Mar. 26, 2020

Catching up with Alice Cooper, who’s home with family in Arizona after postponing his tour

via AZ Central

Alice Cooper was in Germany when he could see that it was time to come in off the road.

“We’re in Berlin,” he says. “And you can feel it coming. Italy is already a mess. Spain is starting to become a mess. Germany is starting to catch it. They canceled a show in Zurich, our third show. I went, ‘Uh oh. It’s a house of cards now.’”

Cooper played his final European date on March 10 in Berlin.

“They said ‘We’re gonna close the borders,’” Cooper says. “So we finished Berlin, got in the bus, drove to Munich, got on a plane and the only thing they asked us when we got back to the States was ‘Have you been to China or Italy?’ We went ‘No’ and they said ‘Welcome home.’”

Upon his safe return to Arizona, the legend announced that he’d postponed his spring North American tour, which was slated to run from April 1 through April 22, in response to health concerns related to the spread of the new coronavirus, settling into his Paradise Valley home for some quality time with his family.

“For me and Sheryl, two months off is great,” he says, referring to his wife of 44 years, who also dances and sings all the high harmonies in his show. “We’re at home, the golf courses are open, which is great for me. You’re sitting here with Netflix and Hulu. We haven’t had one problem getting food or anything.”

It’s kind of nice being home, he says.

“I feel less vulnerable in my house than I do in a different hotel every day. You don’t know who’s been there, what they’ve touched. When I was in Europe, I spent all day doing Purell, washing my hands. Every time you would touch something, you’d realize ‘Well, how do you know that wasn’t infected?'”

His daughter Sonora, who’s five months pregnant, has moved into the Cooper family home with her husband, Diego Diaz, at her dad’s suggestion.

“I said ‘Why don’t you just stay here and we’ll keep it all in house?’ That makes it kinda nice, actually. In some ways, you kind of think it’s God’s way of telling everybody, ‘Slow down. Everybody get back with your families.’”

It’s the sort of reaction you’d expect from Cooper, who despite the darkness of his image, tends to have a fairly sunny disposition.

“I am the glass-three-quarters-full guy,” he says. “I look at things like this and go ‘Yeah, it’s a horrible thing. But there’s also another side to it of everybody kind of pulling together and at the same time, families sort of being forced to live with each and get reacquainted.”

They’ve even had a family wedding in their home since getting back from Germany.

“My 86-year-old father-in-law just got married here at the house,” he says. “A very small wedding, just family. So we’ve had a house full of company.”

As to whether he’s concerned about the possibility of contracting COVID-19, Cooper says, “I’m not scared of this thing. … But you’ve got to consider everybody. You never know what the guy next door’s health problems are.”

He’s more concerned with older people like his mom, who’s 94.

“My mom is in a place now – a really nice place – but we can’t visit her,” he says. “They have totally locked it down. They said, ‘Everybody in here is 85 or over, 90.’ If they get it, they have a much, much harder time getting rid of it.”