Alice Cooper says Jimi Hendrix is responsible for turning his band’s fortunes around, thanks to a simple act that helped them land a record deal.
Before breaking out as one of rock’s most iconic frontmen, Cooper rubbed shoulders with stars and soon-to-be legends. He ran the L.A. scene alongside the Doors in the ’60s and even shared a house with Pink Floyd.
But it was another, more unusual living arrangement that sparked this all-important moment.
“In 1968, we were so poor in L.A. that we were living in the Chambers Brothers’ basement in Watts during the riots,” he tells Professor of Rock, referring to the uprising in the Watts neighborhood in August 1965. “Jimi Hendrix used to come over and they’d all smoke grass together, and we’d come out of the cellar like rats.
“Jimi was buying his grass from Shep Gordon, who at the time was just this New York kid that was selling grass to all these people at the Landmark Hotel.”
Beyond his knack for selling drugs, Gordon didn’t have a lot going for him at the time. As Cooper says, Hendrix saw him as a walking target for the police.
“Jimi says, ‘You know, they’re going to bust you, man. You’re a young guy. You’ve got a lot of money and you don’t have an occupation.’
“He said, ‘I know a band that needs a manager. You should be a manager.’
“So he brings us over. I opened the door, and I thought there was a smoke machine inside! I walk through this, and there’s Jimi, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin. They’re all sitting there getting high.”
It’s not exactly the typical environment for a business meeting, but then again, this is rock and roll. It was the ‘60s, and Cooper was in the company of rock royalty — ironically, three future founding members of the so-called 27 Club.
“Shep hands me a handful of marijuana. And this is when marijuana was really illegal in LA.
“And I went, ‘That’s our manager!’” Cooper continues.
“The very next day, we were supposed to sign with Frank Zappa’s [record label, Straight]. We walked in, and Shep walked in, and they said, ‘Who’s he?’ I said, ‘Oh, that’s our manager.’ They said, ‘You didn’t have a manager yesterday.’ I said, ‘Yeah, we got him last night.’”
An incredible 55 years later, Gordon is still Cooper’s manager and a vital ingredient in his success through the decades. Cooper says such was the informality of their arrangement, and their trust in one another, that they still don’t have a contract.
The band’s first album, Pretties for You, wasn’t a success, but their third album changed the record as their collaborative partnership with Bob Ezrin got off to a flying start. Ezrin later encouraged the band to revisit the Pretties for You track “Reflected,” ultimately turning it into a parody political anthem, “Elected”, one of their biggest hits.
But by the mid-’70s, the original Alice Cooper Band — potently powered by Glen Buxton’s fiery lead guitar work — was no more.
“When we got Bob Ezrin, everything went through the roof,” Cooper says. “But after seven years, we never took time off. We just toured and toured. In those days, you made two albums a year.
“It was normal because if you didn’t, somebody behind you was going to take you out. We had Bowie breathing down our neck. So we made two albums a year, writing these songs while on tour. The original band just burned out.”
They reunited for 2025’s The Revenge of Alice Cooper album, with Buxton, who passed in 1997, a notable absence. However, he still influenced the record courtesy of a rediscovered riff.
“I had a cassette of Glen and I, and Glen had an idea for this song he called ‘Astute Lobotomy,’” bass player Dennis Dunaway explains to Guitar Player. “And that’s all he had: the title and this riff, definitely a fiery, Glen Buxton riff.
“His spirit was in the room with us the whole time,” Ezrin adds. “We talked about him more than we talked about anything else, I think.”
That, of course, meant Buxton’s boots needed to be filled, and Bob Ezrin has told Guitar Player how they found their man.
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