How Alice Cooper Got Its Band Name

Furnier was singing lead. Neil Smith was the drummer. According to Smith and Dunaway, they were playing with a Ouija board, asking about past lives, "Then Vince [Furnier] sat down and he asked it his name in a previous life. It spelled out Alice Cooper. I was right there. And I saw it," Smith told AZ Central. They decided to use the name for the band — it could mean anything. Or nothing.

Furnier, the man who eventually became Alice Cooper, tells it differently. In an interview with the Shreveport Times, Furnier thought their band name should contrast sharply with their on-stage theatrics. "I said let's not come up with a name that's dark, because they're expecting that. I said, 'What if we sounded like we were somebody's aunt?' It was kind of like the all-American, sweet little old lady name." He wasn't Alice Cooper. Alice Cooper was the band, "like Manfred Mann." But of course everyone started calling the frontman Alice Cooper. In time, he changed his name legally, and when he went solo he took the name with him, according to Biography.

According to Shreveport, today, only two people call him Vince: his wife, and Keith Richards.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7qL7Up56eZpOkunB%2FkGpwcnFfnby4ecCloJydXZi8sLzEq2Sgp6RitrW%2FjJuYp5xdo66usY4%3D