Alice Cooper‘s tour manager David Libert recently sat down with Ultimate Classic Rock for an interview and revealed that Cooper’s band members were uncomfortable with Alice getting all the attention.
Before stepping into a remarkable solo career, Alice Cooper performed with his band under different names, eventually deciding on the Alice Cooper band. Although the band had produced hit albums and singles and secured a place as a prominent rock act, they publicly announced their breakup in 1975. Alice Cooper’s band was famous for their theatrical and bizarre shock rock stage shows, which the singer maintained in his future career.
As the band’s frontman, all the eyes were naturally on Alice Cooper. He was the star of the band’s elaborate shows. Yet, David Libert recently claimed that this situation started bothering the rest of the band after a certain point. When he first started working with the band, everyone seemed to share an equal role, but it all changed when the band’s manager Shep Gordon opted for Alice to hold the pre-tour press conferences by himself.
Here is how Libert recalled the initial balance within the band:
“When I first got the job, it seemed like everybody was on equal footing.”
However, it bothered the others that Alice stood out like that within the band, which created tensions among the members. Although Libert told them to mind their own business and let Alice be the star, the rest of the members had difficulty handling this situation. They thought that those theatrical stage shows had overshadowed their music. The band may have broken up, but the band members managed to restore their relationship and have collaborated on several projects.
David Libert’s words on the tensions within the Alice Cooper band:
“That’s when I started to realize there was sort of a wedge growing in between Alice and the rest of the band. I used to tell them, ‘Look, let Alice be the star. It’s good for business. You’re all making great money.’ But they had a tough time dealing with it, and they started to resent all the gimmicks and props onstage, which is the reason people came to the Alice Cooper show.
The rest of the band felt that sort of took away from the music. It was an untenable situation. Oddly enough, they’re all friendly today. So it wasn’t irreparable, and it’s a good thing because I like those guys. When the band broke up, it sort of saddened me, but I’m happy to see them doing things together again.”
In the following years, the original lineup of the Alice Cooper band performed together on certain occassions. They also shared the stage in their induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011. Their most recent collaboration was on Alice Cooper’s latest studio album, ‘Detroit Stories,’ released in 2021.
