In a new interview with The Times, legendary rocker Alice Cooper addressed his previous comment that U.S. president Donald Trump cheated at golf when they played the game together in the past. Asked if Trump was the worst golf cheat he had ever encountered, the 77-year-old musician said: “No, Trump is not the biggest cheat. I can think of a few worse. But if any president who plays golf says he doesn’t cheat, don’t vote for them. I’m not talking about in competition; if you’re playing an everyday game among friends for bragging rights, then everyone cheats, right? But Trump was good. He can play.”
Asked if he liked Trump when they spent time together, Cooper responded: “We got along okay. Look, America has been having a slow-motion nervous breakdown for a while now. It got so ‘woke’ with the [Joe] Biden people, even they thought it was crazy. If a guy says to a coworker, ‘I like your new dress,’ that means he now gets fired? That’s crazy. It got so over the top that whoever ran against the Democrats was going to win. America got sick of the stupidness, and all I can say is, in a shooting war, you don’t want a poodle; you want a pitbull.”
Cooper went on to say that he hates discussing politics and he refused to reveal how he voted in the most recent U.S. presidential election. “I am here to take people away from all that,” he said.
Last year, Alice said that he was gearing up for the 2024 presidential election in the only way he knew how — by running for president, something he had done satirically every four years since releasing the song “Elected” back in 1972.
To accompany the announcement, the Godfather of Shock Rock released a “campaign” video in which he touted his qualifications thusly: “Well, I’m Alice Cooper and I’m a troubled man for troubled times. I have absolutely no idea what to do, so I should fit right in.”
In an August 2024 interview with the 96.1 KLPX radio station, Alice confirmed that he was selling “Alice For President” t-shirts at all the shows on his 2024 tour. He explained: “I am extremely nonpolitical. I would only do this because the song was a hit — ‘Elected’ was a huge hit. It was John Lennon‘s favorite song, ‘Elected’ was, because it was such a great satire on politics. But you’re never gonna see anything political in my show. I just hate politics. But in an election year, yeah, you have to do it — you have to do the satire on the whole situation.”
Alice added: “I’m telling you, we’re living in such a Kurt Vonnegut world right now, where everything is so absurd. For a person like me or a comedian, it’s writing itself.”
The original 1972 “Elected” music video is when Cooper first announced his “candidacy” and the formation of the Wild Party.
“Elected” was the first single from Cooper‘s iconic sixth studio album, “Billion Dollar Babies”. The record reached No. 1 in the U.S. and U.K. and was certified platinum by the RIAA.
In a 2018 interview with The Guardian, Cooper said that he keeps his political opinions to himself. “I don’t like to mix politics and rock ‘n’ roll,” he said. “I don’t look at Bono, Sting and Bruce Springsteen as political. I look at them as being humanitarian. I’ll contribute to anything humanitarian. Helping people who can’t help themselves. But when musicians are telling people who to vote for, I think that’s an abuse of power. You’re telling your fans not to think for themselves, just to think like you. Rock ‘n’ roll is about freedom — and that’s not freedom.”
Nine years ago, Cooper said that rock stars offering their political opinions is “the worst idea ever.” “First of all, why do people think rock stars know more than they do?” he said. “That is the biggest fallacy in the world — if anything, we’re dumber. We’re not smarter than anybody else. I mean, why do you think we’re rock stars?
“Trust me, we don’t read magazines you don’t read. Nobody calls us up and gives us as inside information on politics. We know less than you do. If I watch TV, it’s ‘Family Guy’.
“Rock ‘n’ roll was built to go as far away from politics as you could get. When my mom and dad talked about who to vote for, I’d go in the other room and put on THE BEATLES or ROLLING STONES — and I’m still like that.”
Cooper, who considers himself a humanitarian, said that he had no problem with artists using their platform to highlight global issues if it benefited others. He said: “I think what Bono does and what [Bruce] Springsteen does, Sting and all the people that raise money for others — that’s humanitarian, and I’m all for that. But I don’t think that’s political.”
In a 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, Cooper stated about then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump: “He’s an interesting character. It seems like he shoots himself in the foot every single day and gets more popular by doing it. It’s the weirdest. It’s like [Kurt] Vonnegut: Everything that shouldn’t happen is happening.”
Cooper previously said that he would even go so far as to do the opposite of what everyone else is doing just to make a point. During the 2004 election season, he said: “When I read the list of people who are supporting Kerry, if I wasn’t already a Bush supporter, I would have immediately switched. Linda Ronstadt? Don Henley? Geez, that’s a good reason right there to vote for Bush.”
He also mused about sitting between such political rocker icons as John Lennon and Harry Nilsson while they argued politics and thinking, “I don’t care.”
Photo credit: Jenny Risher
