Alice Cooper, 76, reveals that the rockstar lifestyle no longer revolves around drugs backstage. Instead, he jokes, it now involves “Bengay, Advil, Tylenol” to keep him going.
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The musician has maintained sobriety for 42 years and recently introduced a non-alcoholic version of the classic Old Fashioned, named the Sex, Drugs, Rock & Dry Cocktail.
No one performs quite like Alice Cooper. At 76, the shock rock legend shares with PEOPLE exclusively, “You don’t need to be drunk to be punk.”
Cooper, who has been sober for 42 years, reflects, “Back when I used to drink, my go-to was whiskey and Coca-Cola. I was like the Dean Martin of rock ‘n’ roll, always with a drink in hand.”
These days, his drink of choice is alcohol-free, thanks to a collaboration with WhistlePig. The Sex, Drugs, Rock & Dry Cocktail is a non-alcoholic maple Old Fashioned, paired with a rye-infused vinyl of Cooper’s album Breadcrumbs. All proceeds from the product will benefit Giving Kitchen, an organization that supports food service workers.
“I like the idea of outsmarting whiskey because it had a grip on me for such a long time,” Alice Cooper tells PEOPLE, adding that the thought of “outwitting it and laughing in its face” really appealed to him.
The School’s Out singer recalls how, when he first got sober, friends who could “socially drink” would avoid alcohol around him. He explains, “I told them, ‘It’s different for you. You can have a drink, two drinks, and then stop. When I was drinking, I couldn’t stop—I had to have one more and then one more.’ If you’re in my shoes, I can’t have any alcohol.”
Since becoming sober, Cooper shares, “I have absolutely no desire to ever put alcohol or any drug in my body again.”
Remaining sober hasn’t hurt his rockstar image, though.
“But I’ve never once had anyone come up to me and say, ‘Wow, what a wimp,’” he says. He notes that while sobriety might seem like it goes against the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll, “rock ‘n’ roll is an attitude. You don’t have to be drunk or high to be a rocker—it’s just how you carry yourself.”
He acknowledges how things have changed since the ‘70s, when “you didn’t hire someone unless they were drinking or high with you.”
“But The Rolling Stones wouldn’t still be around if they were doing what they did in the ’70s, and neither would I,” Cooper says, ahead of kicking off his Too Close for Comfort world tour on January 31.
“‘Party like a rock star,’ that was always the saying,” the Poison singer reflects. “We all went through that. All of my friends passed away at 27—Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin. I used to drink and get high with them.”
Now, as Cooper points out, many of his fellow rockers are sober. “Johnny Depp plays guitar for me in the Hollywood Vampires. We’re all sober now. He’ll sit there with an alcohol-free Heineken and be vaping. He’s got fake cigarettes and fake alcohol, and I told him, ‘You’re going to have a fake heart attack.’”
When asked about his famous cameo in Wayne’s World (1992), which poked fun at the wild rock star lifestyle, Cooper describes it as “a takeoff on the Hollywood version of what goes on backstage,” something that “died in the ’80s, but yes, it was the eternal party backstage.”
These days, he notes, “The drugs backstage are still there—except now they’re Bengay, Advil, Tylenol. All the rockstar drugs are now at Walgreens.”