Alice Cooper(real name: Vincent Damon Furnier) was born on February 4, 1948 in Detroit Michigan to Ella Mae McCart and Ether Moroni Furnier.

Vincent’s family was highly involved in the Church of Jesus Christ during his younger years in Detroit Michigan. The family moved to Phoenix Arizona while Vincent was still very young.

In 1964, Furnier  got together with his ‘cross country teammates” from school and entered the local annual “Letterman’s talent show”.  They named themselves “The Earwigs”, but none of the band members knew how to play any musical instruments, so the group of high school children dressed up like The Beatles and mimed their performance to Beatles music.  They ended up winning the talent contest.  Soon after their first taste of performing on stage,The Earwigs bought musical instruments at a pawn shop and renamed themselves “The Spiders”.

Furnier played the harmonica and was the vocalist, Glen Buxton was lead guitar, John Tatum played the rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on Bass guitar and John Speer played the drums.

The spiders recorded “Why Don’t You Love Me” (originally performed by The Blackwells) in 1965.

The following year, the band members graduated from high school and replaced John Tatum with Michael Bruce on the rhythm guitar.  Soon after, the Spiders recorded the single, “Don’t Blow Your Mind” which was a number one hit on a local radio station.

In 1967, The Spiders began making regular trips to Los Angeles.  The band however wasn’t content with their name and soon after playing at local clubs in L.A. changed their name to “The Nazz”.  It was during this time that they replaced their drummer with Neal Smith.

“The Nazz” moved to L.A. soon after it’s birth.

Months after renaming themselves “The Nazz”, the band were looking for yet another name for the band.  They had learned that “The Nazz” was already taken by Todd Rundgren, and thus, Alice Cooper was born.

Furnier later adopted the name Alice Cooper as his own after fans began addressing him by that name.

Alice Cooper’s onstage make up and bizarre antics was not popular with everyone at that time.  One night “Alice Cooper” managed to empty “The Cheetah Club” in Venice California, after playing only ten minutes.  What seemed to be a night to deflate any artist, became an introduction to the music world.  Music manager, Shep Gordon was present that night and approached the band.  Gordon managed to get an audition with “Straight Records” which was Frank Zappa’s music label.

Zappa signed the band to his label and soon after, Alice Copper released their first album titled Pretties for You.  Pretties for You hit number 193 on the charts but eventually ended in failure for the band.

In September of 1969, Alice Cooper was playing at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival concert when a chicken made it’s way onto the stage while Alice Cooper was playing.  Not having any experience with farm animals, Alice Cooper grabbed the chicken and threw it to the crowd, thinking that it would fly away.  The chicken fell onto the first few rows which were occupied by disabled people in wheelchairs who reportedly tore the animal to shreds.

The next day, various national newspapers were reporting that Alice Cooper had bitten the head of a live chicken and drank it’s blood on stage.  Upon reading the story, Frank Zappa phoned Alice and asked him if this story was true.  Alice Cooper denied the incident.  Zappa told Alice Cooper not to deny the storyand  as a result, the chicken incident fueled a new sub genre of music called “shock rock”.

Despite the chicken incident publicity that Alice Cooper received, their second album, “Easy Action” which was released in 1969 was a complete failure.

That would all soon change.  In 1970, Alice Cooper was teamed up with producer Bob Ezrin for their third album and final album under the Straight Records label.  This was the band’s last chance tocreate a hit.

In November of 1970, “I’m Eighteen” reached #21 on the Billboard Hot 100 list and months later, Alice Cooper released their breakthrough album, titled “Love it to Death” which reached #35 on the US billboard 200 album charts.

Love it to Death would be the first of eleven highly successful albums for the band, which catapulted them into rock and roll history.