Alice Cooper has been using snakes in the show for thirty years with few problems, until a show at the House of Blues in Los Angeles in August 19, 1998, when it decided to relieve itself all over the floor.
“If we could get him to do that every night, we would,” Cooper once remarked. “I never expected there to be eight piles the size of a Doberman Pincher and this thing just kept going and going. And Johnny Rotten was in the audience, and he says, ‘God, do you do that every night?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I know just where to touch the snake.’ He was very impressed. That was one of the great moments on stage. There’s hardly anything that compares to that, because there was nothing I could do. He just kept going and the audience was laughing and I couldn’t do anything about it. It was all over - my whole stage costume was covered - and I had ten more songs to go, and it smelled so bad I was gagging...”
Kachina (1971-1972): Kachina was the name of Alice Cooper’s first snake, it’s the one on the Killer album cover. Where he got it was from Neal Smith his original drummer. Neal took care of it, made it fat and sassy for Alice to use on stage at night. Kachina perished down a toilet drain in a Tennessee hotel room during the ‘Killer’ tour.
Yvonne (School’s Out, 1972): There was a rumor saying she almost suffocated Alice one night while he was preparing her for the stage, and that security guy Norm Klein cut her head off to free Alice. It’s not true, just another story created for the publicity.
Eva Marie Snake (‘Billion Dollar Babies’ tour, 1973): Eva was named after a movie star (Eva Marie Saint).
Angel (1977-1979): Angel was the winning snake in a competition held in Anaheim in 1977 to find Alice a snake for the ‘King of the Silver Screen’ tour. She died when she was bitten by a rat during dinner time.
Veronica (?): Alice spoke about a snake named Veronica during various radio interview, but it seems to have just been a name he threw around. Of course the name of the snake in the first Marvel comic book was ‘Veronica’.
Mistress (1986): ‘The Nightmare Returns’ tour (Credited on the back of the video).
Lady Macbeth (1998): The ‘Rock and Roll Carnival’ tour. In fact, Lady Macbeth was the snake that was supplied for the European Tour by Sickthing Bill Crowe. They continued using the name on the US leg, but it was a different snake. In 2003, Bill got the call again and Lady Macbeth (the exact same snake) returned to active duty for the 3 UK Bare Bones shows in July. Again, a different snake was used in the US show and no snake was used in the mainland Europe gigs. Unfortunately she died in the mid 2000s and Bill obtained a new snake, Dali, who was used in subsequent UK and European appearances. Sadly Dali also passed away in 2013.
Since at least around 2000 when a snake is required Alice has generally made use of borrowed local snakes, changing as he moves around the world. He no longer owns a permanent snake.
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