Never one to mince words, Alice Cooper has a strict policy when it comes to a performance. “When we get up onstage,” he says, “my band has the instruction: kill the audience.” In other words, some nu-hippies are gonna get some blood on them during his Bonnaroo Festival performance next month.

Alice told Rolling Stone, “We’re old school, we’re going to go up there and just be Alice.” While the average Bonnaroo concert goer most likely was too young to have grown up with Alice and his ways of doing business, he has no plans to alter anything to win them over. “I don’t go up there with the attitude of, ‘Gosh, I hope you like me tonight.’ I go up there to grab them by the throat and shake ‘em. And when they get done, hopefully they’re going to go, ‘What was that?’”

Though Cooper is now age 64, he is as committed as ever to putting on a big rock show. “I’m not one of those guys that sits around in their rocking chair going, ‘Well, in my day …,’ and, ‘They just don’t write them like that anymore,’” said Cooper. “But I’m starting to get a little discouraged.”

He continues, “I champion all the new bands,I just hope that this generation gets a big shot of testosterone, because a lot of the bands just don’t seem like they want to be rock stars. I listen to these bands and I look at them and, they’re kind of, like, very timid. I’m looking for… garage bands, bands with some energy that I want to see.”

So despite Bonnaroo being more the spiritual home of, say, Dave Matthews than the Stooges, for instance, Alice isn’t letting that get him down. “I always like to put Alice where he doesn’t belong, the guillotine, the whole thing. And my band is probably the best band I’ve ever had. So it’s going to be the highest-energy thing to see all night.”

He leaves Bonnaroo with a warning, “If you’re in the first 20 rows, you’ll probably get some blood on you.”

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