Alice Cooper Tears Through The Hits During Too Close For Comfort Tour

“I’m canceling all finals!” declared rocker Alice Cooper to rapturous applause, closing his main set on stage at the State Farm Center in Champaign, Illinois with the rock call to arms “School’s Out” earlier this month.

Cooper and company arrived downstate on the campus of the University of Illinois with the summer semester nearing its end, an early stop on the group’s all new, aptly titled “Too Close For Comfort” tour.

Cooper graced the cover of Forbes in April of 1973, a feature entitled “A New Breed of Tycoon,” moving more than 50 million albums in the five decades since.

Incorporating elements of everything from vaudeville to horror flicks, he’s managed to keep his act fresh even 54 years removed from the release of the first Alice Cooper album, freshening things up again as he gears up for more dates this summer.

Ever the road warrior, Cooper and his band are set to return for a lengthy run of dates which kick off alongside Mötley Crüe and Def Leppard August 5, 2023 in Syracuse, New York prior to a longer outing with fellow shock rocker Rob Zombie running through September.

“It’s a whole new show. But there’s a really fun moment,” explained guitarist Nita Strauss backstage prior to the concert in Champaign. “We’re doing a song called ‘Snakebite,’ which Alice has not played live since ‘91,” said the guitarist. “It replaced another song. And it was a total audible in rehearsal. We were doing a song and Alice said, ‘Well, I want to use the snake later in the set. It’s just too bad that we don’t have any other songs that we can use all this snake video content for.’ I literally leaned all the way back on the riser and was like, ‘How about ‘Snakebite?!’ And they loved it.”

Following a brief sabbatical last summer, when she departed to join pop star Demi Lovato on tour, Strauss has returned to Cooper’s band. Having joined in 2014 makes her the newest member of the group, a tight ensemble that’s now been in place together for nearly ten years.

“We really are a family out here. We really just locked right back in on day one and didn’t miss a beat. It’s a ton of fun,” she said of rejoining the Cooper fold. “Especially, this three guitar thing: myself, Ryan Roxie and Tommy Henriksen, we’ve got it down,” said Strauss. “It’s almost like a mind meld with the three of us, you know? Ryan and I couldn’t be more different guitar players. But when we play the same thing at the same time, even our vibrato matches up. All of these little things that just come – our subtleties and nuances of the pick attack. If someone is going up, the other goes up. It’s not one going up and one going down. We just lock in,” she explained. “And on stage too, we have such a great relationship. We just naturally, if one person moves forward, the other goes back. It’s like a chess game. And we all are acutely aware of where Alice is. He’ll go where he wants and we fill the holes wherever he’s not.”

“Banned in Illinois!” read the faux-newspaper headline on the backdrop flanking the band as Cooper took to the stage In Champaign, launching a 25 song set with “Lock Me Up.” The band wasted no time getting to the hits, with “No More Mr. Guy” immediately following.

“Lines form on my face and hands…” sang Cooper early, now 75, during one of his biggest hits in “I’m Eighteen.”

Cooper was light on banter in Illinois, letting his music do the talking, Strauss leaning back and to her left into him during “I’m Eighteen” with Cooper playfully shoving her away. Soaring back to her right, Strauss ripped an early solo during “Under My Wheels” with Cooper soon turning to the band and clapping, hands over his heads as he faced drummer Glen Sobel.

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Always a fan of props, Cooper came fencing his way back onto the stage for the title track of his finest album, 1973’s Billion Dollar Babies. Nowhere was the three guitar attack of Strauss, Roxie and Henriksen more ferocious than it was on this cut, confetti cannons shooting off fake $100 bills complete with Cooper’s visage and the signature of fictional Secretary of the Treasury Shep Gordon (Cooper’s longtime manager). Strauss and Roxie huddled to the left as Cooper playfully struck a fatal fencing blow in his duel with Henriksen to their right.

Conjuring up a bluesy stomp just two hours south of Chicago, Cooper picked up a harmonica for “Fallen In Love,” approaching Strauss and her signature green “Hurricane” Ibanez guitar with the live snake as “Snakebite” followed.

Making his way to the stage’s farthest right reach, Cooper serenaded a young fan in the front row as her mother filmed with a phone, handing the child his prop as the band offered up “Poison.”

Following “Feed my Frankenstein,” video of Cooper and horror icon Vincent Price rolled on screen, pulsating bass building drama and driving the show’s narrative as each guitarist stepped forth for a solo.

Cooper soon donned a straight jacket for “Ballad of Dwight Fry” before an on stage beheading courtesy of the guillotine, our hero ultimately returning in a white top hat as the show neared its final moments.

At work on a new Alice Cooper album, his 29th studio effort, Strauss is gearing up for a busy 2023, prepping the release of her second solo album The Call of the Void (now available for pre-order on CD or vinyl ahead of release via Sumerian Records on July 7).

Strauss’ new album features Cooper on “Winner Takes All” as well as guests like In Flames vocalist Anders Fridén on the new single “The Golden Trail.”

Ahead of the new record, Strauss is also set to launch a solo tour of her own June 13 in Nashville, an outing running into mid-July.

“We both played on each other’s records for the first time this year: I played on an Alice Cooper record for the first time and he sang on my record,” said the guitarist. “We had a live record out, A Paranormal Evening at The Olympia Paris, which was actually filmed on my birthday which is pretty cool. But other than that, this is my first time [playing on an Alice album]. And the band wrote the record as well. We wrote the majority of the record as a band. Which is cool,” Strauss explained. “Alice is like the pro’s pro – the absolute consummate professional. It’s just such a fun time.”