widely mocked.

Mid to late-'80s -- Returns with soundtrack to Friday the 13th VI, hits big with best-seller Trash.

1990s -- No More Mr. Nice Guy recorded by Pat Boone, widely respected.