12 December 2011
VVN Music
The man who made the documentaries Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, Iron Maiden: Flight 666 and Metal: A Headbanger's Journey is turning his sights on classic rocker Alice Cooper.
Sam Dunn, whose latest project is the multi-part Metal Evolution, currently showing on VH1 Classic, talked to Spinner about all his films and why he's working on a Cooper doc.
We know Alice through various projects that we've done. We interviewed Alice for 'Headbanger's Journey.' He's also featured pretty prominently in two episodes of 'Metal Evolution,' both in Shock Rock and Early Metal U.S. He's a pretty fascinating character, who has been through a lot in his life. He's one of those musicians that maybe he hasn't had a hit in a long time, but every knows who Alice Cooper is because of his influence on pop culture and the big songs he had in the '70s.
We're in the early stages of telling the story of his career. We're probably going to focus in on his early years up to his comeback in the '80s. We're exploring a different stylist approach with this film. It won't be talking heads; it's going to be more of an archival and animated journey through his career. He's such a rich visual artist, it makes so much sense to try and do it in a different way. I think we're just a little bit sick of doing talking head interviews, to be honest [laughs], after doing 300 of them for 'Metal Evolution.' So it's really the story of Alice's career from the '60s right up to the '80s and everything he went through -- the ups and the downs, battles with alcoholism, being raised in a Christian family, rebelling against that but then coming back to faith later in his career, and moving from town to town, and trying to find his place.
You can read the whole interview, including his comments on his other films and future projects, at Spinner.
