Shock rock just wouldn't exist as we know and love it without Alice Cooper. The man anointed the Godfather of the entire genre, The Coop has been terrifying, horrifying and delighting us for over five decades now. One band clearly influenced by Cooper's theatrics and music are monstrous Finnish Eurovision conquerers Lordi, who famously won the beloved song contest in 2006 with their track, Hard Rock Hallelujah.
Lordi are almost certainly big Alice Cooper fans given their 80s rock-indebted style of music and love of horror imagery - they've even covered Cooper's classic, Jason Voorhees-influenced 80s anthem He's Back (The Man Behind The Mask) - but that didn't stop a bit of beef brewing between the two acts in the mid-00s.
In an interview with MTV broadcast in 2007, Alice Cooper claimed that Lordi once stated that they were not only better than him, but also better than another set of famous shock rock icons.
- “I wrote to Vincent Price. I didn’t expect a reply, but he knew who I was. He really got stuck into the role”: The twisted story of Alice Cooper’s shock rock classic Welcome To My Nightmare
- “I called Gene Simmons. He said: ‘How the hell did you get this number?!’ That was when I got the idea that we weren’t going to be best buddies”: Dee Snider’s wild tales of Robert Plant, Frank Zappa, Freddy Krueger and Kiss
"Lordi, the band that said they were better than Alice and Kiss," states the bemused singer in a video of the interview since uploaded to YouTube. "They said that in the press in America.
"So, let me, see...Lordi," he continues. "Where did I see Lordi before? Oh yeah, Gwar! Gwar was much before Lordi, so it's not original at all, even though I guess they're better than me and Kiss put together. Right."
Ouch! To be fair, it's hard to imagine Lordi weren't also inspired by Gwar's gloriously over the top costumes and blood-drenched live shows, but Cooper is clearly in no mood to pull punches.
"Oh, by the way, their single that came out," he adds, referring to Hard Rock Hallelujah. "You know that song that won [Eurovision]. Didn't that sound a lot like Poison to you? Sure did to me. It's weird that they were so detrimental, they were very anti-Alice in the press. It must take forever to put that make-up on..."
Now, we should add, in the spirit of fairness, that this interview took place over fifteen years ago, and we can't find any trace of the original interview where Lordi allegedly took pot shots at Alice Cooper and Kiss. We also don't know for sure if the comments were made in jest or not. And we definitely know Lordi appreciate Alice Cooper's music - frontman Mr Lordi even picked two Cooper tracks in his list of the best shock rock songs ever for Metal Hammer in 2016.
Hopefully, everyone's friends now and it's all one big, happy shock rock family. Still, though, one fact remains: you come at the Coop, you best not miss.
Watch the interview below.
