New band name: Alice Cooper
In 1968, the band learned that Todd Rundgren also had a band called the Nazz, and found themselves in need of another stage name. Furnier also believed that the group needed a gimmick to succeed, and that other bands were not exploiting the showmanship potential of the stage. The legend is that the name "Alice Cooper" came from a session with a Ouija board, largely chosen because it sounded innocuous and wholesome, in humorous contrast to the band's image and music. However, in an interview with Mark Radcliffe on the Radcliffe and Maconie show on BBC Radio 2 on November 30, 2009, Vince Furnier described the incident with the ouija board as an urban legend. He said "We literally got that whole story about the witch thing the way you guys got it. It was like just pure urban legend. I heard about the witch thing probably the same day you did, but it was a great story." Eventually Furnier adopted this stage name as his own from 1969 onwards, being referred to as Alice Cooper on the cover of the band's debut album. He recalled:
We were called the Nazz and we found out about Todd Rundgren's band who were called the Nazz. So I said let's not come up with a name that's dark, because they're expecting that. I said, "What if we sounded like we were somebody's aunt?" It was kind of like the all-American, sweet little old lady name. And I wasn't Alice Cooper. I was just the singer in the band Alice Cooper, like Manfred Mann. Pretty soon everybody called me Alice, they just assumed that the singer's name was Alice. So, at that point, I legally changed my name to Alice Cooper. It was a total outrage at the time. Now it's a household name.
The singer considers the name change one of his most important and successful career moves.
The classic Alice Cooper group line-up consisted of Furnier, lead guitarist Glen Buxton, rhythm guitarist/keyboardist Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway and drummer Neal Smith – all former members of the Spiders. This lineup stayed intact through 1974.
The band's first gig that used the name Alice Cooper was on March 16, 1968, at Earl Warren Fairgrounds in Santa Barbara. The posters still showed the band as the Nazz. After a 1968 gig at the Cheetah club in Venice, California, where most of the club's patrons left after hearing the band play just ten minutes, they were approached by music manager Shep Gordon, who saw the band's negative impact that night as a force that could be turned in a more productive direction. Shep arranged an audition for the band with renowned musical artist and record producer Frank Zappa, who was looking to sign bizarre music acts to his new record label, Straight Records. Zappa told them to come to his house "at 7 o'clock" for an audition. The band mistakenly assumed he meant 7 o'clock in the morning. Being woken up by a band willing to play that particular brand of music at seven in the morning impressed Zappa enough for him to sign them to a three-album deal. "Frank was the only one who stuck out his neck for us, for me," recalled Furnier himself. "He was the one who said, 'Here's a band that everybody in the business is laughing at – I like 'em.' ... He was the outcast in L.A. and so were we." The first three Alice Cooper albums were released on Zappa's Straight label.
Another Zappa-signed act, the all-female GTOs, were encouraged to dress up the Alice Cooper band members in women's clothing and heavy makeup, and played a major role in developing the band's early onstage look.
In June 1969, Alice Cooper released its first album, Pretties for You, which barely cracked the Billboard Top 200 albums chart at No. 193. The band was the subject of media criticism after Furnier threw a live chicken into the audience during the 1969 Toronto Rock 'n' Roll Revival Festival. The audience ripped the chicken, whose name was Dutchess, to shreds.
In March 1970, the band released the album Easy Action, which did not chart. Also in 1970, the band had two songs ("Titanic Overture" and "Refrigerator Heaven") that appeared on a Warner Bros sampler album, Zapped, featuring acts produced by Zappa.
