Michael Bruce

Although attention centered primarily on the shock rock vocalist Alice Cooper within the original lineup, guitarist and keyboardist Michael Bruce served as the principal creative driver musically, authoring or co-authoring most of the songs. Born March 16, 1948, and raised in Arizona, Bruce began playing guitar in the early ’60s after seeing Elvis on The Ed Sullivan Show and absorbing the British Invasion sounds of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and the Animals. Following stints with the local cover group the Duels, he joined another Arizona outfit, the Spiders, which eventually evolved into the Alice Cooper band. The ensemble—singer Vincent Furnier, bassist Dennis Dunaway, guitarist Glen Buxton, and later drummer Neal Smith—moved to Los Angeles in 1968, adopted the name the Nazz, and pursued a psychedelic rock direction reminiscent of early Pink Floyd. Upon discovering that Todd Rundgren’s band already used the Nazz moniker, they renamed themselves Alice Cooper, with Furnier embodying a deranged and macabre persona under the same name.

The rebranded group released two overlooked albums on Frank Zappa’s Bizarre label—1969’s Pretties for You and 1970’s Easy Action—still rooted in the same atmospheric, early Floyd approach. Soon afterward the musicians shifted toward a theatrical glam aesthetic while their sound hardened into anthemic rock. Producer Bob Ezrin sharpened their focus further, and after signing with Warner Bros. the Alice Cooper band rose to worldwide prominence with the hit albums Killer in 1971, School’s Out in 1972, and Billion Dollar Babies in 1973. Bruce solidified his role as the band’s chief songwriter, either solely or jointly composing such signature tracks as “I’m Eighteen,” “Ballad of Dwight Fry,” “Under My Wheels,” “Be My Lover,” “Desperado,” “Billion Dollar Babies,” and “No More Mr. Nice Guy.”

Continuous touring and a demanding lifestyle exhausted the members, bringing them to a crossroads after Muscle of Love in 1973 and the 1974 Greatest Hits collection. Bruce wished to pause for a solo project, whereas Cooper sought to continue with an even more theatrical emphasis and the remaining musicians preferred concentrating on the music; the resulting tensions dissolved the group. Cooper launched a solo career while Bruce finished his debut album. Issued solely in Germany in 1975, In My Own Way failed to reach Cooper’s audience and quickly vanished. Bruce then reunited with Dunaway and Smith to form the Billion Dollar Babies, releasing the 1977 album Battle Axe. Despite the original split having stemmed partly from theatrical concerns, the new band mounted an extravagant stage production inspired by the 1975 film Rollerball; the oversized set proved impractical for mid-sized venues, the tour collapsed after a few dates, and the album disappeared from the charts.

Bruce and his former bandmates maintained a low profile thereafter, as repeated attempts to write for or rejoin Alice proved unsuccessful. In 1983 he issued another little-known solo effort, Rock Rolls On, available only in Europe. By the early ’90s he was performing again with East Coast groups including the Josiah/Bruce Band and a revived Billion Dollar Babies lineup. He also contributed to Ant-Bee’s 1998 album Lunar Muzik, a project led by rock biographer Billy James that featured alumni from the Grandmothers, Hawkwind, Gong, and the Alice Cooper group. Around the same period Bruce co-wrote the autobiography No More Mr. Nice Guy: The Inside Story of the Alice Cooper Group with James; although Cooper later questioned the accuracy of certain anecdotes, the book offered a detailed account.

In October 1997 Bruce joined Smith and Buxton for an impromptu onstage reunion; Buxton died a week later. The following December Bruce appeared with Smith and Cooper for several numbers at the opening of Cooper’s Phoenix venue Cooperstown—the first time Bruce and Cooper had shared a stage in nearly twenty-five years. Bruce resumed regular performing by forming the Michael Bruce Group in 2001, issuing the albums I’ll Never Forget Old What’s His Name and Billion Dollar Babies – Early Studio Tracks, and touring England in May 2001 while Cooper performed there concurrently. A second edition of the autobiography appeared with a fresh cover and an additional chapter. The expanded two-disc reissue In My Own Way: The Complete Sessions followed in 2002.