Alice Cooper is gearing up for a summer of festivals, and a full UK tour in October, along with new album Welcome 2 My Nightmare. He also releases a new Old School boxset featuring assorted classics and rarities. The ghoulish rock god talks about his various projects, and reflects on a life well lived.

By Andy Welch.

"Don't kill him," says Alice Cooper's manager, leaving the hotel room, laughing.

"Which one of us do you think he's talking to?" comes the dry response from the man himself.

Enveloped by a gigantic sofa, the theatrical rocker hasn't got murder in mind today. Cooper seems more concerned with where his next bottle of flavoured water is coming from - he's just dispatched an assistant to the nearest shop to get some more - and that the sofas in his suite don't face the television.

"How are you supposed to relax watching TV?" he moans, shifting around uncomfortably.

It's the last time he whinges about anything, however. The mood for the next hour or so is hugely positive and jovial. And with good reason, too. His box set of rarities Old School (which sold out on pre-orders alone) is out now, new album Welcome 2 My Nightmare is coming in September and a UK tour's in place for October.

This summer will also see Alice playing at festivals all over Europe, America and Australia. In short, he's busier than ever.

"I'm also in a movie with Johnny Depp, I forgot to mention that," he adds, referring to Tim Burton's film Dark Shadows, in which he has a small role.

And finally, the original Alice Cooper band have just been inducted to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame after a lengthy wait.

"We've been eligible for the past 15 years, but were never nominated before. I was starting to think we'd been blackballed, but we're in now. I've become obsessed with other people that aren't in too - Burt Bacharach's not in the Hall Of Fame. The guy wrote more hits than The Beatles!"

The Fab Four come up numerous times during the interview. Born in 1948, Alice, then plain old Vincent Damon Furnier, was the perfect age to be swept along by the tide of Beatlemania when it struck America in 1964.

He recounts how he and his friends would queue for hours to buy the latest Beatles records, then run home to play them. Cooper absorbed the subsequent 'British Invasion', led by The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks and The Yardbirds, and formed a band.

Recreating the sound of his musical heroes was the order of the day: "We just learned all the songs we loved and played them in bars," he explains.

By 1967 The Spiders, as they were known, moved from Detroit to Los Angeles, briefly renaming themselves The Nazz, before settling on Alice Cooper in 1968 (but young Vince didn't adopt the name as his own until 1975). Eventually they returned to Detroit where their stripped back garage rock was a much better fit than it had been LA, where The Doors were the most popular live act.

Then came the theatricality Cooper is now known for. Believing that every band should have an image, and inspired by the smeared make-up of Bette Davis's character in What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?, he came up with the idea of a rock 'n' roll villain, complete with top hat, cane, leather gloves and, of course, heavy, scary make-up.

The band's stage show featured gallows, fake blood, chopping up baby dolls with an axe and a huge snake.

Shock rock was born, but Cooper was ahead of the curve. By his own admission, the band were into "fun, sex, death and money" while the rest of the world was still caught up in the hippy notions of peace, love and anti-materialism.

Things soon changed, however, and by 1972 Alice Cooper were No 1 in the UK with School's Out, also a Top 10 hit in the US, while the album of the same name sold more than a million copies.

Parliament took notice of Cooper's arrival, with then Home Secretary Reginald Maudling doing his best to have the band banned from performing in the country. Eventually it was decided the BBC just wouldn't show the video to School's Out.

"We were a direct product of the bands of the Sixties, those bands we loved, but also a reaction to them," he reflects. "I think that's because we were from the first generation whose babysitter had been television, not just rock 'n' roll.

"We watched every TV show and it was in our DNA. Why not have that in there too? We listened to West Side Story, Guys And Dolls and the themes of John Barry. It struck a nerve and that's where the theatricality came from. Pop culture was coming into its own and we soaked it up."

A string of even more successful concept albums followed, while popularity waned slightly in the early Eighties, coinciding with Cooper's acute alcoholism.

He cleaned himself up, learned to play golf (he still plays 36 holes in a day off a handicap of seven) and carved out a film career, but by 1989 he was back and bigger than ever thanks to global hit Poison.

"That was a good time," he says. "And it's happening again...

"We're never going to have acts that are in the business for 40 plus years again, so people are taking notice of the ones that are still around.

"After the likes of Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Ozzy and I are gone, it won't happen. New bands, they do well to stay around for four years, let alone 40.

"Right now, I'm very happy. We're playing in the UK on Halloween too, which I'm really excited about.

"I didn't know until recently that it's not a big deal for you guys. If no one wants that holiday, I'm going to claim it as my own.

"Everything that's going on this year is brilliant. Everyone's interested in Alice again. I'm having another second coming."

Extra time - Alice Cooper :: On Welcome 2 My Nightmare: "It's a sequel to (1975 album) Welcome To My Nightmare, produced by Bob Ezrin, who did the first seven or eight records. We finished it in four months, but had allowed 10. In all my years, that's never happened before. Normally it's finished at the last minute."

:: On Lady Gaga: "I'm a huge fan. My advice to her is to become a rock chick. How many divas do you hate? All of them. She needs to stop before she gets there. How many rock chicks do you hate? None."

:: On being theatrical: "We were smart enough to know if you're going to wear make-up and have guillotines on stage, you better be a good band. If we rehearsed for 10 hours, nine of those would be on the music. That's the way it is to this day."

:: On compiling the new box set: "I think 90% of my fans are collectors, so we went out of our way to find things that no one has. Radio ads, demos, live takes. We dug really deep. There are rehearsal tapes from 1969. People want gems, things you can't get everywhere."