Eddie “The Boner” golfed with Alice Cooper
Eddie “The Boner” from 101 KLOL Houston’s “Stevens and Pruett Show” show knew about Alice Cooper’s golf addiction.
It’s no secret these days that Alice Cooper plays lots of golf. However, back in 1987, Cooper’s golfing hobby remained private.
After serving as host for his Houston Live in the Flesh tour concert at the Sam Houston Coliseum on December 5th, the famous SNP morning show cast member decided to ask Cooper to play golf, and the rock star accepted!
Here is the transcript from Brian Shannon’s “Runaway Radio” documentary interview about his Cooper golf game:
I spent 26 years in the business, probably star struck…three times. Alice Cooper was a great, great influence when I was young. He was one of my first ones that I just absolutely loved, bought all of his albums, all the tapes, everything.
Finally met him back when you couldn’t talk about him playing golf, because they thought it would hurt his image. Quick story, 1988 Raise Your Fist and Yell Tour, I’m doing the stage announcements. He comes in to town and I get to interview him on the air. Toby Mamis, his long time manager and he show up at the station, we go up, we cut the interview.
I say, “Hey, off the record. I’ve got a buddy who’s a member at Champions. I don’t know if you got your clubs but it’s a Saturday night. I can get us on at seven o’clock tomorrow morning at Champions. We can go play a quick 18, if you got time.” He agrees, his eyes light up, he’s like, “Yeah, that’s great! I got my sticks, let’s do it.”
They’re all like, “You cannot say a word.” I got it, I got it. I’m not going to say, “I played golf with Alice Cooper” and all that. That night, I go to the concert at Sam Houston Coliseum and I’m doing it…oh, and by the way, this young upstart band was opening for him. You may have heard of them, Guns ‘N Roses?
I do the stage announcement, Guns ‘N Roses plays, Alice plays. After the show, I go backstage at Sam Houston, go on the tour bus, finalize all the details, right? We’re sitting there and he goes, “Tomorrow morning, we’re going to play golf.” “Yeah, not a problem.”
I go on to his hotel the next morning at 5:45 in the morning, pick him up so that we can get up on the North side, tee off at about 7:10, 7:20. He’s got a codename, they all have a codename that they check in under and all that stuff. I go to the front desk, there’s nobody in the lobby. It’s quiet. It’s a Sunday morning.
I ask for the codename and they call upstairs and they go, “OK, he’ll be right down.” “OK, thank you.”
I’m standing in the lobby and it’s a ghost town. I hear ting! The doors open and here comes Alice with his golf bag, by himself. I’m standing there and he goes…at this time I’m 26 years old, alright? I know I’m from the radio station but he has no handlers, no manager, no bodyguard, nothing. Him and his sticks, out the door.
“Hey, man! How’s it going?” “Great, man!” He jumps in my car, we drive all the way up to Champions, we play 18 holes and I drive him back and drop him off and he was like he had known me forever. It was just so cool that somebody like that, I mean, just, “Hey, I’m going to go play golf with this guy!” Just jumped in the car and went.
It was truly a wonderful experience and, at that young age of 26 years old, I was like, “Wow, this doesn’t get any better! This does not get any better!”
Brian: Absolutely, he’s so down to earth and he’s done everything that you could do. He has fallen into some of the pitfalls of rock ‘n roll stardom and come back around but, I mean, yeah, he was just a truly great guy.
So, what did Alice Cooper and his band with opener Guns N’ Roses play at that Houston concert? See Cooper’s setlist and the Gunner’s setlist.