But that's exactly the case, according to the man who's been executed on stage more times in 40 years than most of us have had hot dinners, not to mention the countless macabre myths surrounding his character which are best left explored elsewhere.

``I think Marilyn Manson, myself, [Rob] Zombie and all these guys ... we've all agreed on that,'' Cooper said.

``You can't be more shocking than cable TV. And this didn't exist back when we were called shock rock.

``So now its the kind of thing where you go, `how do you just entertain this audience?'''

Speaking exclusively to the Sun from his base in Phoenix, Arizona, last week, Cooper will return to Sydney Entertainment Centre with his latest production, the Theatre Of Death tour, on Monday, August 24.

The tour follows last year's album release, Along Came A Spider, a concept album tracing the deeds of a serial killer named Spider.

Like the album, Cooper warns to expect the unexpected when it comes to the tour.

``I think we're gonna take everybody off guard with this show,'' he said. ``They're gonna get the whole Alice creepy vaudeville show.

``Every time that you go out you have to challenge yourself on a lot of levels, because you know you have to do School's Out, Billion Dollar Babies, Poison, Eighteen - you have about 12 songs that you have to do. The audience knows they're coming. But how do you produce

them so people are gonna go, `oh I never thought he was gonna go there or where did that come from?'.

``That's the fun part of it ... brainstorming this thing, going okay how does this work, how do we get from A to B here? What devices can we use? What haven't we done?''

When it came to learning his craft, Cooper had the benefit of a sound group of friends with a deep understanding of the stage.

``We'd be doing the Welcome To My Nightmare show [mid 70s] which was full out vaudeville, and Groucho [Marx] would bring Mae West and George Burns, and George Burns the next time would bring Fred Astaire and Milton Berle, and these guys were all vaudeville

guys and none of them were shocked by what I was doing,'' he said.

``They looked it and said `oh yeah, the guillotine, I remember the Great Waldini in 1912 did that in his show'.

``I thought Alice should be as much of a mythical character as Fred Astaire or Groucho Marx or Bela Lugosi or any of these guys. And the guys that got it first were the guys that did vaudeville. And that was the biggest compliment for me. When those guys would show

up and give us the nod of approval I figured if we got them, then this audience is gonna be easy.''

For Cooper, it's no surprise that his audience crosses a number of age barriers.

``If I were 12 years old and I wasn't expecting Alice and I saw this show, I would be the biggest Alice fan in the world, because he does everything that I'd want him to do,'' he said.

``Not only are the songs intriguing - there are hard rock songs and I always surround myself with gunslingers, two great guitar players, a great drummer, a great bass player - on top of it it's got the icing on the cake where everything is choreographed.

``The real arsenal I have is the songs. I've got these hit songs that have been around for 40 years and these kids, they hear that and they love it. Eighteen still works for an 18-year-old. School's Out works for everybody.''

Cooper also takes satisfaction from the fact that his character is equally reviled and celebrated.

``I think it's almost the same kind of acceptance that Vincent Price or anybody like that have,'' he said.

``You're woven now into the tapestry of show business. Your not a fly-by-night kind of sideshow. Alice has become kind of the standard.

``When bands like Rob Zombie and these guys come out they're always compared to Alice because we did it first and we don't mind calling ourselves vaudeville, we don't mind calling ourselves carnival - here's the big show, but here's that creepy little sideshow that everybody

really wants to see.''

Over the years the Cooper character transformed from a ``whipping boy'' to the ``villainous bastard'' that now graces the stage.

The change, says Cooper, came thanks to a stint in an asylum coming to terms with sobriety in the early 80s.

``I had never played Alice sober,'' he said. ``I put all the black leather on and the make-up and was standing there with a riding crop and I'm going what if Alice doesn't show up? I walked out on stage and I realised there was the birth of a new character.

``I was gonna give them a reason to hang me this time. I figured if they're gonna hang me, they're gonna cut my head off, Alice is now going to be a villain. It was like, take the audience by the throat. Look at them with disdain in your eye and go, you're mine.

``Alice never said thank you, and the more he didn't say thank you, the more they loved it. And yet there's enough gentleman and romance in this guy where he would never swear, that would be crude ... but he'd slit your throat.''

With the sober perspective, Cooper developed an avid interest in golf.

``I am playing ridiculously well right now,'' he said. ``I'm about five under par for the last three rounds, but it'll go away.

``Since I don't have to be Alice when I'm on the golf course I can just be me and I'm very competitive. I just accidentally happen to be good at this game.

``If I were on tour though and I could shoot 69 every day I'd be in the black make up and everything because I would say `hey, if you can beat me, you can tell me not to wear this'.''

Tickets for Cooper's Sydney show are available now from Ticketmaster by calling 13 61 00 or visiting www.ticketmaster.com.au