When the pandemic first hit, certified good-guy Alice Cooper made sure that despite the chaos and constant stream of industry-wide shutdowns and interruptions, his extended team were going to be paid.
In a new interview with Forbes, the legendary rockstar touched on his latest album, Detroit Stories – which debuted at number one earlier in the year – as well as life without touring for a while, and more importantly, how dire a time it truly was for a touring act and their crew during the pandemic.
“We had 18 months off,” Cooper said. “Which was just absolutely unusual.”
“I’ve been touring for 55 years. And we usually average 100 to 200 shows a year. We’re so used to being on stage that 18 months off was like insane!”
“Just the idea that we were going to rehearse, everybody was giddy about it – couldn’t wait to get back on stage.”
With that being said, Cooper was asked to muse on the importance of touring to an artist, particularly in the streaming age, and he revealed just how important his crew is to his live show.
“When we saw this coming, we put money aside for our crew,” he began.
“We could see that it was… something. So we put money aside as a backup for them. Because we knew that their unemployment would run out, you know? And then they’d have something to go to. I think all responsible bands did that. Hopefully.”
He continued: “Because these are people we live with. We work with them every day. The guys that run the stage are as important as the guys that play guitar. So we made sure that everybody was covered. And that was really important.”
To quote Wayne’s World: “We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!”
