How Alice Cooper Embraced Notoriety on 'No More Mr. Nice Guy'

After years of being instructed how terrible they had been, Alice Cooper determined to show their critics proper on “No More Mr. Nice Guy.”

They had been arduous at work hanging concern within the hearts of followers with their gallows humor, androgynous aesthetic and grisly, theatrical stage exhibits that includes mock executions by means of hanging and electrical chair. Alice Cooper parlayed their notoriety into album gross sales, incomes a collection of gold data and reaching the Top 10 with 1972’s School’s Out and its anthemic title monitor.

The band’s dizzying upward trajectory climaxed with 1973’s Billion Dollar Babies, a ghoulish glam-rock extravaganza with tongue-in-cheek takes on politics (“Elected”), sexual harassment (“Raped and Freezin'”) and necrophilia (“I Love the Dead”). It turned Alice Cooper’s first and solely No. 1 album and solidified their famous person standing, which the group had already poked enjoyable at with the album title.

“How could we, this band that two years ago was living in the Chambers Brothers’ basement in Watts, be the No. 1 band in the world, with people throwing money at us?” titular frontman Alice Cooper requested the Houston Chronicle in 2010. “Billion Dollar Babies was about … realizing we didn’t belong there, but knowing it was great to be there.”

Listen to Alice Cooper’s ‘No More Mr. Nice Guy’

Yet as Alice Cooper’s stature grew, so did their variety of detractors. So on “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” Cooper determined to embrace his public-enemy persona, boasting, “I got no friends ’cause they read the papers, they can’t be seen with me,” and later admitting to getting punched within the face by Reverend Smith when he went to church incognito.

“That was autobiographical,” Cooper instructed UCR in 2018. “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, ‘OK, that does it. Gloves are off — no more Mr. Nice Guy. Now we’re gonna get rough.'”

Guitarist Michael Bruce had composed the music to “No More Mr. Nice Guy” a number of years earlier and was merely ready for the best alternative to make use of it.

“‘No More Mr. Nice Guy’ was a tune I had written and had been around since Killer, but it was just not a song that would fit on any of those albums,” he stated in 2022’s Easy Action: The Original Alice Cooper Band. “But when Billion Dollar Babies came around, it was its time, and that song — and ‘Billion Dollar Babies,’ really — set the mood for the album, and then we built it from there. I think it was more of a public album, like we were celebrating our success. It’s worldly and in-your-face at the same time.”

Watch Alice Cooper Play ‘No More Mr. Nice Guy’ Live in 1989

Despite the band’s iconoclastic nature, “No More Mr. Nice Guy” was shockingly conventional from a musical standpoint, borrowing closely from the Who. “The song was actually a pop song,” Cooper instructed UCR. “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.”

When it got here time to document “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” the band stayed devoted to Bruce’s unique composition, however Cooper modified the lyrics to deal with the lumps they’d taken within the press. “The whole song was like, ‘I used to be such a sweet sweet thing — that was just a burn. Break my back just to kiss her ass and got nothing in return. All my friends told me, man, you’re crazy for being such a big fool. But I guess I was because being in love made such a fool. Now I’m no more…‘” Bruce stated in Easy Action. “See, really, that’s life, but then Alice rewrites it and changes it into a song about the press. Great, if you’re the lead singer …”

Released as Billion Dollar Babies‘ third single in March 1973, “No More Mr. Nice Guy” crashed into the Billboard Top 40, peaking at No. 25. It turned a set record staple for each the band and Cooper as a solo act, having been performed a staggering 2,500-plus occasions. And even when Cooper has since developed a fame as one in all rock’s nicest and most astute figures, he nonetheless performs the bad-guy position with gusto each time he hits the stage.