Alice Cooper Guitarist Kane Roberts Wants His Machine Gun Guitar Back At Shows

Following the return of Kane Roberts with Alice Cooper, the guitarist is hoping that his trademark machine gun guitar could also make a comeback onstage during his five-week run.

Roberts made his return after Nita Strass departed from the band. He is set to hit the stage with old friend Cooper during September and October this year. In a recent interview with Vinyl Writer Music, Roberts noted that the custom instrument’s return was expected, saying:

“We’ll see what happens. Because there’s a lot of things involved with doing … I told Alice… ‘You know, a lot of people took that idea, and now we have to compete with that.’

“Nikki Sixx is now shooting flames, and the same thing with Gene Simmons, and they even had a heavy metal guitar player in the new Road Warrior movie that shot flames with his guitar, too. So, I said, ‘We’re competing with that now. Whatever we do, if we do use it, it’s got to be a lot more robust than what we did before.’ … I think it would be fun though, so we’ll see what happens.”

The rocker said the guitar was remarkably comfortable to play with, but he recalled a time when it gave him a problem:

“There was one time when we were at a theater and it didn’t shoot, and I went, ‘Ah, shit. Okay.’ I don’t know why, but it didn’t shoot, and it didn’t shoot the night before either.

“I did the dumbest thing – I did the thing you’re never supposed to do onstage because you’re just supposed to roll with it. … I kind of looked back at the drummer, Ken K. Mary … and I was like, ‘Oh, Jesus, it’s not working again.’ … Ken, he like pointed at the audience, and I turned around, and it was shooting flames over the audience! Man, I wasn’t paying attention.”

When asked if he had any hopes for the reunion beyond the tour, Roberts admitted:

“Well, I do want to record and sing with him. … Right now, it’s five weeks … there’s a sort of a semblance of perfection in that, right? It has a beginning and an end to it. But if it evolves past that, there will be reasons why it should, and if it doesn’t then there will be reasons why it shouldn’t.”