Rock Flashback: Alice Cooper, Marilyn Manson, and Tales of Animal Cruelty

Alice Cooper (C) Onstage in 2011 (Getty Images/Robert Cianflone)

In January 1982, after Ozzy Osbourne mistakenly bit the head off of a live bat at a show in Des Moines, rumors began to circulate that at an upcoming show in Milwaukee, he intended to slaughter a goat onstage. He didn’t, but the story was another manifestation of a grand rock tradition: exaggerated tales about shock rockers and animal cruelty.

The rumor often takes the following form: so-and-so will kill an animal onstage, or toss an animal into the crowd and exhort fans to kill it. Osbourne was rumored to have thrown a puppy into the audience and told fans to break its legs; Alice Cooper was said to have done the same thing with a bag full of kittens. In the late 1990s, a widely disseminated e-mail claimed that Marilyn Manson tossed puppies from the stage and would not play until fans had killed them.

The most famous rumor of this sort involved Cooper yanking the head off a live chicken and drinking its blood during his shows. In 1991, he told an interviewer how the rumor started. At a 1969 show in Toronto, somebody threw a live chicken onstage, but he wanted nothing to do with it. “I figured, well, it’s got wings, it’s got feathers, it’ll fly. I’ll just throw it out there and it’ll fly away.” It didn’t, of course. “The audience tore it to pieces!” Cooper said. And shortly thereafter, media reports indicated that Cooper’s stage show included killing live chickens.

(How the hell do you get a live chicken into a concert, even in 1969?)

The rumors occasionally persist today, contrary to all common sense. In a world full of cell-phone cameras and militant animal rights activists, any such incident would make worldwide headlines within 12 hours. But that doesn’t seem to stop people from believing they happen.

Here’s Alice Cooper in a famous transgressive moment from 1971, performing “Dead Babies” in concert.

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