For just a brief few seconds in 1970, Alice cooper, armed with a loaded gun, held the power to take out one of the greatest rock legends of all time. Of course, the rock legend in question might have disputed how much Cooper really had in the situation.
Nevertheless, it’s uncanny to imagine a reality in which Cooper followed through with his impulsive thoughts, effectively giving in to the mischievous devil on his shoulder and giving a whole new meaning to the term “shock rock.”
Alice Cooper Met Elvis Presley In 1970
By the time Alice Cooper was making a name for himself as a shock rock pioneer, Elvis Presley was well into his Las Vegas, sparkly jumpsuit era. He was undoubtedly a rock legend, but his star had fallen ever so slightly from its soaring heights in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Still, that made Alice Cooper’s first interaction with the King of Rock and Roll no less intimidating. Cooper set the wild scene during a 20011 interview with the BBC.
Cooper, Liza Minelli, Chubby Checker, and Linda Loveless were all paying a visit to Presley at the Hilton Hotel in 1970—a somewhat odd group of celebrities that Presley invited by name. The star-studded quartet rode the elevator up to Presley’s floor, where his security detail immediately checked everyone for guns. “Which was kind of silly,” Cooper added, “because there were guns everywhere.” The “school’s out” singer recalled Presley walking out into the room. “He wasn’t the fat Elvis. He was the guy.”
Adopting Presley’s signature snarl and warbly voice, Cooper imitated Presley asking, “Hey, man. You’re the cat with the snake, ain’t you?” Cooper admitted he was, to which Presley replied, “That’s cool, man. I wish I would have thought of that. I want to show you something.” So, Cooper followed Presley to the kitchen.
The Explosive Potential Of This First Meet-and-Greet
During his 2011 BBC interview, Alice Cooper recalled Elvis Presley pulling a loaded .38 snub-nosed pistol out of a kitchen drawer. Presley put the gun in Cooper’s hand and told him he was going to teach the Shock Rocker how to disarm somebody with a gun. With the gun in his hand pointed squarely at Presley, Cooper recalled, “The little devil here on my shoulder says, ‘Shoot him.’ Little angel over here says, ‘Don’t kill him, just wound him.’”
Cooper didn’t have much time to hear the devil and angel’s individual arguments. Before he knew it, Presley had Cooper on the floor with his boot on his throat. “I go, ‘Huh, that’s good Elvis,’” Cooper said, pushing his neck back with his hand. In a 2016 interview with The Tallahassee Democrat, Cooper added, “He didn’t hurt me. But now I know how to take a gun out of someone’s hand.”
Presley’s willingness to hand a loaded gun to someone who was known for their wild, shocking on-stage antics goes to show how confident and untouchable the King of Rock and Roll felt at the time. And while the two rockstars parted ways with no bodily harm, the opportunity was certainly there. How might a split-second decision to shoot Elvis as a publicity stunt have changed the world of rock ‘n’ roll forever? Fortunately, three out of the four guests in Presley’s Hilton hotel room were invited to leave via the elevator they came up in. Cooper was one of the three to go.
“One was left up there,” Cooper told The Tallahassee Democrat. “I don’t know what Elvis and Chubby Checker did up there all night.”
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