When Alice Cooper said the 1980 film This Is Spinal Tap hit a bit too close to home, he was speaking from many personal experiences.
Cooper, who's career was built in large part due to a daring stage show full of dramatic posing and bombast, has had plenty of moments on stage that reminded him of his mortality.
The frontman recalled in a recent interview how he accidentally stabbed himself with a real sword that had belonged to Hollywood swashbuckler Errol Flynn.
"It was one of his dueling swords," Cooper told Eddie Trunk in a recent interview. "I'm pretty good with it; I look pretty good up there with that."
Cooper describes attempting to stick the sword in the stage while looking out into the audience. But instead he stuck the sword in his thigh.
"Right through my leg. And when you have that much adrenaline onstage, it hurts, but it doesn't hurt that much."
So what did Cooper do? He left it for a while. When he finally tried to extract the blade, he remembers watching blood squirting from the self-inflicted wound.
"Now, the audience thinks it's a trick, because it's a good illusion. The band knows it's not a trick and they're [gagging]...There's little [puddles] of blood everywhere."
In fact, Cooper says he wasn't in much pain...until the end of the show. And instead of getting the doctor-recommended tetanus shot, Cooper self-medicated by pouring a bottle of whiskey into his wound.
"Because that's what James Bond would do," he said.
Oy! Watch Cooper relive the mishap in the video above.
Photo: Getty Images