Legendary singer Alice Cooper recently reflected on one of his on-stage accidents from 1988 that almost took his life.
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In an interview conducted by Entertainment Weekly, he remembered this one on-stage stunt, conceived by James Randi, that included a gallows and during every show, Cooper would pretend to be executed. He would wear a harness tethered to the rafters by a thick piano wire which kept the noose an inch above his neck.
However, this one time, during a show on Wembley Stadium, things kind of got out of hand. As he remembered:
“Everything has its stress limit and after doing so many shows, I never thought about changing the wire. You know, I figured it’ll last forever. The wire snaps. I could hear the rope hit my chin and in an instant I flipped my head back.
“That must’ve been a fraction of a second because if it caught my chin it would have been a different result. It went over my neck and gave me a pretty good burn. I went down to the floor and pretty much blacked out.”
But nonetheless, Alice went on and performed the rest of the show. However, after this incident, he started using a stronger piano wire.
During the rest of the chat, the singer shared the advice he gives to new band members:
“You’re going to get paid, you’re going to see the world, and you’re going to get stitches. I have one guy who says, ‘I’m clumsy. What if I fall over my amp?’
“I say, ‘No such thing as a mistake on stage. If you fall over the amp, get up. Four songs later, fall over your amp again, then five or six songs later, fall over your amp again. The audience thinks all of that’s rehearsed. Now it’s not a mistake.’ These are Vaudeville tricks. They work.”