Michael Bruce

The main focus of the original Alice Cooper band was understandably the group's shock rock singer Alice Cooper. But it was the group's guitarist/keyboardist, Michael Bruce, who was the main musical force behind the group, co-writing the majority of their tracks. Born on March 16, 1948, and raised in Arizona, Bruce took up the guitar during the early '60s after catching Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show and discovering such British Invasion acts as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and the Animals. After doing time in a local cover outfit, the Duels, Bruce hooked up with another local band, the Spiders, who would later morph into the Alice Cooper band. The band (singer Vincent Furnier, bassist Dennis Dunaway, guitarist Glen Buxton, and later, drummer Neal Smith) relocated to Los Angeles in 1968, changed their name to the Nazz, and focused on more a more psychedelic rock sound (à la early Pink Floyd). But when they found out there was another group going by the name the Nazz (featuring a then-unknown Todd Rundgren), they changed their name to Alice Cooper, with Furnier assuming the role of a deranged and macabre figure and assumed the name Alice Cooper. The newly renamed group issued a pair of underappreciated albums for Frank Zappa's Bizarre label (1969's Pretties for You and 1970's Easy Action), which followed in the same spacy, early Floyd style. But soon after, the group began gravitating toward a more theatrical-based, glam look while their musical style became more hard rock anthem-based. The Alice Cooper band grew even stronger after hooking up with producer Bob Ezrin, who helped focus the group's sound and approach even further. After a switch to Warner Bros., the Alice Cooper band quickly became one of the world's leading hard rock groups on the...