Alice Cooper, the godfather of shock-rock, is playing in Everett for the first time ever next weekend.
With him as always will be his infamous collection of horrors — a guillotine, an electric chair and plenty of fake blood.
“A Paranormal Evening with Alice Cooper” is set for Aug. 19 at Angel of the Winds Arena. It will feature Cooper’s provocative performance style — heavily laden with theatrical devices such as mock executions, Gothic costumes and pyrotechnics — which launched the rocker and his original band into stardom in the early 1970s.
Longtime fans will know what to expect. But in a recent phone interview with The Herald, Cooper, whose birth name is Vincent Furnier, offered a glimpse for those who haven’t.
“We never give the audience a chance to catch its breath,” Cooper, 70, said. “That’s the whole idea. They walk out of there and say, ‘Whew. What was that?’ ”
Cooper began a solo career in 1973 after his original band, also called Alice Cooper, broke up. He adopted the band’s name and has been on tour nearly every year since.
Angel of the Winds Arena is Cooper’s only stop in Washington on his “Paranormal” tour, which is promoting his 27th album of the same name. Released in 2017, the album has received positive reviews from critics and hit the top-25 list in 20 countries.
Corey Margolis, Angel of the Winds Arena’s general manager, said the 4,000-person venue is expected to nearly sell out.
“It’s exciting to have a legend of his stature,” Margolis said. “He really is a showman. You see him on stage and you know this guy has been doing it for so long. You see a true pro, from the pyrotechnics to the theatrics.”
Cooper’s band includes guitarists Nita Strauss, Ryan Roxie and Tommy Henriksen, drummer Glen Sobel and bassist Chuck Garric. The band members will be appropriately costumed on stage, with dark clothing, heavy eye liner and fake blood smeared on their persons.
But they’re crack musicians, too. Strauss is frequently mentioned as one of the top female guitarists in the world. Sobel was voted best hard rock drummer in the 2016 Drummies Awards.
Cooper said a few of the songs from the new album, including “Paranoiac Personality” and “Fallen in Love,” will make the set. The rest will be the original band’s biggest hits, such as “I’m Eighteen,” “School’s Out,” and “Feed My Frankenstein.”
“It’s how you string this song to that song to this song that makes it interesting for an audience who maybe saw you two years ago,” Cooper said. “The whole thing about this show is that the band goes out there every night to destroy that audience.”
Cooper stays busy when he’s not touring. He has four albums coming out in the next few years, including a live album with the Hollywood Vampires — Johnny Depp, Joe Perry and Cooper — recorded at a concert in Switzerland.
Cooper doesn’t live in the past, but he’ll go there when asked to reflect on what he’s most proud of in his career.
He remembers a band from 1964 in Phoenix that never thought it would be in the same room as the Rolling Stones or The Who.
About 50 years later, that band — the original Alice Cooper — joined them in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
“That’s a real accomplishment,” Cooper said.
Evan Thompson: 360-544-2999, ethompson@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @evanthompson_1.
If you go
What: Alice Cooper
Where: Angels of the Winds Arena
When: 7:00 p.m. Aug. 19
Tickets: from $42
More: www.angelofthewindsarena.com or 1-866-332-8499
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