By the mid-1980s, Alice Cooper’s career had lost much of its momentum. Years of heavy drinking had taken a toll, and after helping define shock rock in the 1970s, he found himself struggling to connect in an era increasingly dominated by glam metal and MTV.
His early-’80s albums — Flush the Fashion, Zipper Catches Skin and DaDa — failed to gain commercial traction. After getting sober in 1983, Cooper set out to rebuild his career, but reclaiming relevance would require more than a refreshed image. He needed a harder-edged sound that could compete with the guitar-driven metal acts then filling arenas and dominating music television.
That presented a challenge. Cooper’s longtime guitar collaborators, Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter, had helped define his classic sound, but the mid-’80s demanded a different approach. To make an impact in the shred era, Cooper needed a guitarist who could deliver technical firepower while helping shape a contemporary metal identity.
He found exactly that in Kane Roberts. Just 24 years old, the muscular guitarist brought formidable chops, a larger-than-life stage presence and a knack for writing the kind of polished, hook-heavy metal that was thriving in the decade.
Roberts wasn’t a brand name — he was starting from the bottom. His background was even more unlikely than Cooper’s return to the limelight.
“I was dealing cards at illegal blackjack games to make money,” Roberts tells Guitar Player.
“It was at a hotel. They’d rent big conference rooms on the weekend, and they’d show me where all the guns were, I’d do that to survive.”
But he had dreams of making it as a musician.
“I had recorded a tape and given it to a company called Screen Jumps Publishing,” he explains. “And they gave it to Bob Ezrin.”
Ezrin had produced much of Cooper’s work in the ‘70s and, though he and Cooper didn’t work together in the 1980s, he was part of his trusted camp. Ezrin liked what he heard and invited Kane to meet with him, Cooper and Cooper’s manager, Shep Gordon.
“I went down there, and I sat in this room with Shep Gordon, Ezrin and Alice Cooper,” Roberts says. “Alice and I got along; we just started laughing. We immediately became friends.”
Before long, Roberts was Cooper’s new lead guitarist and a key creative partner in the singer’s comeback effort.
“We really got into it,” Roberts says. “I didn’t want Alice to seem like he just survived rehab. I wanted him to come back as a nuclear version of what he’d been.”
The challenge was to modernize Cooper’s sound without losing the qualities that had made him a star in the first place. Roberts believed the music needed a heavier, more contemporary edge to compete in a decade dominated by hard rock and metal.
“We had to upgrade the energy and the sound to make it much more metal,” Roberts explains, “because that’s where I came from.”
At the same time, neither musician wanted to abandon Cooper’s roots.
“We did need to preserve the history of that music and keep the essence of the classics,” Roberts says. “Alice and I agreed on that.”
The balance between reinvention and tradition was evident on Constrictor, released in 1986. Even the cover art nodded to Cooper’s past, depicting the singer entwined with a giant snake — imagery reminiscent of earlier albums such as Killer.
Musically, however, Constrictor was firmly of its era. Tracks like “Teenage Frankenstein” paired Cooper’s trademark theatrics with contemporary production and Roberts’ aggressive guitar work. The album and its supporting tour helped reestablish Cooper as a commercial force. Constrictor was certified Gold and reached Number 59 on the Billboard 200.
For Roberts, it was a promising start, but he believed the partnership had room to grow.
“For the second album, we hit the ground running,” he says. “We came off tour and started recording, and it was killer. We tore right through it, and the process was really good, as was our relationship.”
Roberts also became a prominent part of Cooper’s stage show. With his muscular physique, high-energy playing and arsenal of shred-approved electric guitars, including Kramers and Schecters. But his best known weapon of choice was a six-stringed machine gun that shot fire.
“Some kid called up Shep Gordon and said, ‘Hey, I have a guitar that might be good for the Alice Cooper tour,’” Roberts says. “Shep called me up and said, ‘Hey, Kane, take a look at this and meet with this kid.’ So I did.”
Despite the strong working relationship between Cooper and Roberts, 1987’s Raise Your Fist and Yell did not build significantly on the momentum of Constrictor. Reviews were mixed, and while the album was certified Gold, it reached only Number 73 on the Billboard 200 — a step down from its predecessor’s Number 59 peak.
Still, Roberts’ reputation was rising. Geffen Records saw commercial potential in the guitarist’s combination of technical skill and larger-than-life image, and the label offered him a solo deal.
“It ended,” Roberts says of his time with Cooper. “I got a record deal with Geffen, and I think Cooper changed labels when he did his next record, too. It just ended. There wasn’t any controversy; we just stepped in different directions.”
Cooper did indeed move from MCA to Epic, and the stylistic direction he and Roberts had developed together continued into 1989’s Trash. The album embraced polished, radio-friendly hard rock, and its lead single, “Poison” — cowritten by Cooper, guitarist John McCurry and hitmaker Desmond Child — became Cooper’s biggest hit in years, reaching number seven in the United States and number two in the United Kingdom.
Roberts, meanwhile, launched his solo career with Geffen. His self-titled 1987 debut drew a modest response, but 1991’s Saints and Sinners found a more appreciative audience and later developed a cult following. The album included the single “Does Anybody Really Fall in Love Anymore?,” written by Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora and Diane Warren. The song had previously been recorded by Cher for her 1989 album Heart of Stone.
Roberts stops short of taking credit for Cooper’s late-’80s resurgence.
“It was more like Alice’s evolution,” he says. “I’m happy to have influenced that a little bit, but he takes the bull by the horns and runs with it wherever he wants to go.
Although the two discussed working together again over the years, a reunion did not materialize until 2022, when Roberts returned to Cooper’s band as a temporary replacement for Nita Strauss during her tour with Demi Lovato.
“Alice has had a great many guitarists shuffling in and out of this band,” Roberts says. “But I gotta be honest with you, I never expected to be called. His band has always been really good.”
Since completing that stint, Roberts has focused on his own projects. As he puts it, he is pursuing them “without the bullshit recording industry,” though he remains optimistic about whatever comes next.
“You have to have faith,” he says. “If you work hard enough, the world will beat a path to your door.”
“That’s just the way life operates,” he says. “I’m living proof of that. I worked very hard, and the only band that would ever hire me was Alice Cooper. He found me, this 230-pound guy playing guitar. It was like, ‘Who is gonna hire this guy?’ He was the only one. Alice never goes for the safe bet, and I think that’s awesome.”
