Sometimes you come across something that just takes all or your preconceived notions and turns them upside down. Sometimes you are blessed by something unexpected. Sometimes you find the grace of God in places where you simply never thought it would be. My friends back home would call something like that a “fooble,” something that is just completely out of place. For example: an electrical outlet located seven feet up a wall, a canoe in a swimming pool, or a sasquatch strolling down Fifth Avenue. I think that recently I’ve uncovered something equally strange. It started a few weeks ago when while surfing the Internet, I came across a clip from Prodigy’s Christian Music E-mail List Archives: Re: Christian Music: Alice Cooper Benny Junker (bugman@hcc-uky.campus.mci.net) Thu, 8 Aug 1996 07:05:56 -0500 (CDT)... Alice Cooper is still around and he did have a project released in 1994 called The last Temptation. While it is kinda dark, it is very much bashing satan and evil. From all the accounts I have heard and read -- Alice Cooper is now a christian. His dark side still lingers around that is why he doesn't play many concerts. They tried to get him to play at Cornerstone in 1995 but he wouldn't said his old image was too evil for him to sing again. The thing that sorta tipped me off to his conversion was a picture of Dino, the christian pianist with Alice Cooper at his house doing a private concert. I also read somewhere where he is now teaching Sunday School in California. Here's a few lyrics from one of the songs on that CD called cleansed by fire: yeah, what about little me you lose and I win you couldn't suck me in it's over, you have no power you're lost and I am found And I am heavenbound go back where you belong to where you fell go to hell Benny Message from bugman@hcc-uky.campus.mci.net (Benny Junker) to Prodigy's Christian Music email List. ********************************************************************************** Prodigy Services Company is the sponsor of the newsletter. Prodigy does not review and cannot be responsible for the content of the newsletter or related discussions ********************************************************************************** To say that this came as a surprise to me would be an understatement. My image of Alice Cooper was not exactly that of your average Christian musician. This was the guy who reportedly claimed that he was the reincarnation of a 17th century witch whose name he got from a Ouija board. This was a guy who killed chickens on-stage. This was a guy who, at his concerts, staged simulated hangings, beheadings, baby killings, and all kinds of other atrocities. None of this made sense. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in the power of God to transform anyone and to change lives. But something this big, you’d think that I would have heard something about it. I mean, this guy was practically a Satanist, right, and one of the biggest stars in rock music since the early seventies. You would think that news like this would get the cover of time magazine or something. So, I checked it out. I scoured the World Wide Web looking for anything that might relate to this. I wasn’t originally intending to use anything for a paper topic. It was just good, old fashioned, stubborn curiosity that fueled my research. This search took me through some rather disturbing parts of the internet, places where a good Christian internet surfer really wouldn’t want to go. I practically tore apart Robert’s library looking for relevant information , the only thing that acquired for me was the knowledge that Sprague Library is possibly the worst place on earth to look when trying to find information pertaining to Alice Cooper. The man called Alice Cooper was born Vincent Damon Furnier, on February 4th, 1948, in Detroit, Michigan. His father was a minister (either Mormon or Methodist, sources conflict on this point). Because of Vincent’s asthma problems his family later moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Where his father took up missionary work with the Apaches. While in high school Vincent and some friends formed the band that would later be known as “The Alice Cooper Group”. In 1971 they released their first album ,”Love it to Death.” Pretty much instantly they found themselves to be an International success. In 1974 The band broke up and Furnier officially took the name Alice Cooper as his own. Over the course of several albums and concert tours he built a reputation as “The King of Shock Rock.” His bizarre theatrical stage show and lyrics dealing with violence, sex, and death prompted horrified reactions in concerned parents. Preachers denounced him from their pulpits. He was banned from performing in several cities, and even some countries such as Australia refused to allow him to play there. A member of the British Parliament, Leo Abse, asked the government to have Alice Cooper banned from Britain. Abse said that he made his decision after talking to his teenage children who told him that Alice was absolutely sick. On the floor of Parliament, Abse said "I regard his act as an incitement to infanticide for his audience. He is deliberately trying to involve these kids in sadomasochism. He is peddling the culture of the concentration camp. Pop is one thing; anthems of necrophilia are another." (Alice Cooper FAQ) The following is from Cooper’s 1976 autobiography Me, Alice: The problem was, who would I murder? Killing somebody defenseless? How about a cute, cuddly, helpless little baby? With an ax. Why not? What a laugh! A baby killer! We could splatter the whole stage with little arms and legs! People suggested we use real infant cadavers during the show, but I thought that was going too far. Naturally word got around that I would be using real baby parts and it caused us a huge headache. There was no way to convince people it wasn't true until they saw the show. It's a good example of the way things get out of hand all the time. That's what people wanted to believe and that's what it became in their heads. Actually, I used rubber dolls filled with stage blood. In all reality I hated dolls when I was a kid. I didn't hate babies, even though babies are ugly little things. (Every baby I've ever seen looks like Winston Churchill.) I don't know why I hated dolls so much. Ask my psychiatrist. I lurched around the stage hacking at the dolls with a saber. It thrilled the audience, released their tensions in some strange way. I tossed the bloody pieces into the audiences and the kids took them home as souvenirs. But they were all in on the joke; it was only dolls. It was a black sense of humor... The parents thought it was serious, but the kids just laughed. Over the course of more than two decades Cooper elevated from the status of rock star to the level of pop icon. He appeared everywhere, From “The Gong Show” to “Hollywood Squares” to “The Muppet Show.” He even appeared as himself in movies such as “Wayne’s World.” Frank Sinatra has even covered one of his songs. It seems that he has almost become a part of the very fabric of modern pop culture. Considering all this he is quite possibly the last person most would expect to be labeled a Christian artist. Nonetheless I was presented with these rumors on the Christian music mailing list. So, as I said, I checked it out, and found a fair amount of conflicting information on the topic. For the most part though there was almost no mention of it, not even statements denying this “miraculous conversion,” nothing. This made me even more determined to find out whatever I could about the subject, the result, obviously, is this paper. My best information came from the Lyrics to Cooper’s 1994 “The Last Temptation,” a concept album project released in conjunction with a comic book series of the same name. The songs on the album fit together to form a single story. Reading through the lyrics I was astonished by what I found there. I own over a hundred tapes of Christian music but some of the tapes recorded by Christian performers and released through Christian record labels have less scriptural message in them than I found in “The Last Temptation.” “The Last Temptation” tells the story of a 13 year old boy named Steven who finds an old theater operated by an evil character called the Showman. The Showman shows Steven all the pleasures, excitement and thrills of life, all the sins. He offers him all of this but the boy (smarter than the showman thinks) realizes that the path that the Showman offers leads only to death so he refuses. The boy goes home but he is haunted by the Showman throughout the night. The next day he goes and burns the theater down. Later he is haunted again by the Showman who tells him that evil and temptation have been around forever and even though Steven beat him this time he will return. The overall message seems to be that even though temptations are inevitable we don’t need to give in to them. The story is a sort of allegory for temptation, sin, and redemption. The lyrics of the individual songs themselves offer an even more surprising message, considering the source. In the song “Nothing’s Free,” Which illustrated a sort of Faustian deal with the Devil, Steven is told by the Showman that he is: Free from the consequence Free to sin and death Free till your final breath... Free to ignore the bore of authority Free to spit in the face Be the winningest rat in the race till Judgment Day Then nothing's free... When the trumpets sound and His light is all around And the saints all raise from the graves in the ground We'll be going way downtown Way downtown In another song entitled “Unholy War,” we find lines like these, addressed to the Showman/Devil: When I'm all alone ... With your thoughts of pain ... I can break on through ... With just an ounce of faith ... You're shaking in your boots Because it's Judgment Day I'll get my just rewards And you'll have your hell to pay In the Final song on the album, “Cleansed by Fire,” the message is even clearer. It’s my opinion that this is a far different man than he used to be Whether you attribute it to increased maturity or to Christian conversion, something is very different about this man. This song also is addressed directly to the Showman (Satan). Do you think I don't know who you are A fallen star... What about dark What about light What about wrong What about right What about death What about sin What about the web you're trying to spin What about truth What about life What about glory What about Christ What about peace What about love What about faith in God above What about war What about hell What if I stumble What if I fell... Yeah, what about me, little me You lose and I win You couldn't suck me in It's over, you have no power You're lost And I'm found And I'm Heaven bound Go back to where you belong To where you fell Go to hell I sent e-mail to Mr. Cooper’s personal assistant, Brian “Renfield” Nelson regarding my questions in relation to Alice’s “conversion”. All I got in reply was the picture of Alice pretending to try to eat a snake (which I included in this paper) but I’m not quite sure what sort of answer that was supposed to be. I still haven’t quite been able to get definite answers as to the veracity of the rumors. In an interview ( The Blade, December 22, 1996) Cooper himself says that he, “Became a Christian years ago” and “My dad was hip, He could tell you any verse in the Bible. I could quiz him by reading any verse and he would know the chapter, who said it , and why they said it.” From another interview (Rip, August 1994) : JR.(Jim Rose): There's a lot of violence in schools now. How do think that got started? AC: I'll be real honest with you and without sounding like the 700 Club . . . I think all of that is a total rebellion from the fact that they have absolutely no home life. I think it comes from divorce. I think it comes from the family disintegrating. If I were in that position, I'd do the same thing. The people I would look up to would be the gang members. It would be the guys that had the biggest guns. The guys who got away with the most. You know, I think that that's where I would go just to show everybody that I was somebody. I grew up in an absolutely perfect American family. My parents were great. I never had a problem with them. You know, I never had a problem with anybody. I had one of those perfect sort of childhoods. Nobody ever beat anybody. Nobody was alcoholic. I was in a perfect world, and the people that were all screwed up were always the people whose parents were divorced and things like that. And now it's like 90% of kids' parents are divorced. JR: Well, if the kids can't find the attention, love and nurturing they need from their parents, are there other options for them to survive high school and college? What would take that place? AC: Well, I know what does take that place. I mean, I know what's the easiest way out, and I think that we'll always go to the easiest way out, which is drugs, violence . . . you know, just the kicks. All of this has a lot to do with what this album is about. I truly believe that you can't live without consequence. I think a lot of people believe that you can just go ahead and live your life without consequence. I don't believe that. I think that you got to pay up at the end; that you've run up a debt and in the end you get your bill. And I think that everybody is taking the easy way out. Just like, well, I'm going to die anyways, so why not do anything.' I just don't personally believe that. JR: So there is kind of a Heaven and Hell? AC: I sure hope so. I totally believe there is. JR: And you're kind of Mr. Hell. Do you expect to go to Heaven? AC: The funny thing is, I think that character always portrayed that. On this album you're going to see something totally different; the old Alice Cooper vs. sort of the innocent Alice Cooper. The old Alice Cooper is kind of the showman.... The whole thing is really about temptation... The deal is, that's what this thing is about... The whole thing is the fact that temptation will always be there, but I don’t necessarily say that this generation has to give into it. That sound revolutionary for Alice Cooper to be saying that, but I believe that. And this was in an article written by Cooper for Hit Parader Magazine (December 1994): In the 90s, there are certain words we avoid or think we've outgrown - words like Temptation, Sin, Redemption. These words are old world, but they're not dead. They're still very much apparent in our everyday life. I found these on various Internet sites. The first one is from Rec.Music.Christian’s Frequently asked questions page (http://www.netads.com/rmc/FAQ.gen.html#ac-1): Q: Is Alice Cooper a Christian? A: Yes. Just listen to his latest album, The Last Temptation and/or read the comic books that go with it. Q: Why haven't I read any interviews about this? A: Because Cooper's pastor and church have been giving him the chance to just be a Christian, without being assaulted by the media. We all need a chance to grow. Q: What's the story on Alice Cooper's conversion? A: Nobody in the public seems quite sure. It apparently happened around the time of the Wayne's World movie. Soon after that, someone gave Cooper a golf video (Cooper is an avid golfer) which had a promo spot by R. C. Sproul. Vince's (Alice's real, offstage name) wife, Sheryl, recognized Sproul from the covers of some books her parents had sent them. They dig out the books, and it's the same guy. They phone Sheryl's dad to get the scoop on Sproul. Her dad suggests they check out an upcoming conference Sproul is doing. He was really seeking the Lord, and participated in public worship. People who spoke with him there found him meek and humble. And this from a page on Goshen’s server (Address: http://www.goshen.net/nirr/archives/1994/090594.html) Another celebrity conversion: Alice Cooper, who reveled in his image as one of the most decadent rock stars of the '70s and once claimed to be an incarnated witch, has changed his tune. Cooper, a preacher's son whose birth name is Vincent Furier, now plays golf with singer Glen Campbell and theologian R.C. Sproul and has taught a Sunday school class, according to World magazine. Cooper still is under contract with Epic records and wears scary makeup, but the lyrics to his songs belie that image: What about truth/what about life/what about glory/what about Christ/what about peace/what about faith in God above... This was on a site called “Omega’s Alice Cooper Page”: "...as you pointed out Alice is the son of a minister but I have some insight on the real Alice that might intrigue you. First I should tell you that I am a Phoenix native so we regard Alice as our native son type hero.- anyway to the point last Halloween (96) Alice put on a benefit for the Solid Rock Foundation, a group He put together with Gerry Colangelo (owner of the Suns/Diamondbacks) at America West arena. At the event which featured A.C Green, Glen Campbell, and was hosted by local Christian band Everybodyduck, Alice took the stage to talk to the audience about his relationship with his savior Jesus Christ, He had a short Q&A session in which he talked about his personal bible study habits and somewhat renounced his past (he never really took himself that seriously to begin with) He said his new CD would reflect the changes he's gone through. I would be surprised to see a radical national "coming out" about his Christianity very soon as he really is a shy person under the persona as you probably know. But look just under the surface very closely and you'll see he's not the same man he used to be. Everything I have told you about you can verify. There was a feature story on this in the Arizona Republic a few days before Halloween. I'm sure You can get the Solid Rock foundations Address through the web. I had the pleasure to meet at the show and found him to be a nice man. It takes a lot of guts to admit your past mistakes and to publicly testify that Jesus is Lord. He is and He's only getting started with Alice so watch and see." - Review by George Lindbloom from Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.A. As for the truth behind all of this, I guess that only God and Mr. Cooper know for sure. This is from the introduction to Cooper’s 1976 Autobiography Me, Alice: The first question most often asked of me, upon finding out that I am Alice Cooper's father is, What do you think of your son's image and tactics as a performer? This is naturally a difficult question for me to answer to the satisfaction of those who are aware of the fact that I'm an ordained minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In answering the question, I must make it clear that Alice Cooper and I have nothing in common (except an occasional game of golf together), and that we live in two different worlds that are miles apart. I am a firm believer of the Christian teachings of Salvation: repentance, baptism by immersion, laying on of hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost, and stead-fastness in the faith during days of probation here on earth. Alice Cooper was raised, as was my daughter, Nickie, to believe in God and His teachings through His son, Jesus Christ. As long as they were under my roof they had an obligation to go to church and participate in Scripture classes. After graduating from high school, they both went out on their own and moved into their own places and were not constantly reminded of religion and eventually drifted away from church attendance altogether. Alice Cooper's career started harmlessly as a spoof, but it soon began to generate an energy and interest that was beyond the average teenage rock and roll band. Any parent would probably be proud of an offspring that reached the heights of success, fame and fortune that Alice Cooper has. But in contrast to a feeling of pride is the disappointment of not realizing our dreams of his becoming a minister of the Gospel while he was under our jurisdiction. He only found his success after realizing that the norm does not attract attention as well as the bizarre. The weirder he became, the greater the demand for his services and the more he got paid. It seems to me that he became entrapped in his obligations as a box-office attraction, and it was impossible for him to stop when it became clear there was millions of dollars to be made by following this course. Ironically enough, during the short times we are together I detect in him a longing for something that he does not now possess. Perhaps it is the knowledge that he is a creation of God and that he knows someday he must submit himself to the things he was taught as a child. His close friends in show business tell me that he is an actor of high degree, and his rebellious image is only a show and from time to time his religious longings emerge and come to the top. Am I dreaming, or suffering from wishful thinking that after all this decadence there will emerge from this dynamic personality a servant of God who can be as influential to the youth of the country for good as he has been for the adversary? God willing, this is my prayer for him. ETHER MORONI FURNIER Who knows maybe Rev. Furnier’s prayers have been answered. Sources: Davey, Lee. “Welcome to Alice’s Nightmare.” Toronto Star. June 15, 1994. “Toledo Stop is no Longer A Nightmare For Legendary Theatrical Rocker Alice Cooper.” The Blade. December 22, 1996. Cooper, Alice. The Last Temptation. Sony 1994. Brown, Mark. “Alice Cooper Happy With The Irony of Having Become ‘Family’ Entertainment.” Orange County Register. June 28, 1996. Weisblot, Mark. “Alice Through the Windshield.” Eye Weekly. June 30, 1994. Cooper, Alice and Steven Gaines. Me, Alice. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York. 1976. Cooper, Alice. “Hobby Shop.” Hit Parader. December, 1994. Rose, Jim. “Something Wicked This Way Comes.” Rip. August 1994.
