'It was tribal and sexual': Alice Cooper on the debauchery of Detroit rock

When the shock-rocker returned to the place of his birth in the 60s, he found a raw paradise of unsegregated rock'n'roll. As Cooper releases an album celebrating the city, he and his peers relive one of the US's greatest music scenes

In the beginning there was the production line; the hammering and the pumping and the noise. Always the noise. Detroit was an industrial city," says Alice Cooper. It was like Newcastle. Everybody worked for Ford or Chevrolet or GMC. Everybody's parents worked on the assembly line. The kids were street kids. I think the Detroit sound has something to do with working with big machines; it made people feel at home hearing big, loud, rock music."