Steel Notes Magazine
February 2017
Dennis : We would hang out over there because they would be up late and we could go and think of crazy ideas and not have to worry about anybody criticizing us . So the name Alice Cooper was going to be it for me because anything that anybody said after that kind of failed in comparison .
Alexxis : And that ’ s the Ouija board story right ? Dennis : Not yet .
Alexxis : Yeah , absolutely . So that ’ s the real story of what everybody wants to know about where the name came from ! You know because there ’ s so many stories out there , and like you said everybody remembers it differently .
Dennis : Right , well Alice said he wanted an American name and he wanted it to be like Lizzie Borden .
Alexxis : Right and the story is that somebody said Alice Cooper was a witch . That was also going around . That Alice was a witch in Salem or something .
Alexxis : Ok .
Dennis : So I went home that night and when I walked in the door my parents said “ Oh hi , what were you doing ?” And I told them “ well we stayed late because we had to come up with a new name for the band .” They said “ Oh , what is it ?” And when I said “ Alice Cooper ” the expression on both of their faces was like — [ Laughter ]
Alexxis : Yeah , that their mouth ’ s dropped !
Dennis : Yeah that reaction sold me . So now the next night when we went back , we were at The Weeds of Idleness house again , and now I ’ m on Alice ’ s side . Now we ’ re really pushing for this to be the name of the band . And everybody said well we need a name that ’ s for the whole band you know . And we decided ok , they said we ’ ll do it providing that ’ s the name of the band and everybody agreed including Alice . It ’ ll be the name of the band . And it still sort was not totally a done deal , and somebody had a Ouija board and Alice and this other guy who worked for us was really was pushing for the name . They operated the Ouija board , so I think it was rigged ! [ Laughter ]
Alexxis : [ Laughter ] Yeah , sounds like it right ?
Pretties For You Promotional Photo 1969
Dennis : When we moved to L . A . somebody told me there were 3,000 bands that didn ’ t have jobs . I mean ok then what ’ s our story ? We were always thinking how are we going to get attention ? How are we going to be different ? What are we going to do that somebody will write about or people will talk about , so that really drove most of our ideas .
Dennis : We went to L . A . and the Alice Cooper group wanted to be different in every way that we could possibly be different . Now , the way we dressed and the name was important for that because we wanted to be shocking to people and we wanted people to talk about us . We wanted them to leave whether they liked us or not , we didn ’ t want anybody to be indifferent , nothing in the middle . You either hated us or loved us , and the name did that you know ? That ’ s one of the reasons from my parent ’ s expressions , I ’ m thinking we can shock people before we even walk in the door . [ Laughter ]
Alexxis : That ’ s right !
Dennis : You know these five guys called Alice Cooper and that ’ s when we also decided that we would dress in more androgynous styles and Neal ’ s sister , who I ended up marrying , she knew where to find these shiny fabrics . And also our friends were The GTO ’ s who dressed flamboyantly .
Alexxis : Miss Mercy .
Dennis : But it spelled out Alice Cooper . Yes everybody remembers it differently but I remember it . We didn ’ t get the name from the Ouija board , the Ouija board was sort of a tool for the guys that wanted that to be the name of the band to convince the others .
Dennis : And they turned us onto the local scene , but we knew where the thrift stores were in Phoenix , we ’ d go the thrift stores and we ’ d go to the women ’ s section because there tended to be shirts that were blouses that had the button backwards but we could dress more outrageously . When we got to L . A . the GTO ’ s showed us where this great thrift store was and that ’ s where Alice bought the ice skaters outfit , which is what he ’ s wearing on the cover of Pretties For You . The rest of the stuff is pretty much stuff
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