Motley Crue’s special tour guest Alice Cooper says music today is too tame and politically correct

 
Bowing out: Alice Cooper (far right) with Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee and Mick Mars of Motley Crue (Picture: Getty)
Ian Gavan/Getty
Emma Powell11 June 2015
The Weekender

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US singer Alice Cooper has said today’s artists are too tame and politically correct.

Cooper, 67 – who will perform in the UK as a special guest on Mötley Crüe’s last world tour later this year – said it is time for young bands to "let it go".

Speaking to the Evening Standard Online he said: "Now is a great time to be politically incorrect. Now is the right time to be the new Mötley or Guns and Roses. Everything is so tame. Now is the time for young bands to just let it go."

Cooper – who earned himself the moniker 'The Godfather of Shock Rock' for his macabre stage shows involving snakes, guillotines and an electric chair - believes a revival of the Rock and Roll era is imminent.

“I think there’s a total recycle coming up. The era that [Mötley Crüe] came up in was so much fun. If you look at the videos, if you look at the pictures, if you look at the image, if you listen to the records, there’s going to be a generation that comes along and goes ‘I want to do that. I don’t want to sit here and talk about oil. I want to sing about the strip clubs’.”

Cooper explained that he and Mötley Crüe would not have achieved the success they had if the Internet had been as prevalent back then as it is today.

He said: "For us it was the word of mouth the urban legends that created Alice Cooper. People would go to school after they'd seen the show and they would say 'His snake was 15 feet long and it killed two people’ and by the next day it would be like, 'He was on fire and one of the guys got his head chopped off'.”

He described how these Chinese whispers created a sense of danger - something he believes today's bands lack.

"The urban legend got so big that you were immediately dangerous," he said.

"When you first heard of Mötley Crüe there was an immediate sense of outlaw. These guys were not just a band - they were a motorcycle band. They were dangerous. If you were a girl you’d have to be very careful because you might not come back, but the image of the band and the press that came out fed that. That was part of the appeal."

Tickets for Mötley Crüe: The Final Tour with very special guest Alice Cooper go on-sale from 9am on Friday, June 19.

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