Go E-Mail Alice

Not all the participants in the Sgt. Pepper movie are unwilling to talk about the experience. Alice Cooper, about to embark on a tour, was gracious enough to answer our e-mail of infrequently asked questions (that's IFAQ in e-mailese) concerning his involvement in this historically bad film.

New Times: How many days of shooting were involved for your part as Father Sun?

Alice: It was a three-day shoot including time to record the track. The crazy thing about it was that I was in the hospital at the time undergoing treatment for alcoholism. They arranged for a three-day pass for me to leave the hospital to do the filming.

NT: Were there other people supposedly involved with the project before you agreed to do it that pulled out before cameras rolled?

Alice: Not that I ever heard.

NT: Did anyone working with you on the film or the set voice the opinion that this movie was going to be a bomb?

Alice: Not at all. Robert Stigwood was coming off the success of Saturday Night Fever, and the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton were huge.

NT: Were there too many drugs on the set to make such an assertion?

Alice: Again, I was becoming clean and sober at that time, so I wouldn't have known.

NT: Were there more drugs on the set of Sextette?

Alice: Now that movie, I was very drunk for that.

NT: Did you feel it would be a bomb?

Alice: No.

NT: Was the mustache you sport in the film a pre-emptive strike at damage control?

Alice: They wouldn't let me have razor blades in the hospital. Too many crazy people running around.

NT: Did you attend the première in New York City?

Alice: Yes. The Beatles were suspiciously absent!

NT: Do you believe that business about a Sgt. Pepper curse and that everyone's chart success was immediately impacted by it, even George Burns' film career?

Alice: I had a hit single the year after.

NT: Do you feel bad that there isn't a 20th-year rerelease of the film, à la Grease, and if there was, would you go to that première?

Alice: Who even knew that it was 20 years besides you!!!

NT: Was Pepper a worse film than the Village People's Can't Stop the Music?

Alice: Who even knew that there was a Village People movie besides you!!!

NT: Could a cast of dancing and singing midgets have saved Pepper from disaster?

Alice: Maybe Steven Spielberg could have pulled it off.

NT: Did the experience of the movie affect your enjoyment of Beatle music?

Alice: That could never happen.

NT: Was George Martin a sympathetic producer?

Alice: He was great. When I did the first take of the song, I did it in my best John Lennon impersonation. George said it was fine, but then told me to do it like Alice Cooper would do it. He seemed really happy with it.

NT: Whenever the Alice Cooper box set comes out, will "Because" be on it?

Alice: Yes.

WEB EXTRA: The Pepper Legacy   Pepper Spray It was 20 years ago this week that Sgt. Pepper dropped a bomb on movie theaters, so where's all the rerelease hoopla? Our Guests at Pepperland The stars came out that night for the Pepper finale (with video) The Original Spice Girls Sandy, Stargard and Dianne (with audio)