Shock rocker Alice Cooper replaced touring with tap dancing while everyone was stuck at home and discovering their hidden talents in the coronavirus pandemic
The 73-year-old rock icon went from touring with Queen and playing to crowds of 95,000 to an audience of zero. He admitted the transition was hard.
Alice Cooper is a 73-year-old rock icon who started with touring with Queen and playing to crowds of 95,000 and now for his tap dancing, he had no audience initially. He said that the transition was difficult.
“It was like coming off of a drug because the adrenaline is your drug onstage. I mean, everybody’s sober. But you miss that adrenaline, that one-on-one,” he recalled, speaking from Charlotte, North Carolina.
Alice Cooper isn’t a big fan of Zoom and wasn’t converted to online performances during a lockdown: “It’s still flat and there’s no audience. So don’t try to fake it.”
Instead, he spent his free time in Phoenix with his family, honing an unlikely new skill: tap dancing. Cooper insists that his new soft shoe moves will not make it into his stage show, even though the family practiced in their backyard.
Finally, back on the road, Cooper admitted he was even “giddy going into rehearsal,” adding “I feel more home onstage than I do offstage.”
He has several live dates scheduled until November, and he expects to be on the road for the majority of next year. His snakes, which he claims have an unpredictable nature, are one of the most important aspects of his live show.
“The funny thing about the boa constrictors is that they have a mind of their own onstage,” he said. “I just let her go wherever she’s got to go and I have to improvise with where she’s at. Every night it’s different.”
