Historical Photos of the Alice Cooper Band From Between the Late 1960s and Early 1970s

The Alice Cooper Band was an American rock band formed in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1968. The band consisted of lead singer Vincent Furnier (who adopted the stage name Alice Cooper), Glen Buxton (lead guitar), Michael Bruce (rhythm guitar, keyboards), Dennis Dunaway (bass guitar), and Neal Smith (drums). The band was notorious for their elaborate, theatrical shock rock stage shows.

The band had been through a couple of names, including the Earwigs and the Spiders, before settling on the Nazz when it moved from Phoenix to Los Angeles. But during the fall of 1968, another Nazz out of Philadelphia, led by Todd Rundgren, released its first album and had a hit with “Open My Eyes,” nixing the name for Cooper (then still Vincent Furnier) and company. Discussions were soon under way about a new moniker.

During this time, some of the band members joined then-manager Dick Phillips at his mother’s house. She was reputed to be a medium and pulled out a Ouija board to have a little fun. When Furnier asked the spirits whom he’d been in a previous life, the board led him toward the spelling of A-L-I-C-E-C-O-O-P-E-R.

That actual adoption of the Alice Cooper name was more mundane. “I just kind of said, ‘Alice Cooper.’ It just came out of my mouth. That was it,” he said. “It had a quality to it—a little deranged, a little wholesome, a little spooky maybe. And . . . I felt like it would make people go, ‘Wait . . . what?! Alice Cooper? They’re all guys. Who’s Alice Cooper?’”

In Alice Cooper: Golf Addict he elaborated, “There was something about it. I conjured up an image of a little girl with a lollipop in one hand and a butcher knife in the other. Lizzie Borden. Alice Cooper. They had a similar ring.”

The moniker opened a wealth of conceptual possibilities for a group of long-haired rock ’n’ rollers who were already exercising their theatrical creativity on stage. They got help from friends in the groupie-cum-band GTOs (Girls Together Outrageously) and turned to the movies for inspiration. Tapping Bette Davis’s disturbing look in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Cooper began applying black mascara to roughly circle his eyes. “I had absolutely no qualms about it,” Cooper told Behind the Music. “I had to build a reputation somehow in this city.”

With two unsuccessful albums behind them, in 1970 Alice Cooper returned to Detroit, thinking their gory theatrics would be more appreciated there than in California. In 1971, Love It to Death, the final album in their contract with Straight Records, produced their first successful single, “I’m Eighteen.”

In 1971 the band’s tour performances incorporated mock fights, gothic torture, and a staged execution in an electric chair, enhancing their Shock Rock reputation. In 1972 the title track single from School’s Out, became an instant hit and a rock classic. In 1973 the band released their most commercially successful album, Billion Dollar Babiesfollowed by their last album, Muscle of Love. Disagreements among band members prompted a hiatus.

In 1973, Furnier legally changed his name to Alice Cooper to avoid legal problems over the ownership of the group name. Their last performance as a group was April 1974. In 1975 Cooper released his first solo album Welcome to My Nightmare. Battling serious alcohol issues, he released two more albums, Alice Cooper Goes to Hell and Lace and Whiskey, before seeking treatment for alcoholism in 1977.