In a new interview with Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, Alice Cooper was asked how his relationship with Ted Nugent is “holding up right now” considering all the stuff that the legendary guitarist has said in the last few years. He responded: “Ted and I grew up together in Detroit, and he’s always been the mouth that roared. When he gets going, nobody can stay with him. I kind of look at him as his own entity.”
He continued: “I don’t ever talk politics… I hate politics. I don’t think rock and roll and politics belong in the same bed together, but a lot of people think it does — because we have a voice, and we should use our voice. But again, rock and roll should be anti-political, I think. When my parents started talking about politics, I would turn on THE [ROLLING] STONES as loud as I could. I don’t want to hear politics, and I still feel that way.
“My music and my show is designed to give you a vacation from CNN, you know what I mean?” Cooper added. “I’m not preaching anything up there, and I’m not knocking anybody. If I do a thing like on ‘Elected’, which we would always do during the elections, and I’d bring out [Donald] Trump and Hillary [Clinton] to fight, and both of them would get wiped out! That’s what was funny about it. If you’re in the political theater, you’d better be able to take a joke. So, that’s okay. I don’t mind the satire of it, but I don’t ever go up there and tell you who to vote for.”
“Elected” was the first single from Cooper‘s iconic sixth studio album, “Billion Dollar Babies”. The record reached No. 1 in the U.S. and U.K. and was certified platinum by the RIAA.
In a 2018 interview with The Guardian, Cooper said that he keeps his political opinions to himself. “I don’t like to mix politics and rock ‘n’ roll,” he said. “I don’t look at Bono, Sting and Bruce Springsteen as political. I look at them as being humanitarian. I’ll contribute to anything humanitarian. Helping people who can’t help themselves. But when musicians are telling people who to vote for, I think that’s an abuse of power. You’re telling your fans not to think for themselves, just to think like you. Rock ‘n’ roll is about freedom — and that’s not freedom.”
Six years ago, Cooper said that rock stars offering their political opinions is “the worst idea ever.” “First of all, why do people think rock stars know more than they do?” he said. “That is the biggest fallacy in the world — if anything, we’re dumber. We’re not smarter than anybody else. I mean, why do you think we’re rock stars?
“Trust me, we don’t read magazines you don’t read. Nobody calls us up and gives us as inside information on politics. We know less than you do. If I watch TV, it’s ‘Family Guy’.
“Rock ‘n’ roll was built to go as far away from politics as you could get. When my mom and dad talked about who to vote for, I’d go in the other room and put on THE BEATLES or ROLLING STONES — and I’m still like that.”
Cooper, who considers himself a humanitarian, said that he had no problem with artists using their platform to highlight global issues if it benefited others.
He said: “I think what Bono does and what [Bruce] Springsteen does, Sting and all the people that raise money for others — that’s humanitarian, and I’m all for that. But I don’t think that’s political.”
In a 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, Cooper stated about then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump: “He’s an interesting character. It seems like he shoots himself in the foot every single day and gets more popular by doing it. It’s the weirdest. It’s like [Kurt] Vonnegut: Everything that shouldn’t happen is happening.”
Cooper previously said that he would even go so far as to do the opposite of what everyone else is doing just to make a point. During the 2004 election season, he said: “When I read the list of people who are supporting Kerry, if I wasn’t already a Bush supporter, I would have immediately switched. Linda Ronstadt? Don Henley? Geez, that’s a good reason right there to vote for Bush.”
He also mused about sitting between such political rocker icons as John Lennon and Harry Nilsson while they argued politics and thinking, “I don’t care.”
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