Alice Cooper: Vampires, Nightmares, and Resurrection Rock

Alice Cooper’s life was a nightmare—but it was all real. This is the story of addiction, illusion, and the ultimate act of survival. Alice Cooper wasn’t just a shock-rock icon—he was Vincent Furnier, a man strangled by his own stagecraft, drowning in bottles and crack pipes, and haunted by a demon urging him to end it all. From a satanic stage execution at Wembley to wild nights with the Hollywood Vampires, Cooper’s life became a nightmare—but it was all painfully real. This is the story of addiction, illusion, and the ultimate act of survival. This episode was originally released on July 24, 2025. To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.disgracelandpod.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://cms.megaphone.fm/organizations/c83125d2-8508-11ed-bd28-ff0aff7ee233/podcasts/efca2ef8-85f9-11ed-8fe3-bb208936046f/episodes/29bc673e-85fa-11ed-9d9c-cffe44583488/www.disgracelandpod.com. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to exclusive bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at disgracelandpod.com/membership https://disgracelandpod.com/membership. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠GET THE NEWSLETTER⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://mailchi.mp/doubleelvis/disgraceland-email-newsletter Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/disgracelandpod/ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/@disgracelandpod ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://twitter.com/disgracelandpod (formerly Twitter) ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook Fan Group⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.facebook.com/groups/491024204626127/ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok https://tiktok.com/disgracelandpod See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:13Speaker 00

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• 1:37Speaker 01

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• 1:43Jake Brennan?

  Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis.

• 2:03Jake Brennan?

  This is a story about nightmares, about rope burns, baby dolls, and black widow spiders, about addiction, resurrection, and the long, strange life of one of Rock's most interesting showmen. It's not just a story about shock rock, or stage blood, or fake executions. It's a story about the real kind of darkness, the kind that eats you from the inside out, the kind that convinces you to pick up a gun, and the kind that sometimes, hopefully, you survive. This story spans decades, demons, and more than one near-death experience. It includes a surgeon's scalpel, gallows, and a secret room where a beetle passed out

• 2:48Jake Brennan?

  cold with a dollar bill up his nose. And it ends, maybe not ends, but swerves, on a day when the godfather of shock rock flipped on the radio in his Shelby Mustang and heard something that sounded like his future. This is a story, of course, about Alice Cooper. A story that begins in an empty theater and ends more or less with the voice of God. And this being a story about Alice Cooper means that it's also a story about great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Mellotron called "Jacko Wacko MK2."

• 3:28Jake Brennan?

  I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to "Man in the Mirror" by Michael Jackson. And why would I play you that specific slice of self-reflection cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number-one song in America on April 6, 1988, and that was the day Alice Cooper put down the gun, flushed the coke, and clawed his way back from the grave. On this episode, blackouts, breakdowns, Brandy Alexanders, and the gory, glorious rebirth of Alice Cooper. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgrace Land.

• 4:33Jake Brennan?

  He tried to run, but there was no escape. His heart was pounding. Sweat poured down from his face. It mixed with his black makeup, leaving long, dark trails running down his cheeks. Alice Cooper looked back, and the shadowy figure was closing in. It was like a nightmare. No matter how fast he ran, the figure kept gaining on him. As he came closer, he realized the shadowy figure was a man wearing black robes. A black executioner's hood covered his face. Even more terrifying was what he had in his hands. It was a long, thick rope tied in a noose. Alice sprinted towards the stairs that rose in front of him, but he felt his legs were

• 5:17Jake Brennan?

  stuck in cement. The figure had been chasing him for hours, and he was exhausted. Alice tried to will himself forward. He made it up the steps, but then he saw something that made his blood go cold. At the top of the stairs was a hangman's gallows. Above the gallows was a large sign, a sign that read "Alice Cooper." Alice turned around, and his tormentor was right behind him. There was nowhere to run. This was the end. The executioner grabbed him by the arm and pulled him toward the gallows. Alice had no strength left to fight. It was clear.

• 5:56Jake Brennan?

  Alice Cooper was about to be hanged for his crimes. At least that's how it looked from the empty seats out in the house at London's Wembley Arena. But Alice Cooper's nightmarish stalker had a secret. He wasn't an executioner. He was a wizard, or at least as close as he could get to being one in 1987. Because behind that black mask and robes wasn't a murderous monster from the 1980s slasher films that inspired Alice Cooper's latest stage show. Instead, it was the celebrity magician James Randi, aka The Amazing Randi, aka The Gandalf of Rock and Roll. James Randi had been the wizard behind Alice Cooper's electrifying live shows for the

• 6:41Jake Brennan?

  last 15 years, and the gallows was one of his best designs. It had been a fan favorite for years, and now they were bringing it back as part of Alice Cooper's The Nightmare Returns Tour. But not before rehearsing it once or twice before the show. Not that they needed to. Over the years, Randi and Alice had perfected the routine. They had done it hundreds, if not thousands, of times, and it ran like clockwork. The key was the piano wire concealed behind the thick rope. When Randi dressed as the executioner, grabbed Alice Cooper by the arm, he pulled him up to a real working gallows, and he pulled a real noose tightly around Alice's neck.

• 7:22Jake Brennan?

  But while all this was happening to distract the crowd, Alice Cooper was busy clipping the thick piano wire to a harness on his back. The executioner would pull the handle, the floor would drop out, and Alice Cooper would plummet downward. Then, just an inch before the rope pulled tight, the harness would catch Alice and stop him from choking to death. The illusion was convincing, and along with the rest of the show, which featured Alice Cooper beheading baby dolls with a sword and simulating sex acts with mannequins and murdering an evil nurse who tortured him, it never failed to get a reaction. Audiences loved it, but politicians and other professional scolds railed against the violence on stage.

• 8:07Jake Brennan?

  Some even called for the shows at Wembley to be canceled. That was nothing new for Alice Cooper. He had been shocking crowds for years, just as he had been doing this gallows scene for years. So Alice Cooper wasn't worried about the noose as it pulled tight around his neck. What did worry him, though, more than any controversy, were the declining ticket sales, the canceled shows, the 10 years since his last hit, and the new crop of hair metal bands. They'd probably grown up on his music, and now they were lining up to replace him. He hoped this tour would turn things around, but as he was led towards the gallows, he had his doubts. Maybe the world had moved on, and maybe it was harder to shock people in 1987 than

• 8:51Jake Brennan?

  it had been in 1973.

• 8:55Jake Brennan?

  As Alice Cooper looked out into the thousands of empty seats in the arena, he couldn't help but wonder, was this going to be his fate on this tour? Would he kill himself every night in front of empty arenas? And could the world still be shocked by Alice Cooper? Alice felt the burn as the rope closed tightly around his neck. Behind him, the band was playing a dark rock and roll dirge. A drumbeat urged him onward as he stepped into the gallows. And with everything in place, the band was building to a climax. The guitars suddenly cut out. And then, there was a drumroll. Everything went silent in the arena for just a second as the tension built. And then Randy pulled the lever. Strobe lights flashed.

• 9:40Jake Brennan?

  Fog billowed across the stage. Alice Cooper felt the floor drop out from beneath him, just as it had so many times before. He felt himself falling. And then he heard a loud snap. He felt the safety wire go slack. He was falling through the air with nothing to stop him. Nothing except the noose at the end of the rope. It all happened in a fraction of a second, but Alice later swore he saw his life flash before his eyes as he fell. He saw his bandmates back in Arizona when they were just starting out as a high school talent show joke. He saw his wife Cheryl and their kids. He saw his friends, idols, and fellow icons he'd crossed paths with over the years.

• 10:22Jake Brennan?

  He saw the dark times that had nearly killed him and the light that had saved him. In those two seconds, he saw it all. But he also felt the rope getting tighter and tighter. In an instinct of self-preservation, he snapped his head back as he fell. He felt the rope rake across his chin. It dug into his flesh and ripped away a patch of skin. He hit the ground with a loud bang and collapsed to the floor. His head slammed onto the stage and everything went black. When he opened his eyes a moment later, there were people standing over him and they were staring at him with fear in their eyes. Alice felt a wet spot on his chin and he lifted his hand to it.

• 11:05Jake Brennan?

  When he pulled his hand back, it was covered in dark crimson blood. Death had come for Alice Cooper, but he'd literally been able to slip the noose. Afterward, he was recovering in the dressing room when his manager asked if he wanted to cancel tomorrow's show, or at least remove the gallows scene from the setlist. Of course, Alice didn't want to remove the scene. What he wanted to do was to get a thicker piano wire for his harness. He was gonna give the people what they wanted. Anything less would be a disgrace. Because Alice Cooper had already lived through darkness worse than death. And now, he was determined to get back on top. No matter what it took, he was gonna drag the world back into Alice Cooper's nightmare.

• 12:20Jake Brennan?

  The Sunset Strip was living up to its name. It was bathed in pink and orange light as the evening sun sank into the Hollywood hills. The Strip looked beautiful for just a moment, then it plunged into darkness. However, the darkness was far from still and far from silent. Because the darkness had a voice. A voice that called out to the creatures of the night. The ones who slept in the daytime, staying hidden from the sun. The voice of the night called out to them. It pulled them out of their hiding spots. It demanded they take to the streets to satiate their unquenchable thirst. Their thirst for blood.

• 13:02Jake Brennan?

  Because at night, the Sunset Strip was crawling with vampires, if you knew where to look. Not long after the sun finally disappeared behind the hills, the vampires stirred. They slunk down the boulevards, staying hidden in the shadows. And they crept through the alleyways, stalking their prey. These vampires would go to the ends of the earth to satisfy their craving. And further, to get their fix, they would travel all the way over the Rainbow. And that's exactly where a coven of vampires was meeting on this night in 1973. In their lair above the Rainbow Bar and Grill, one of the hottest nightspots on the Sunset

• 13:45Jake Brennan?

  Strip. Below in the bar, luminaries from Lemmy to Elton were rubbing elbows. But in the tiny room above the Rainbow, the same small group of vampires met every night. And tonight, they picked up the scent of the crimson elixir they craved before the young blonde bartender even stepped into the room. She threw open the door, completely unprepared for what was waiting on the other side. As soon as she stepped into the room, they were on her. Their mouths were foaming, and they screamed in tongues that she could barely understand. Because these Hollywood vampires weren't looking for the blood from the young bartender's veins, they were looking for the blood of the vine.

• 14:27Jake Brennan?

  Because these vampires were no ordinary bloodsuckers. They were some of the biggest booze hounds in rock and roll history. Keith Moon, John Lennon, Harry Nilson, Mickey Dolenz from The Monkees, and Elton John songwriter Bernie Toppin, and the captain of this cabal of Hollywood vampires, Alice Cooper. In 1973, they gathered in this tiny room above the Rainbow to let loose out of the public eye. The room had a sign out front that read "Lair of the Hollywood Vampires," a nickname they had earned from their habit of sleeping all day and drinking all night. The sign listed Alice Cooper as the club's president. Keith Moon was the vice president.

• 15:12Jake Brennan?

  And the rest of the members joined by going through a hazing process that would kill most mortals. They had to out-drink every member of the club. That's exactly what John Lennon was trying to do that night as he took down his 12 Brandy Alexander. Alice Cooper slowly sipped on a Bud Tallboy as he wrote a golden buzz into the night. He listened to Lennon ramble incoherently about getting back with Paul McCartney for a new album together, or maybe just quitting music altogether and going back to Yoko. It was hard to follow if Alice was being honest. Still, he couldn't believe he was sitting in this dimly-lit room chatting with an honest-to-God Beatle, even if the Beatles' train of thought was a little hard to follow.

• 15:53Jake Brennan?

  The Brandy Alexanders were part of the problem, but the cocaine definitely didn't help either. John Lennon straightened up another four-inch line of white powder on the small wooden table behind him. He offered a rolled-up dollar bill to Alice Cooper, but Alice waved him off. Alice could handle his booze, no problem, but drugs weren't really his thing. He grew up in a religious household. His dad was a preacher. And even though he had left the church behind years ago, there were certain things that he kept off limits, and cocaine was one of them. He talked about his anti-drug stance in interviews all the time. John Lennon shrugged and he lowered his head to the table to snort the coke. But the Brandy Alexanders won the battle with the cocaine.

• 16:35Jake Brennan?

  And before he could inhale, Lennon slumped over in his seat and passed out, with a rolled-up dollar bill still sticking out of his nose. Alice Cooper shook his head and grinned at the unconscious Beatle. If John Lennon wanted to join the Hollywood Vampires, he would have to pass the test some other night. Alice sipped his beer and reminded himself for the millionth time to stay off the powder. For him, it was enough of a high to play to packed crowds every night, as he had been doing for the past three months on a massive 64-day tour with his band, Alice Cooper. That was another thing about Alice Cooper in 1973. Alice Cooper wasn't actually a person at all. Alice Cooper was a band.

• 17:20Jake Brennan?

  Alice Cooper was founded by five school friends in Phoenix, Arizona. They ran cross-country together. And eventually, they realized they had an equal love for everything from The Beatles and The Who to Leonard Bernstein musicals and avant-garde art. Alice Cooper the Man was born Vincent Fournier in Detroit. He moved to Phoenix in high school, whereupon he convinced the rest of the guys to play a few school-related Beatles parodies in their high school talent show. The response was so good that they started a real band, one they called The Spiders. Then The Nas, not to be confused with Todd Rundgren's The Nas, and finally settling on, you guessed it, Alice Cooper. After conquering the local Phoenix scene, Alice Cooper the Band quickly headed for Los Angeles.

• 18:05Jake Brennan?

  But that was a mistake. Their first show in town, they cleared out a 2,000-person ballroom in less than 10 minutes. Because LA at the time was deep into the Laurel Canyon flower power folk-rock thing. And Alice Cooper, again, the band, were anything but hippies. And they didn't care about politics. They didn't want to sing protest songs. What they wanted to do was make hit records that rocked. They wanted groupies, fast cars, and stacks of cash. So they split from LA and headed to Detroit. Away from Hollywood, they knew they would need to find ways to get attention, and they were willing to do whatever it took. So they began taking to the stage in women's clothes, in S&M gear, in heavy makeup.

• 18:47Jake Brennan?

  This was years before Kiss put out their first album, by the way. Alice Cooper courted controversy by dismembering baby dolls with axes onstage and reportedly once doing the same to a live chicken. The band sang about necrophilia, they sang about murder, they sang about literally blowing schools to pieces. When their song "School's Out" became a surprise hit, the band decided to go even bigger for their next album. They recorded Billion Dollar Babies in studios stretching from LA to London. Hollywood Vampires Keith Moon, Harry Nilson, and Ringo Starr were all said to take part in the late-night drunken recording sessions, but everyone's memory was too blurry to know for sure who played what. And the tour was equally over the top.

• 19:30Jake Brennan?

  They hired the choreographer from West Side Story, a magician, James Randi, to construct a live show that reportedly cost $1.2 million in production alone.

• 19:43Jake Brennan?

  As production costs swelled and the attention grew, so did the ego of Vincent Fournier, Alice Cooper's frontman, aka Alice Cooper. He was the one doing the interviews, he was the one on the covers of the magazines, and he was the one almost everyone was calling Alice Cooper. So, in 1974, he had his name legally changed. And it wasn't long before Alice Cooper, the man, started thinking that he could get along without Alice Cooper, the band. So the next year, he ditched his old high school friends for his first solo album, using the now-legal name of Alice Cooper. "Welcome to My Nightmare" was another audacious concept album that mixed the avant-garde with vaudeville horror and hard rock.

• 20:27Jake Brennan?

  The tour was like a dark Broadway musical. It featured a huge set that cost a quarter of a million in production dollars to build. In addition to the famous gallows scene, it also included moving six-foot-tall Black Widow spiders suspended on 20-foot-high crystal pyramids, plus a 10-foot Cyclops and nearly 100 crew members, musicians, and backup dancers. One of those backup dancers was 18-year-old Cheryl Goddard. On tour, she and Alice bonded while watching old horror movies after the shows. And within a year, they were married. Alice Cooper was one of the biggest rock stars on the planet, and he was newly married. But as his fame grew, so did his appetites.

• 21:11Jake Brennan?

  But still, he told himself he was cool. After all, he didn't drink on stage, and he never touched drugs. There were lines he wouldn't cross. At least, that's what he told himself. But Alice Cooper was about to meet a demon, one that would make those lines disappear.

• 21:33Speaker 04

  We'll be right back after this word, word, word.

• 21:39Speaker 05

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• 22:11Speaker 01

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• 22:40Speaker 06

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• 22:43Speaker 01

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• 24:12Jake Brennan?

  It was the middle of the afternoon. From the outside, it was a completely normal sunny day in this upscale Beverly Hills neighborhood. Completely normal, except for the DEA agents and the SWAT team swarming around one of the mansions. Inside, the house was pitch black. Alice Cooper was lying face down on the floor, terrified. Next to him was a pistol, loaded with six bullets in the barrel. And next to the pistol was a rock of cocaine nearly as big as the barrel of the gun. There was no escape. His life was about to be over, and the police were about to bust down the door and arrest him. And that's when he heard the demon's voice. Grab the gun, Vincent.

• 24:55Jake Brennan?

  The demon had entered Alice in 1978. Now, six years later, it was almost completely in control, and it only had one goal: to kill Alice Cooper. Unable to resist the command, Alice reached for the gun. He felt goosebumps raise on his arms as his fingers grazed the cold steel. The demon urged him onward. Do it now, Vincent. Pick up the gun. With every shred of willpower, he tried to resist. He tried to think of something else, so he focused on his wife Cheryl and their baby girl. The demon had scared them away months ago. In fact, they left in such a hurry that Cheryl's closet was still filled with dresses.

• 25:36Jake Brennan?

  Those dresses were now covering every window and every door in the mansion, meant to block out the sun, but now also blocking out the sight of the gathering SWAT team outside. Because although the cops wanted Alice Cooper in 1984, it seemed like no one else did. Cheryl was done with him, and so were his fans. It all started back in 1977 with his '77 tour. Alice was visibly drunk on stage for the first time in his career. He missed cues and flubbed lyrics. Even worse, for the first time in his career, the shows were boring. Fans began whispering that something was wrong with Alice Cooper. Ticket sales plummeted, and as soon as the tour ended, Cheryl insisted that he go to

• 26:21Jake Brennan?

  rehab. Even if he spent most of his morning puking up blood, Alice still did not think that he had a problem. But to save his marriage, he agreed. However, in typical Alice Cooper style, he did it in the most theatrical way possible. Rather than a rehab facility, he checked himself into an insane asylum in upstate New York. He spent days in group therapy sessions and nights writing songs in a padded cell. And he did manage to kick booze while he was there. But from the start, it was clear he had much bigger plans for his stay on the inside than just getting clean. Because immediately after he got out, Alice Cooper started working with fellow Hollywood vampire Bernie Toppin on a new concept album based on the patients he met in the asylum

• 27:05Jake Brennan?

  called "From the Inside." Soon after, the pair hit the road for a short publicity tour for the album. In interviews, Alice Cooper claimed he had been cured of his cravings for alcohol. In photos, instead of Bud Tallboys, now he held cans of Coke. But Bernie Toppin liked Coke too, and for Bernie Toppin, Coke wasn't a drink in a can. It was blow. It was dust. It was the devil's dandruff. And a newly sober Alice Cooper was desperate for something else to take the edge off, so he did something he swore he would never do: he let a demon in. And it didn't take long for the demon to take control. Soon, Alice wasn't just snorting cocaine, he was smoking crack every day. And his drinking came back with a vengeance.

• 27:50Jake Brennan?

  Now, fueled by blow, he wasn't riding a golden buzz into the night anymore. He was tossing down bottles of whiskey and wreaking havoc, just like John Lennon and Keith Moon. Even worse, the demon led him to commit the ultimate sin: he abandoned hard rock for new wave. The stylistic change was a total flop. His label refused to even support a tour for his album, Zipper Catch's Skin, not that Alice was in any shape to perform.

• 28:20Jake Brennan?

  Instead of playing for packed crowds, now his days revolved around smoking crack in Beverly Hills mansion with the windows blocked out by his soon-to-be ex-wife's abandoned clothing. He could hear the demon hissing all of this into his ear, and he knew it was all true. Everything was gone. Any minute, the police would break down his door and arrest him. They would expose him as a hypocrite and a junkie after he'd spent his entire career railing against hard drugs. Pick up the gun, Vincent. The demon was growing insistent. It forced him to grab the gun tightly in his hand. Alice Cooper was desperate and exhausted, and he knew he couldn't hold out much longer on his own.

• 29:01Jake Brennan?

  In desperation, he combed his memories for another voice, a voice he'd heard once as a teenager after a freak accident. Like the demon, this voice once commanded him. But unlike the demon who was trying to kill him, this voice commanded him to live. And so, he did. Later, his parents called it "The Voice of God." They said it meant that he was destined for something big. Alice Cooper believed it once too, but that was a long time ago. Still, the thought of his parents stopped him in his tracks. They loved him despite everything, even after he left the church, even after he became

• 29:41Jake Brennan?

  the most controversial shock rocker on the planet, even after he became a drug addict. Now, as he struggled with the demon inside him, their love gave him just enough power to drop the gun. He stood up and walked towards the front door, ready to surrender to whatever was waiting on the other side. He took a deep breath, and then he stepped outside with his hands in the air. And outside waiting for him there was... nothing. No SWAT team, no LAPD, no DEA agents. It had all been a trick of the demon inside him, the demon that was trying to kill Alice Cooper. It screamed at him. It tried to force its way back inside, but it was too late.

• 30:25Jake Brennan?

  The exorcism was already complete. Alice Cooper was free. He picked up the cocaine and sprinted towards the bathroom. Before he could change his mind, he tossed the drugs into the toilet and flushed them down the drain. The next morning, he picked up the phone and he called Cheryl, and he just said two words. "I'm back." Of course, it wasn't that easy, not for his addiction, and not for his marriage either, and especially not for his career. It took years to build up enough trust for Cheryl to move back in. It took years for record labels to believe that he was really clean enough to work, and it took years before anyone would trust him with the cash to mount a major tour like the "Come Back" special he had planned in his head.

• 31:10Jake Brennan?

  Because to do it right, Alice Cooper knew that the show would have to have everything, all the big hits from the past, the six-foot Black Widow spiders, the dismembered baby dolls, and of course, the gallows scene. Because this wasn't the first time that Alice Cooper had nearly escaped death, and he had a feeling it wouldn't be the last. But it didn't matter, because whatever it took, Alice Cooper had a feeling he was about to be back on top.

• 32:02Jake Brennan?

  Vincent Fournier screamed in agony. The pain in his side felt like he was being jabbed with a lightning bolt. At just 13 years old, he wondered if he was dying. From his hospital bed, he looked up at his parents. The terrified expressions on their faces told him he just might be. Then he looked over at the doctors standing next to his parents, and he didn't feel any more reassured. He knew this was serious. Earlier that morning, he woke up with a bad stomach ache. It hurt, but it didn't seem that bad. A few hours later, the pain was so horrible, he could barely stand. And that's when his parents decided to take him to the emergency room. It was a good thing that they did, because the doctors immediately realized that his appendix had burst.

• 32:46Jake Brennan?

  The rupture was sending enough poison flooding into his gut to kill a dozen men. The pain was so bad that he was fading in and out of consciousness while the surgeon told his parents that he needed an emergency surgery to save his life. But the doctors were not optimistic. He heard the surgeon say to his parents that there was only a 50/50 chance Vincent would survive. As the pain continued to ripple through his insides, he watched his father and mother clasp hands, and then they frantically began to pray. Prayer was the family's natural reaction to any major events these days. It was why they had just moved to Phoenix from Vincent's birthplace of Detroit, because his father had heard God's voice.

• 33:29Jake Brennan?

  And the voice told him to give up his job as a car salesman to become a preacher, so he did. And then the voice led him to a church in Phoenix, so the family packed up and moved across the country in 1960. Vincent heard the words of his father's prayers echoing off the tile walls of the hospital as the doctors wheeled him away to the operating room. But then he heard another voice, one that seemed to come from inside of him. It wasn't a demon. It was peaceful, calm, full of light. While the surgeon cut into his side and tried to remove the damaged organ, he hovered in a dream between life and death. And in the dream, the voice stayed with him, and every time he started slipping off into

• 34:10Jake Brennan?

  the darkness, it was there to guide him back towards the light, commanding him to live. For hours, he floated on the edge of death until finally the surgeon removed his appendix. When he woke up, the voice was gone. He had a four-inch-long scar across his abdomen, but he was alive. Was it a miracle? His parents were convinced. Was it science? The surgeon credited recent medical advances for saving his life. Or was it just plain luck? It was impossible to say, but whatever it was, Vincent Fournier's life was saved.

• 34:48Jake Brennan?

  Years later, that voice would save Alice Cooper's life as well. And that was how Alice Cooper found himself driving around Phoenix in his black Shelby Mustang on a warm spring day in 1989. It had been years since he had had a hit, and he was scanning the radio dial looking for a familiar song, something by The Beatles or The Who. But instead, he landed on a song by Bon Jovi. They were just one of the new crop of hair metal bands that were making it big on the glam-heavy version of rock and roll that Alice Cooper had practically invented. Part of him hated these dudes, but he had to admit guitars were rockin' and the songwriting was good and the production was great.

• 35:33Jake Brennan?

  But it needed something, something dark. Poison, like that poison that ran through his gut as a teenager, like the poison that ran through his veins for most of the 80s. Poison had a nice ring to it, sounded like the name of a hit song, the kind of song that would put Alice Cooper back on top. After all, that was his destiny, and anything less would be a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is DisgraceLand.

• 36:20Jake Brennan?

  All right, thanks for checking out this episode on Alice Cooper. Guys, which artist has had the greatest second act in music history? Alice Cooper obviously has had an incredible run after his fall from grace, but there's plenty of others to choose from. Frank Sinatra, John Fuschante, the list goes on and on and on. Will Kanye West ever redeem himself and make a second act? Let us know, 617-906-6638. Voicemail and text, you might hear yourself on the next after-party at DisgraceLandPod on the socials, [email protected] to email me. All right, here comes some credits. DisgraceLand was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis, The Exactly Right Network, and iHeart Podcasts.

• 37:05Jake Brennan?

  Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a DisgraceLand All-Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com/membership. Members can listen to every episode of DisgraceLand ad-free. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook @DisgraceLandPod, and on YouTube at youtube.com/AtDisgraceLandPod. Rock-a'rolla.

• 37:47Speaker 00

  I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast, the true crime comedy podcast all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week, I bring on an amazing guest.

• 37:59Speaker 07

  Ooh, I scammed them.

• 38:00Speaker 00

  What?

• 38:01Speaker 07

  I could talk to you for an hour.

• 38:02Speaker 00

  You're a generational yapper like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. Start listening to Scam Goddess on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.