In a recent BBC interview, Alice Cooper reminisced on the time that legendary Who drummer Keith Moon dressed up as the Queen of England at Hollywood’s Rainbow Bar and Grill.
The Rainbow Bar and Grill, an exclusive drinking club also knowing as the Hollywood Vampires, played host to both Cooper and Moon. According to Cooper, the “most important” part of each night at the club, was when Moon would enter.
The rocker dubbed Moon “the most entertaining human being on the planet” before going on to describe how he would turn heads with his extravagant entrances at the club: “One night he would show up as the Queen of England, full outfit. One night he would be Hitler. One night he’d be a Viking. One night he be a French maid.
“He was the most entertaining human being on the planet and the best drummer I’ve ever heard in my life.”
According to Alice Cooper, the pair became “very good friends” as a result of their time at the Rainbow.
“He was the court jester of the Hollywood Vampires, and everybody’s best buddy” he says. “We’d go to the Rainbow, the roost of the Vampires, and just wait to see what Keith was going to wear that night.”
Later in the interview, Cooper remembered how politics were often the topic of conversation at the club, and how the Beatles’ John Lennon would regularly encourage him to take a greater interest in political ongoings.
In a run down of an average night at the club, Alice Cooper recalls “The Hollywood Vampires would meet at the Rainbow Bar and Grill every single night. And we would go up there, and I don’t remember anybody ever talking about music. Because I think this was our escape from music.
“You had all these guys that would just like to drink. And Harry [Nilsson] and John [Lennon], after they drank five or six drinks … I’d have to sit between them. Because if John said ‘black,’ Harry would say ‘white.’ If Harry would say ‘Republican,’ John would say ‘Democrat.’”
The rocker claimed that, despite the duos differences, they would purposefully bring up political controversies “because they loved to fight with each other.” Cooper played mediator between the pair, making sure things never got too out of hand, and to “sit them both down and go, ‘Stop, stop, stop!’”
Cooper’s neutrality allegedly bothered Lennon, leading him to inquire about the singer’s lack of political opinion. Cooper explains, “The one thing about John was he always tried to get me more into politics. And I told him, ‘John, you’re trying to save the world. I’m just trying to entertain them.”
