Alice Cooper’s Nightmare are an Alice Cooper tribute from the North East who aim to create as close to a real Alice Cooper show as possible. This means, of course, classic rock, make-up, snakes, electric chairs, and guillotines.
Read an interview with Alice Cooper’s Nightmare guitarist Andrew McCann below:
Q. How important is it that you maintain an authentic Cooper look/sound and why?
It’s very important. The whole idea of a tribute band is to look and sound as close to the original as possible. It’s a way for people who can’t see the original artist for any reason (such as affordability, lack of tours, etc.) to be able to experience something which is as near as seeing the original. We take pride in the attention to detail is all aspects of our tribute. We even hire in a snake! And Brian really gets into the role of Alice. It’s very handy for us that he actually looks a lot like the man himself, but also Alice is one of Brian’s big influences on his singing career. We all have the love and respect for Alice’s music and his musicians to do our best to stay true to how the music should sound and how the show should look. At the moment we are performing a slightly modified version of his Theatre of Death show from 2009. The one thing we have made a pact about though, is not to take a cut down version of the show out there. Our USP is the entire theatrical show, we feel it would lose a lot of its impact if we cut it down or just went out to play without any show.
Q. How have you been received as an Alice Cooper tribute in the North East?
Surprisingly well; I think the fact that we do the full stage show helps. It sets us apart from many other tribute bands, who concentrate solely on the music or the look. Many people come up to us at the end of the night and say how brilliant it was, and how they loved the whole theatrical side of it. And of course, how much Brian looks like Alice.
Q. How much work has it taken to put together the execution props and pull them off on stage?
It has taken far more work than you might think. We have managed to buy/acquire some props, but the main ones are all hand built by the amazing Lynn Tucker of Mother Tucker Creations. She has pretty much designed and built all the main props and all of our stage costumes too – painstakingly replicating the designs worn by Alice and his band members. When you think she had to design a working guillotine (albeit a “safe” working one) from having no knowledge at all about building medieval goodness, then we all just have to doff our witchdoctor hats to her.
Q. Any idea on progression from where you’re currently at? Aspirations on becoming the UK’s number one tribute etc? Or happy to stay local?
We are going to continue building on the foundations we’ve laid so far. It would definitely be amazing to be classed as the UK’s number one tribute and this is something we are aiming towards (as every tribute should). We definitely don’t want to just stay local. We are looking to take the show further afield, but are continuing to grow our home-based following and build up a reputation locally as well. Due to the fact we won’t scale the show down, we are limited by a minimum size of venue we can play. Essentially theatres and similar sized venues are what we need to play. We are also looking at tribute festivals across the UK as these are an increasing part of the summer scene these days.
If you’d like to see more of Alice Cooper’s Nightmare, you can follow them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AliceCoopersNightmare/, or subscribe to guitarist Andrew McCann’s YouTube account at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw2jxIKHZoeVCsCnHCHtq6w.
The Right Note 