Steel Notes Magazine
February 2017
Alice actually did a dying scene . But then we couldn ’ t quite make any sense of it . You know then what ’ s he going to do after he died ? [ Laughter ]
Alexxis : Exactly ! Where do you go from there !
Dennis : So then he decided he ' s just going to sit in the electric chair and by then I wrote “ Black Ju Ju .” I wanted a song that would promote this dark character that I thought Alice should be , and I also thought of the eye makeup . So now the Alice character was really coming together . And so part of “ Black Ju Ju ” in the middle was this hypnotizing thing where ok you ’ re going to hypnotize the audience . We ’ ll bring the lights down with very dramatic lighting and you ’ ll swing this big pocket watch . So we did that . And by then we started stealing the feather pillows out of The Holiday Inn and the fire extinguishers and blowing feathers all over the place . At one point Alice had a bare light bulb on a cord and he ’ d swing it around like Roger Daltrey did with his light bulb , but this was a really bright 300 watt light bulb .
Alexxis : Very cool !
Dennis : We had this great lighting guy , who went to Cortez High School and he started doing our lights way back in the V . I . P . The thing that was powerful about The Alice Cooper Show is , it wasn ' t Rock and Roll lighting . It was dramatic , artistic lighting , and therefore , when Alice got hung in the gallows it was a very dramatic scene like you would see in a Broadway show . It wasn ' t the roadie guy flashing lights back behind the band like they always do . We were able to bring this character to life because how could Alice be in a straight jacket and be convincing that he ' s in an Insane Asylum if there ’ s a rock band jumping around with lights flashing . Well we would bring the lights down and so that he would be lit and we would be doing stuff but we knew when to kind of move out of the picture so the character had a chance to develop and where it would be believable as in ok , it looks like he ' s in an Insane Asylum you know ? So in the early days because we had no money , the straight jacket was the white man ’ s shirt and we ’ d turn it around backwards and tie the sleeves behind him . So it was all relied on acting .
Alexxis : Very clever !
Dennis : We ’ ll jump ahead for a second here . We got this girl who worked for Bill Graham . Bill Graham didn ’ t like us you know because he didn ’ t want theatrics on stage . And I can ’ t even say what he said to us . [ Laughter ] It was mostly cursing , with more curse words than that and he hated us . He said you can play music or you can do theatrics , you can ’ t do both on my stage . And he swore if I ever hire you , you will never headline at the Fillmore , and we never did . Even though we were headlining , we were the closing act and he would always have our name little at the bottom of the poster . The opening acts were real big and our name real little .
Alexxis : Wow that was lousy of him to do !
Dennis : But anyway , when we played the Fillmore East in New York City , I think it only had one more weekend after us before it closed . One or two more weekends . So we were at the bottom of the bill it , was Bloodrock and this girl who worked for Bill Graham for years at the Fillmore named Gail Rogers and she had worked there for so long she had basically gotten to the point where she had seen so many bands play that she would kind of just stay in the back room and try to get the money counted and everything so she could get out of there at a decent time . Bill prided himself on having the best layout of food for the bands backstage you know . My bands are going to be treated right because it ’ s Bill Graham ’ s Fillmore . He called a meeting , and Gail said Bill never called a meeting he ’ d go and yell at somebody but he wouldn ’ t call meeting . But he wanted a meeting with everybody that worked there and he came in the room and said “ These guys that are coming in tonight , I don ’ t want them to have any food I don ’ t even want you to get them a glass of water and no guest list !”
Original excerpt Black Juju lyrics by Dennis Dunaway
Alexxis : Wow that guy was tough !
Dennis : This was the opposite of what he prided himself on doing for bands you know . So she said , “ Well I got to go out and see who this band is , why he doesn ' t like them so much .” she came out and thought “ Wow , this is really different ,” but she liked us .
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