Alice Cooper recalls meeting Elvis Presley – and what he thought was ‘kind of silly’ about The King

A meeting between Alice Cooper and Elvis Presley left the Godfather of Shock Rock feeling The King was “kind of silly”.

The songwriter behind School’s Out shared his thoughts on the meeting with Presley during an appearance on Never Mind the Buzzcocks. There, Cooper confirmed he and Liza Minnelli were part of a group invited to The King’s Las Vegas home. The group were checked for weapons and escorted into the private accommodation, where Cooper says a “kind of silly” moment played out. Speaking of his encounter with Presley, Cooper said: “I met Elvis in 1970. I got a thing that said ‘Elvis wants to meet you.’

“I got to the Hilton Hotel. The elevator opened up and it was me, Liza Minnelli, Chubby Checker, and Linda Lovelace. He 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 once you got in.

“When he came in the room, he was Elvis. He wasn’t the fat Elvis. He was Elvis. He was the guy. He goes, ‘Hey, man, you’re the cat with the snake, ain’t ya?'” Presley appeared to be a keen fan of Cooper’s on-stage snake, praising the performer for including the animal in his live shows.

Presley is said to have told Cooper: “I wish I’d have thought of that, that’s cool.” He then said to Cooper he had something to show him. A loaded .38 snub was pulled from a drawer in Presley’s kitchen, at which point it was put in Cooper’s hand.

The Poison hitmaker recalled: “[Elvis] said, ‘I’m gonna show you how to take this gun out of someone’s hand.’ The little Devil here on my shoulder says ‘Shoot him’. The little angel on my shoulder says ‘Don’t kill him, just wound him.’ But before I could decide what to do, I was on the floor and he had his boot in my throat.”

Cooper’s encounter with Presley marks just one of many moments the legendary rocker has had with fellow musicians. He confirmed The Who’s Keith Moon had lived at his home for a week, with a wild encounter between Cooper’s wife and Moon remembered well by the longstanding musician.

Cooper said: “He used to come over to the house, and my wife and I had just married, she had no idea who he was. And he stayed for a week. And we would leave and come back, and we left one time, came back, and he was dressed in a full French maid’s outfit.

“And he was like, ‘Hello, how you doing? I have done all the dusting in the house,’ and my wife’s going ‘who is he?’. And I said ‘he’s the best drummer in the world, just go with it.” To her credit, Cooper’s wife did go along with it.

He added: “And she says ‘okay, I’ve got to go.’ She starts driving down, she’s halfway down Benedict Canyon in the car, and all of a sudden, she sees these hands. He’s on top of the car, and he goes ‘hi Cheryl’.”