Alice Cooper Recalls Private Joke of ‘No More Mr. Nice Guy’
Alice Cooper recalled how the 1973 hit single “No More Mr. Nice Guy” was sort of a private joke between himself and his bandmates.
The track appeared on their sixth album, Billion Dollar Babies, their biggest-selling to date, and was inspired in part by the incredible success they'd experienced in the time leading up to its recording. It had also been conceived at the height of mainstream reaction to Cooper's shock-rock persona, as he told Uncle Joe Benson on the Ultimate Classic Rock Nights radio show.
“That was autobiographical,” Cooper explained. “Everybody at that point didn’t know whether to hate us or love us. But I was definitely, with the general public, the worst person ever. I was the Antichrist, I was everything. And I said, ‘Okay, that does it. Gloves are off – no more Mr. Nice Guy. Now we’re gonna get rough.’”
While the song's lyrics analyzed the mainstream response to Cooper ("I got no friends 'cause they read the papers / They can't be seen with me and I'm feelin' real shot down / And I'm gettin' mean") the band took a flipped approach to the music, with a little help from the Who.
“The song was actually a pop song,” he said. “It was pretty much based after ’Substitute.’ … it was maybe the most pop record we ever did. It was kind of an in-joke for us.”
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