Alice Cooper Reflects on Infamous Chicken Incident
Rock legend Alice Cooper, now 76, is looking back on a wild moment from his past that still ruffles some feathers. In A&E’s new Biography: Alice Cooper episode airing Sunday, June 23, Cooper recounts a bizarre event involving a chicken at the 1969 Toronto Rock and Roll Revival Festival.
Alice Cooper performing in November 1972
During his band’s set, Cooper noticed a chicken onstage. “You have to remember I’m from Detroit,” he explains in the episode. “I had never been on a farm in my life. It had wings, it had feathers, it should fly.” Thinking the chicken would soar gracefully into the audience, Cooper picked it up and tossed it off the stage, assuming someone would catch it and maybe even take it home as a quirky souvenir.
However, things did not go as planned. “Chickens don’t fly as much as they plummet,” Cooper realized. The bird fell straight into the crowd, and to his horror, the audience tore it apart. “It was the peace and love festival. They tear it to pieces and throw it back up on the stage. So there’s blood everywhere. Feathers and blood.”
John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who were also performing at the festival, witnessed the chaos from the wings and thought it was a form of art. “They loved it,” Cooper says. “They thought it was art ’cause it’s chaos.”
The following day, Cooper received a call from record label executive Frank Zappa. “Did you kill a chicken onstage last night?” Zappa asked. Cooper clarified, “There was a chicken. I didn’t kill it though.” Zappa’s advice? “Don’t tell anybody. They love it. It’s everywhere in the press!” And just like that, the chicken incident became legendary. “Who is this monster who would do this at a rock show?” the headlines screamed.
By the time the band arrived in Binghamton, New York, for their next show, the story had snowballed. There were 50 people protesting outside, and rumors had escalated to the point where Cooper was accused of setting a German Shepherd on fire. “My reputation was just insane,” he says. “I didn’t have to do anything. They were inventing their own Alice Cooper myth. People were just discovering Alice Cooper, and I was just discovering him, so we were all doing it at the same time.”
Alongside recounting the chicken incident, Biography: Alice Cooper delves into Cooper’s life story—from his childhood in Detroit, battling asthma, to becoming the iconic frontman of the groundbreaking Alice Cooper Group. It also explores the addiction struggles he faced along the way, offering a comprehensive look at the man behind the shocking rock persona.