Kane Roberts, the former heavy metal guitarist and songwriter for Alice Cooper during the late 1980s, defended his previous use of anabolic steroids in a recent interview with Gerry Gittelson for the Metal Sludge website published on April 13, 2013. Roberts was likely the first heavy metal musician to become involved in the bodybuilding lifestyle complete with the use of steroids. And Kane Roberts had the physique to prove it.
Roberts was always recognizable on stage due to his hypermuscular “Rambo-like” appearance. While the resemblance to Sylvester Stallone’s popular movie character may have been coincidental, Roberts played up the similarities and transformed himself into a glam rock version of Rambo complete with a machine-gun styled electric guitar.
The Metal Sludge interview represented the first time Roberts publicly discussed his use of anabolic steroids. Roberts explained that he “dabbled” with steroids but didnt’ “go crazy on steroids.” He didn’t experience any serious side effects and his use was generally limited to what sounded like one 12-week cycle per year. The benefits from his use of steroids clearly outweighed the costs according to Roberts.
“Yeah, I did that, but there were no side effects. I think you can abuse any drug, even if you take too many aspirin, but recreational drugs are a different deal,” Roberts told Gittelson of Metal Sludge. “I don’t want to get on a soap box, but if you do drugs, you’re life will go nowhere. You’ll just be standing still. That’s really true. You need to keep your brain firing on all pistons. But with steroids, there are some benefits to it, so I took ‘em. Still, sometimes I would walk into Gold’s gym, and some of the women would be three times bigger than the men, and that used to blow my mind. I wouldn’t go crazy on steroids. I would do ‘em, then do nine months clean on the road. But yeah, I definitely dabbled. Good or bad, the side effects, it’s make you feel a little different, but I don’t think there was any damage.”
Roberts has credited bodybuilding (and steroids) for helping him turn his life around in a dramatic “Charles Atlas” type transformation. His new-found bodybuilding lifestyle provided a healthier alternative to the previous period in his life that was dominated by alcohol and psychoactive drugs.
“It was a weird thing because I used to do a lot of drugs, I used to drink and I was 130 pounds – real skinny,” Roberts told Chris Hunt of Guitarist magazine in February 1988. “A little more than five years ago when the smoke cleared I was lifting weights – and here I am 90 pounds later! It wasn’t something that I planned on doing, it wasn’t like I said ‘boy, this is great marketing idea’.”
It was Roberts’ clean living lifestyle and abstinence from drugs (except for steroids) that attracted a newly-sober Alice Cooper to him. Cooper had his own problems with substance abuse addiction and he was looking for a guitarist who stayed away from drugs while on tour.
Roberts has been given a lot of credit for Alice Cooper’s heavy metal revival during the late 1980s during the Constrictor and Raise Your Fist and Yell tours.
While bodybuilding and steroids helped Roberts during a critical period in his life, his obsession with bodybuilding represented a relatively short-lived phase for Roberts.
“I do know why I stopped though – the smaller my legs got, the bigger my dick looked,” Roberts explained.
About the author
Millard writes about anabolic steroids and performance enhancing drugs and their use and impact in sport and society. He discusses the medical and non-medical uses of anabolic-androgenic steroids while advocating a harm reduction approach to steroid education.
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