King of shock Alice Cooper held gun on king of rock Elvis

As he held a loaded .38 revolver on Elvis Presley, Alice Cooper recalls, “The little devil on my shoulder said, ‘Shoot him. What a great story. Don’t kill him, just shoot him.’”

The king of shock shooting the king of rock 'n roll in 1971 would have, no doubt, made international headlines.

But seconds later, Cooper said, he found himself on the floor in Elvis’ hotel suite kitchen, the gun knocked far away and Elvis saying, “That’s how you take a gun out of somebody’s hand.”

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Cooper recounted this first meeting with Elvis during an interview with The Clarion-Ledger about his upcoming shows in Tupelo — Elvis’ birthplace — and Biloxi. Cooper recalled pantomiming Elvis in front of a mirror years before he joined a rock band and says Presley was a musical and theatrical influence, as were the many Southern blues musicians who influenced other top rock acts of the 1960s and ‘70s.

“I had a great relationship with Elvis,” Cooper said.

“… In 1971, I was in Las Vegas, and I get a call: Elvis wants to meet you … I went to the Hilton, got in an elevator and in the elevator is Liza Minnelli, Chubby Checker, Linda Lovelace and me … We get up there and (Elvis) comes walking in and says, ‘Hey man, you’re the kid with the snake, right? That’s cool man. I dig that makeup, dig that whole thing.’ He takes me into the kitchen and says, ‘I want to show you how to take a gun out of somebody’s hand.’

“Elvis and I had this very strange kind of mutual admiration kind of thing for each other,” said Cooper, who took shocking audiences — and parents — to levels of which Elvis probably never dreamed. “He liked that I was doing something he had done — shock the kids, shock the audience. He loved the fact that somebody was still doing it.”

Cooper, 69, is still doing it.

Although the shock may have worn off, he’s still entertaining audiences with elaborate theatrical performances and sets that include a 50-foot Frankenstein's monster, a guillotine, an electric chair, straightjacket escapes, snakes and pounding hard-rock anthems and hits that span nearly five decades.

Cooper will perform Friday at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi and Saturday at BancorpSoputh Arena in Tupelo. He said he has a new album coming out in June, a reunion with producer Bob Ezrin, whom Cooper describes as “my George Martin,” and three of the original Alice Cooper band members. Cooper, born Vincent Furnier, split with the original Alice Cooper band in 1975 and changed his name to the band’s name.

Cooper’s first shows in Mississippi and across the Bible Belt in the 1970s drew recriminations, fear and loathing from parents and threats of bans from local governments — which made kids want to see and hear him even more.

“We have a character named Alice Cooper who wore makeup, had a girl’s name and got his head cut off onstage,” Cooper said. “You don’t think that kind of shocked the Bible Belt a little bit?”

But shocking audiences now?

“I honestly don’t think you can anymore,” Cooper said. “That was in the ‘70s when (David) Bowie and I did it. If I cut my head off onstage in the early ‘70s, that was shocking. But then all of a sudden you can turn on CNN and there’s a guy really getting his head cut off. Reality on television got more shocking than rock bands. Even Marilyn Manson had a tough time shocking an audience … Now, it’s just a matter of how good is your show.”

Many critics agree Cooper’s music can stand on its own with no shock, but the ghoulish theatrics are still fun. And he’s become an icon, an elder statesman of rock.

“Now, I sometimes substitute teach Bible study on Wednesday mornings,” Cooper said. “… Now, I’m just trying to shock grandchildren when their grandparents and parents bring them to shows. You hear of people having a Peter Pan complex? I have a Captain Hook complex.”

And, he’s looking forward to getting in some springtime golfing in Mississippi between shows. Cooper is a 4-handicap golfer, a spokesman for and team member of Callaway Golf Company. He said Callaway lines up golfing for him wherever he goes on tour, even in Iceland and Moscow.

“When you have an addictive personality like me — I haven’t had a drink now in 35 years, but I don’t think I’ve missed 10 days of golf total in 35 years,” Cooper said. “… On the road, we play every single morning before a show.”

Don't worry. Cooper off-stage might be urbane and working on his golf handicap, but his shows are still a macabre extravaganza — a little Halloween in April — even if they don’t have the town in an uproar.

Contact Geoff Pender  at 601-961-7266 or gpender@gannett.com . Follow him on Twitter .

See Alice Cooper in Mississippi

Biloxi: 8 p.m. Friday at Beau Rivage, 875 Beach Blvd., tickets $49-$128

Tupelo: 8 p.m. Saturday at BancorpSouth Arena, 375 E. Main St., tickets $32-$68