Alice Cooper used to grab the headlines and spark rumors surrounding everything back in the day. Whether it is about him killing cats and eating them or allegedly killing a live chicken onstage when he went to the Toronto Peace Festival, he has been the centre of attention. Once Alice started to actually rake in the big bucks off of records like School’s Out, all those years of sin had put him in front of the King himself.
In between legs of a tour, Alice had the offer to meet Elvis Presley, running into him in an elevator before going up to his massive apartment building along with some legendary musicians and the infamous adult film actress, Linda Lovelace.
Alice Cooper details the first meeting with Elvis Presley
This wasn’t the Fat Elvis period either, with the King being decked out in all his glory, looking like a god among men just like Alice remembered. After complimenting Alice on the snake he incorporated into his show, Elvis invited the shock rocker into his kitchen to show him a few tricks of his own.
Pulling out a pistol from his drawer, Elvis told Alice to leave the bullets in the gun while he showed him how to take a gun out of somebody’s hand. For just a moment, Alice had talked about having the classic scenario with the angel and devil on his shoulder, with the devil saying he should kill him on the spot and the angel saying that he should at least wound him.
In the end Alice didn’t have a choice at all, though, as the King went into one of his karate moves, with Alice only remembering one of Elvis’s boots on his chin as he was laying on the floor..
Here’s what Alice had to say about the whole wild ordeal in his own words:
“Now, I met Elvis [Presley] in 1970. I got a thing that says Elvis wants to meet you. I got to the Hilton Hotel. Elevator opened up and it was me, Liza Minnelli, Chubby Checker and Linda Lovelace. Elvis invited those four people that night. So we went up and they searched us for guns which was kind of silly, because there were guns everywhere when you got in [the room]. When he came in the room, he was Elvis. He wasn’t the fat Elvis. He was Elvis– he was the guy.”
He continued:
“He goes ‘hey man you’re the cat with the snake ain’t you?’ I said yeah then you go that’s cool man I wish I thought of that that’s cool man he said I want to show you something. We go in the kitchen and he opens the drawer, takes out a loaded .38 snub-nose 38 [revolver], puts it in my hand and he says ‘I’m going to show you how to take this gun out of somebody’s hand’.”
Cooper goes on: “A little devil here on my shoulder says shoot him. Little angel over here says don’t kill him, just wound him. Before I could decide what to do I was on the floor and he had his boot in my throat. I go Ha! That’s good, Elvis. Of course, only three of us came down on the elevator that night. You know, I don’t know what he did with Chubby Checker all night. I’ll tell you what, he was an amazing character. A very funny guy, but he was ELVIS.”
