Classic shock-rocker Alice Cooper recently voiced his opinion on the infamous “rock is dead” line that Gene Simmons of Kiss has been sharing. Rather than embrace a more pessimistic tone though, Cooper decides to express an optimistic point of view.
During a recent interview with LA Weekly, it is brought up to Alice Cooper how the rock genre isn’t doing super well on the music charts – he is then asked what can be done about that.
One of the big points that Cooper ultimately makes is that he believes it is healthy for today’s rock bands to not be “number one,” and that the genre/rock stars are back to being rebels again.
Per Cooper:
“Well, you’ve got your certain bands– you know, Foo Fighters still going. Green Day, things like that. I kind of look at this a little bit differently. There was a time when we first started playing, that rock bands were outlaws. We were on the outside looking into the party and we weren’t invited to the party. It was more pop music and dance music and disco. I think we’re back to that point. I think it’s kind of healthy that rock bands now are not number one, number two or number three. We’re back to the point of being rebels again.”
The follow-up question to this response asks him whether he believes that not being mainstream makes for better music – this is where Cooper brings up Simmons’ comment about “rock being dead.”
“Gene Simmons said rock is dead but I think he was talking financially. I think there are kids in garages right now learning Guns n’ Roses, learning Aerosmith, learning Alice, learning Ozzy… Young 16 year old kids rocking, just rocking. That’s healthy. That’s really healthy. I don’t think rock is ever gonna die. When you talk about hard rock, like the Stones, The Who and all that, that’s the only music that’s lasted. Grunge was here for a while. And punk was here for a while. Emo was here and all this, but hard rock bands just kept going. So if you’re in a hard rock band, you can go as long as you want to go.”
What do you make of what Alice Cooper has to say about the state of rock and roll?