The rock singer Alice Cooper says “knocks everybody out”
Alice Cooper has dedicated the majority of his life to the rock ‘n’ roll industry, affording him a wealth of experience to evaluate the authenticity of others. With his seasoned perspective, Cooper can swiftly discern whether someone possesses genuine talent or is merely a pretender. In the case of Joan Jett, he was certain she was the “real deal”.
The music industry is a relatively small family, with Jett and Cooper crossing paths on many occasions throughout their respective careers. Most notably, the two acts, alongside Mötorhead, performed across arenas in the United Kingdom together in 2007 and also joined forces on-stage at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York at a charity concert in 2014.
However, the first alignment between their stories arrived decades earlier, in 1989. At this stage, Jett had enjoyed a decade to remember after her tenure with The Runaways reached its natural conclusion and established herself as a star in her own right. While her popularity dwindled somewhat in the mid-1980s, her emphatic 1988 release Up Your Alley put Jett back on the map.
Cooper had endured a similar rollercoaster. For most of the ’80s, he struggled to trouble the charts and replicate the successes of the previous decade, but in 1989, the iconic figure reminded people of his brilliance with Trash. Furthermore, the single ‘House of Fire’ was co-written by Jett and Desmond Child.
Previously, Jett and Child had teamed up for ‘I Hate Myself (For Loving You)’ on Up Your Alley, which marked her first song in seven years to reach the top ten in the United States. The track is a personal favourite of Cooper’s, who named it one of his four favourite songs from the entirety of the ’80s during a radio interview.
Cooper explained his reasoning for the selection: “Desmond Child, a masterpiece. Joan Jett is a rock chick that knocks everybody out. She’s got longevity, the real deal. ‘I Hate Myself (For Loving You)’ is just one of the great, well-written songs.”
Meanwhile, when Jett performed at Cooper’s benefit concert for the Solid Rock Foundation in 2013, he said of her during a press conference ahead of the event: “She is the rocker. She is the real deal. Anymore, there is so few rock ‘n roll bands. It’s one of those things we were just talking about. There is just so few young bands out there that are real rock bands. It just getting a little bit thin out there. I bring all the hard rockers in.”
While both artists have faced their fair share of adversity throughout their careers, Cooper and Jett have always found a way to bounce back from the brink. Unlike many figures who burned bright and disappeared, the two Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees are survivors who will continue devoting themselves to their craft until their final breath.
