STACK #128 Jun 2016

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If there was one thing we took away from the film, it’s that selflessness is very important to you. What did it take for you to be convinced to be the subject of this documentary? I had that surgery and I didn’t really know if I was to live or die; I’d been in a coma for a couple of days, I flatlined a couple of times. I was maybe three days into recovery, still in the hospital and very drugged up, feeling very sorry for myself. Mike [Myers] called up and in that moment my ego really came through and I said ‘Yes.’ It was completely from ego, of wanting some kind of external symbol of self-worth. And three weeks later, when I was back home and I knew I was going to live, I called him up and I said, ‘Listen, Mike, I know I said yes, but I didn’t really mean it.’ And he said, ‘way too late, I staffed up already.’ So, off we went. You have many hilarious stories about ‘creating popularity’ throughout Alice Cooper’s career. Do you think this kind of artificial construction happens today? I mean, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus... I understand the choice of words, ‘artificial construction,’ but I look at it differently. It’s getting to the cultural route of what your popularity is about, and fuelling that. I think if it’s intelligently done, it’s combining cultural, visual, theatrical things with the core of what the music is driving towards. Why do you think your theory of ‘compassionate business’ is so important? We’re living in a time when the

human condition is not fantastic. It’s hard to find good humans. I think it’s a general problem with the human species rather than just the entertainment business. And there’s so much information and so much bombardment, [that it’s] so hard not to get greedy. How much input into guiding or assembling the film did you have? I purely did nothing at all. When I say I did nothing, I lived my life and I opened everything I had up to [Mike]. I never saw it until it was done, and I only asked him to change one thing in the movie and it wasn’t about me: it was about His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. You speak a lot about children, and Sylvester Stallone describes you as a ‘protector’ – who do you think your protector is? In the eyes of whom are you the innocent?

My father, I always felt, lived a life of sacrifice from me and my brother. He gave up his life. His sole enjoyment came from providing for us. You can’t do any more than that. I never saw him really go out with friends or spend money on himself or buy clothes. We didn’t have the most joyous relationship – it wasn’t a bad one, but not a lot of laughing in the house – but I always felt like he sacrificed so much for us, and I realised I do the same sort of thing but I never knew why. It wasn’t like these people were my children. When I look back at it,

I see it as sort of a way for me to live my father’s life of sacrifice. I can do it. With the weight on my shoulders, I can do it.

• Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon is out now

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