| Alice Cooper's music influenced many later musicians and helped shape the sound of punk rock and early heavy metal. Cooper was influenced by British bands such as The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks and in particular The Yardbirds. As a result, he formed a number of rock bands in the 1960s, including The Earwigs, The Spiders, and The Nazz. Upon learning that Todd Rundgren also had a band called The Nazz, Furnier changed the band's name to "Alice Cooper." The classic Alice Cooper group line up consisted of Cooper, guitarists Michael Bruce and Glen Buxton, bassist Dennis Dunaway, and drummer Neal Smith. All of the band members except Neal were on the Cortez High School cross country track team. Around this time, fed up with Californians' indifference to their act, the band relocated to Alice Cooper's birthplace, Detroit, where their wild stage act was much better received. Although the band incorporated theatrics in their stage act from the outset, a chance case of press misreporting an unrehearsed stage routine involving Cooper and a live chicken led to the band changing tack—capitalizing on tabloid sensationalism and creating a new subgenre, shock rock. |
Alice Cooper
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