Alice Cooper was basicly associated with Shock rock, hard rock and some heavy metal. He's a fucking legend and hes been active since 1964. Thats right, he's 61 and has been touring and selling albums for 45 years. He was born in Detroit, Michigan. His real name is Vincent Furnier. This is a bit of his early life and how he started his path to be a rock icon and a god.
THE REST OF THE INFO PROVIDED IS DIRECTLY FROM WIKIPEDIA.ORG
In 1964, at the age of 16, Furnier was eager to take part in the local annual Letterman's talent show and gathered fellow cross-country teammates from the school to form a group for the show.[9] They named themselves The Earwigs, and since they didn't know how to play any instruments at the time, they dressed up like The Beatles and mimed their performance to Beatles songs. As a result of winning the talent show and loving the experience of being onstage, the group immediately proceeded to learn how to play instruments they acquired from a local pawn shop and soon renamed themselves The Spiders, featuring Furnier on vocals and harmonica, Glen Buxton on lead guitar, John Tatum on rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar, and John Speer on drums.[10] Musically, the group were inspired by artists such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, The Who, The Kinks, and The Yardbirds. For the next year the band performed regularly around the Phoenix area with a huge black spider's web as their backdrop, the group's first stage prop. In 1965 they also recorded their first single "Why Don't You Love Me" (originally performed by The Blackwells), with Furnier learning the harmonica for the song.
In 1966, the members of The Spiders graduated from Cortez High School. After North High School footballer Michael Bruce replaced John Tatum on rhythm guitar, the band scored a local #1 radio hit with "Don't Blow Your Mind", an original composition from their second single release. By 1967, the band had begun to make regular roadtrips to Los Angeles, California to play shows. They soon renamed themselves The Nazz and released the single "Wonder Who's Lovin' Her Now", backed with future Alice Cooper track "Lay Down And Die, Goodbye". It was around this time that drummer John Speer was replaced by Neal Smith, and by the end of the year the band had relocated to Los Angeles permanently.
In 1968, upon learning that Todd Rundgren also had a band called Nazz, the band were again in need of another stage name. Furnier recognized that the group needed a gimmick to succeed, and that other bands were not exploiting the showmanship potential of the stage. He subsequently chose Alice Cooper as the band's name and adopted this stage name as his own.[11]
Early press releases claimed that the name was agreed upon after a session with a Ouija board, during which it was revealed that Furnier was the reincarnation of a 17th century witch named Alice Cooper[citation needed]. However, it is now widely accepted that this story was in fact a publicity stunt -- Cooper in later interviews confirmed that the name actually came out of thin air, conjuring an image of "a cute and sweet little girl with a hatchet behind her back". (The name was also once said to be an inside joke associated with a character in the television show Mayberry R.F.D.; Alice Cooper is also the name of Betty Cooper's mother in the Archie comic strips). Nonetheless, at the time Cooper and the band realized that the concept of a male playing the role of an androgynous witch, in tattered women's clothing and wearing make-up, would definitely have the potential to cause considerable social controversy and grab headlines. Furnier would later admit that the name change was one of his most important and brilliant career moves.[12]
The classic Alice Cooper group line-up consisted of singer Alice Cooper (Vincent Furnier), lead guitarist Glen Buxton, rhythm guitarist Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway, and drummer Neal Smith. With the exception of Smith, who graduated from Camelback High School (which is referred to in the song "Alma Mater" on the School's Out album), all of the band members were on the Cortez High School cross-country team, and many of Alice Cooper's stage 'effects' were inspired by their cross-country coach, Emmett Smith[13] (one of Smith's class projects was to build a working guillotine for slicing watermelons). Cooper, Buxton and Dunaway were also art students, and their admiration for the works of surrealist artists such as Salvador Dalí would further inspire their future stage antics.