Relationship Advice With Rock Legend Alice Cooper & Sheryl

Having us. This is great. Now, the thing that stood out to me is you guys have been together for 40 years and that seems to be really presedented in the industry. Well, we'd love to just talk about: when you guys got together in 1976, were you actually looking for a partner at that time? Were you looking for a relationship? No, that was totally against what her plan was. She had a plan. She plans everything. I have a blueprint. A map of her life that was just: this is gonna happen and then that's gonna happen and then and that's gonna happen and then that's gonna happen and then the perfect guy's going to come in ...right about here and of course 30-something 35 maybe but I'm just gonna be with a ballet company somewhere hopefully touring the world. Not exactly what I had in mind, but when love came to town, you don't have much of a say about it. Yeah, how did you know? What did that feel like? A ton of bricks. I mean, it was a slow dawning realization that I had fallen for this man. I mean, look at his eyes hmm I see it well and your life is so beautiful and unique and you're on the road really 40 years with the kind of life the travel everything that your life has been about. What are some of the things that have kept you strong? You know, people ask me they say when you go on the road it must be hard leaving home and I go I bring home with me because really a house is a house a home is is who you're with in the house and our children are grown up we have we do miss the grandchildren you know of course we have twin grandsons Falcon and riot from Dash and Morgan and and we miss our kids of course you know but honestly when we go on the road it's it's really the perfect sort of storm at this point because I know that Sheryl loves performing more than anything she was built to be on stage and she's a great you know dancer and anytime she can get in makeup and dance and actually dance and show off what she can do I'm all for that it just so happens that this show was perfectly written for that in fact I made sure it was I kind of nudged it in May sure that she didn't have one part but three parts she plays a rag doll that comes out of a box on only women bleed a giant key in my back and they wind her up and she does this great ballet she plays an insane day of a dead nurse very dysfunctional that I used to be the scariest thing on stage until this nurse showed up and now this nurse is I'm even afraid to look at her and she plays Hillary Clinton because you know we have a song called elected that is got to be the finale for the show with with Hillary and Trump on stage and Alice I mean it's too good which disintegrates into a knock-down drag-out between the two candidate which makes it pretty it's as funny as the election itself but at the same time the idea that I can start getting dressed for the show and then I remember we did this in 1976 this is how we got ready for the nightmare show it was pure showbiz and both of us knew exactly what we had to do on stage when we get onstage when we work together it's just it's great it's like old times oh I love it makes me think immediately sorry to jump in but you know the couples that may be listening you know their lives may look a little bit different than you're seeing is how unique and beautiful yours is but you mentioned really bringing in your two distinct talents how can you like recommend or speak wisdom to couples that have really different talents but how they can combine them in life so that they really get to live out their passions you know for me I always tell people you know especially kids they go I don't know what I want to do in my life I don't know what I want to you know point my life towards and I go here's the main thing when you get up in the morning you should be going to work and you can't wait to get there because you love what you're doing when you get married you should marry the girl that you can't live without and that you can't wait to wake up just so she'll be there with you that's the same thing it's it's connected like that you know not everybody is that selective some people settle I'll settle for this job and then they take that job and they hate going to working so they don't do well at it they marry this person because they're handsome or cute and they're this or that and they realize they wake up in the morning and they don't necessarily want to be with that person all day maybe a little while then I like that person a lot but they're not in love with that person they might love them but not in love with them and that's the that's the two things we have both of that I love doing what I do you know I put my career if I'm gonna put it in order of what's important to me comes in around fourth or fifth mm-hmm you know but I really do love to do what I do as Alice Cooper and I think Cheryl loves dance more than you know I mean that's that's her life yes but it doesn't define me yeah do you know I may not when you talk about identity God gives us a name no I gives us our identity and God is the glue of our relationship yeah when I see couples that talk about a 50/50 relationship I say run mm-hmm it's a hundred and a hundred yeah nothing yes if I cannot wake up in the morning and truly think in my mind how can I make a stay better mm-hmm I'm certainly not a doormat however I'm looking my job is to make him look good hmm and that takes many shapes and many forms and he makes me know that I'm the jewel in his crown hmm that's the truth yes and you know I tell a lot of guys I said you know what you do is you get used to your wife and you don't treat her like your girlfriend I said what about treating your wife before you got married how you treated her you date her you pursue her yes you know people he still pursues me like I'm not already here and that's important I mean romance is important in a marriage you can't just say well well we're married romance is dead you know that's that's exactly the wrong thing you know I learn new things about her every day you know that I didn't 40 years they're going really you don't like cranberry sauce no no I don't like grandma really not today you don't like nuts and ice cream what is wrong with you well one thing you mentioned going into the spiritual aspect of your guys's partnership you know what is that what does spiritual partnership really mean to you guys well I mean we both were both pk's for both preachers kids both grew up in no church with our fathers married us mmm us the vows to say to each other 40 our dads were in ours as well that's great yeah well and you know III would I always call myself the prodigal son because I truly was that I I grew up in the church I went about as far away as you could get became the poster boy for everything wrong with the generation knowing that I had a sense of humor behind it and knowing that the character was definitely a satirical character and then when I got sober 35 years ago I came back because I realized that that was the that's what I was drinking trying to fill this hole with alcohol or whatever I could do I could fill it with and it was really my longing to come back to the Lord you know and then when I did I felt well maybe I can't be Alice Cooper anymore you know I didn't get a book of rules or lists or anything but I just felt well can I do this and you know now my pastor said do you think God makes mistakes when I said no you said well look what you put you he says I don't see why you can't be Alice Cooper but I don't see why it doesn't say anything in here that you can't do that but your lifestyle is gonna be your testimony you know and God gave you the talent to do this do what you do I did alter Alice in some ways I made Alice maybe a little more humorous a little more dangerous in places but more humorous in other places but I certainly shaped him into what Alice is now where it's a family show yeah well and how do you think that people can sense that in your relationship and do you get to then share the faith foundation of your relationship with other couples so that you can counsel them in a way I think you earned the right to be heard it's based on relationships everybody you come with whom you come in contact is ripe and really desperate for the good news right and some know it some don't know it but I think you earned the right to be heard and through love your lifestyle planting seeds you earn the right to be able to talk to them I think it's how you treat people people notice more than anything else how you treat people you know I've always said I treat the guy that's sweeping the floor the same way as I treat the guitar player yeah they all have my respect on every level I never talked down to anybody you know unless it's in a joking way you know the band knows that I you know solo and you'll notice the think oh what is it about mm-hmm you know this couple that is so attractive it's it's the fact that what we do love each other of course but there's the light of Christ is hopefully coming from us I mean it should be yeah you know and I have to ask myself sometimes is there anybody that we know that doesn't know that we're believers hmm and if that's the case why well you know I mean I get entered to do a lot of interviews I'm very vocal about it but I always said I will not bring it up unless they bring it up and if they do I will absolutely tell I'm very very very vocal about Who I am yeah and yeah it's turned a lot of people off it's you know it affects your your status in this world but at the same time it would be worse if they went oh you're Christian that's nice it's much better to be Christian to be dangerous yeah because you know I always I always tell people that maybe the most rebellious thing Alice Cooper ever did was become Christian people think well you know we're hanging in the guillotine and the chickens in the in the blood and everything I said that's showbiz yeah I said what's rebellious I've certainly not tearing up a hotel room anybody can do that deciding to follow Christ that's rebellious because who is the most biggest rebel of all time with Jesus Christ yeah he rebelled against the world what does it profit a person to gain the whole world and lose a soul hmm what will you give in exchange for your soul you ever notice there are people that you know couples you know that you're attracted to absolutely there's a reason for that yep and you know you ever notice there's other couples that you are repelled mm-hmm that's a hard one for Christians because the ones that you repelled by are usually the ones you need to be with yes but the ones that you can't you built oh you know who's coming over tonight and you go oh great okay and then you'll say you know it's comin over tonight and I go good yeah oh good yeah because there's certain people rub you the wrong way or they it's just not something that's easy for you and and a lot of time Christianity is not easy because you're having to deal with people that you don't necessarily chill with and you know there's gonna be that kind of thing going on whereas other people you go all the way this is safe you know because they're coming over and I we know them yeah you know well it's important to live in Camelot I mean they only associate with Christians I go look at our camp yeah feels wide open yeah but it's important who you spend time with I'm sure my manager is a Buddhist Jew 47 years he's been my manager and we could not be tighter yes green Oh Here I am you know a Midwest American Christian you know and a Buddhist Jew who have nothing but trust for each other you bring up trust I wanted to hit on that so I'm so glad you mentioned that word with your lives having been so full yeah we say fall instead of busy but really full you've been all over the world you've done so many different things how do you maintain trust in your relationship because I think a lot of couples think trust will just be there so how do you keep that strong you know I think it is just there I don't even have to think about I've never once even thought I wonder what Cheryl's doing and I'm sure she's the same with me you know maybe when we first got married there was there were you know there was that feeling out period of what well you know rock star girls everywhere da-da-da-da-da I think that that we got past that pretty early in our in our life knowing each other that neither one of us were gonna cheat I mean I knew I was never gonna cheat on her and I would I knew her the quality of Cheryl that that's just not her there was never I don't think I've ever thought about her ever cheated on me yeah so that's that's maybe something that God put in into the recipe for our marriage that I'm going to take alcohol away I'm gonna take this whole trust thing and make that important thing and I think God kind of you know builds that marriage on those things you know because I know people that just nice nice people just really don't trust each other right right Cheryl what would you say Trust is earned it really is I mean you have to show who you are there's no second agenda when it comes to me or to him and as I said earlier my job is to make him look good so he knows that he knows I have his best interest at heart so where he falls down I'll stand up where I can't he swoops in and so it's a great partnership and it's never 5050 the intent is to be a hundred and a hundred that sometimes it looks like ninety ten 6040 it's always shape-shifting but the intent is to build each other up well you know when people always say this is my better half I was good this is my better 80% only 20% she's carrying the ball 80 percent of the time you know now that may not be true but it's it's you know it's what your intent it's yeah that's how I kind of look at it yeah I mean made me think of when you talked about reasons that things happen right now I think a lot of people see events that happen in their life sometimes they say well that shouldn't happen or why did that happen or they even say this is at a higher level of bad you know I mean like they have different priorities for things that shouldn't have gone a certain way right so I'm just wondering for you guys can you look back and see that in your time you've been married there are were events where you said why is this happening or this event has like is like critical and now looking back like that was meant that we learned something about us or something about God in particular and now you're like actually grateful for I'm actually glad that that happened well that said certainly it just speaks to the alcoholism of the drug abuse for me I was I was you know leader of the pack when it came to the party in LA it was me and Keith Moon and Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix and you know the party was going on at all times and I didn't realize that was becoming an alcoholic I honestly didn't wake up one morning and say hey I think I'm an alcoholic it was very gradual until I started realizing the alcohol was medicine and it wasn't alcohol anymore and we had to live through that we had to I don't think she ever quit believing in me but she handled at some point move away and let me get to the bottom of the rung on the ladder and look up and go help and that's when she went let's go Hospital and that was the right time right and I knew I had I needed somebody to do that so her and Shep my manager both said you're going and I I don't think I put up much of a fight I went oh no let's what time we going because I know I was pretty close doctor was saying you know you're getting pretty close to joining your buddies you know in the 27 year old club a little past that you know but yeah that that was a very tough one and people even now go if you could live your life over would you changed that and I go no because that was a huge hurdle for me the fact that I don't think there's a picture of me ever before 1983 without a beer in my hand yeah well and Cheryl just there's so many women I'm sure that listen and there's been some sort of dynamic with their husbands some who are listening how did you maintain your commitment you know how did it how did you every day just remind yourself of who you were as a wife I had to move away as he said I took our then two-year-old daughter and moved back to Chicago with my family and let God deal with it I'm taking my daughter to church you know even I fell away for a while I made a profession of faith when I was 10 years old fully embracing Christ as my savior as a child with childlike faith but not childish and then at 14 I really had that amazing experience of God in my heart in my life complete transformation and then I came into the world of rock and roll where it wasn't sex drugs and rock and roll but it was just Sunday's tend to evaporate into other days of the week and church attendance lapsed and one day became like another and it took a while to get back but in moving away I went back into the church and our reconciliation was based on one thing and only one thing not a list of manifestos not a list of rules it's was this the counselor said do you think that you could commit they're going to church once a week together mmm I was shocked excuse me I have a list of things we need to talk about he said no do you think that you can agree to this he said yes I said yes and that was where God really started to work in our lives being under great gospel teaching great biblical authority and just having a heart transplant and maturity of character and if I didn't love him enough already I continued to fall more deeply and love any bride that looks at her husband on their wedding day insists I don't think I'll ever love him anymore then I could possibly love him at this moment it's foolish if it's real love and it's grounded in the love and grace of God if you're just scratching the surface yeah you'd love each other more as you grow when I was serious for me to to to actually to prove to her I and there was no reason she would believe me because I was I had an addictive personality everything I did was addictive you know so if I had a beer I couldn't have one beer I had I had one beer that lasted about 15 years you know and when it would came to drugs yeah when I had one hit of this I went on off of it you know I mean I was just an addictive personality and so it was very hard for her to believe that I was going to that personality was going to change and those things that she saw with me all the time were gonna not be there you know she says we're gonna go to a Christian counselor but you set it up and yes I went okay I took it as was you know the gauntlet was thrown down I said if you think that I'm gonna lose this battle of you know I said I and then I got addicted to being straight I got totally addicted to this sobriety and what I think that was the thing that really worked for me the addictive personality turned on itself and then I got addicted to being sober so the last thing I would think about was having a drink the doctors even said your alcoholism is unprecedented you you walked out of the hospital and never went to AAA and never had a sponsor and never had another drink and I went right they said well that's impossible I said no it's a miracle I said I'm not a cured alcoholic I'm a healed alcoholic that's a big difference you know it's not it's as if it never happened mm-hmm he says he doesn't have a sponsor he has a savior I've heard that that's amazing but that's you know that's really true God just took it out of my life and they say well well what was the problem I say there's no process yeah walk down the hospital or just believing that you could put a drink in front of me in the most high-pressure situation and that would never even come into play it wouldn't even think of it yeah it would be like having a loaded gun there and say oh it's my head that's what the drink might as well have poison in it because I would have yeah well what does that get that you know well your story is so unique and dynamic and I know we have just a couple closing questions one just what do you think partnership means to you that's something that we really intertwine through all of our work is partnership being distinct from just being in a relationship so what do you what a partnership mean to you - well Cheryl had a great she says marriage is too dysfunctional people who just refuse to give up on each other I love that because it's so true they meet two people that are living together married to each other that aren't that are you know wacko in this way and wacko in this way and yet the other person goes I can live with that I can move it okay I can live life not giving up on you you know okay you know and sometimes you don't see your own insanity and but that's really true you just never give up on each other you know and Cheryl I heard you say once that never waste a good crisis oh never never it's a great teaching tool you know you go back and revisit it and sometimes think is this a test and if it is help me pass it because I got nothing here and watch what you carry you through when have you ever done anything that were you group group where it wasn't uncomfortable it's frustrating it's this as you see where you want to go and you can't get there and but you keep going in till you do get there yeah I love that yeah so just last question for you guys and we really are doing this podcast so that couples can take something away for them to say what can our relationship look like what is our version of being a power couple so for whatever is on your heart what would you really want to give to the list and those that would be tuning in well let's understand first and foremost where that power comes from we're not the power couple but we rely on a power much greater than ourselves our creator and we are we already served we are not afraid to be led you know what I mean you should know that you two you've both given up careers to do what you do because you were led to do it you responded to a colleague not comfortable was it nope it was not I was on my knees and I heard the message yes I'm sure yeah sure and then that's that's but look at where you are you know and that was the same you know that's the same for all of us I mean it you don't be afraid to be led as long as you're being led by the right and I'm asking the question I hear like what I hear and that is like people think they need to know figure out the answer what's the answer what's the answer what do I do but instead asking what would you have me do so that's the takeaway from people I love yeah that's me melt me fold me fill me use me hmm well thank you both so much I've taken away so much I know our audience has taken away so much inspiration last words know thank you so much for not only having us sit down and talk with you but to be here at your facility for teens here in Phoenix love that you've taken not only what you're both really your skills and your own purpose but have molded that into who you are as a couple and now you just share that legacy with the world you know what it is it's an outward expression of an inward transformation yes what she said yeah well thank you both so much thank you they're not happy anniversary thank you the best is yet to come

Channel: The Freemans | Marriage Coaches

Views: 933,030

Keywords: relationship goals, Alice Cooper, Rock n Roll, relationship advice, relationship problems, faith, marriage, marriage counseling, meet the freemans, married life, family therapy, marriage therapy, foundation of faith, power couples, new power couple, love and happiness, best love quotes, couple quotes, healthy relationships, love connection, flirt, love and marriage, relationship, stay in love, marriage quotes, courtship, sheryl cooper, Rock teen center, hall of fame

Id: BjegR3Jg_Bo

Length: 25min 32sec (1532 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 15 2016