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Halloween will arrive a bit early this year when Alice Cooper comes to the venerable Ventura Theatre on Sunday night to welcome fans to his nightmare and hard rock horror show.

Just as scary and much louder than the “The X-Files,” Cooper was one of the first musicians to combine major theatrics and rock, and then sold lots of records. Opening will be pouty teen girlie rockers the Donnas.

Cooper will bring his outrageous, elaborate stage show, which in the past has included everything from guillotines to boa constrictors. As the inventor of “shock rock,” Cooper has influenced such acts as KISS, Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Rob Zombie and Slipknot. He has toured the world and scared millions, recorded countless gold and platinum albums and scored with nine Top 40 hits, including “School’s Out,” “No More Mr. Nice Guy” and “Poison.”

A self-described combination of Bela Lugosi and Eddie Haskell, Cooper will offer lots of black leather and black humor as well as songs from his latest album, “Brutal Planet.” Meanwhile, Cooper discussed his favorite scary-looking golfer.

How does “Brutal Planet” fit in with what came before?

I’ve always tried to invent a new place to take Alice, and this time it’s the future.

What does Alice see in the future?

It’s a very negative future.

Sounds like the Sci-Fi Channel.

Yeah, it is. And Alice would love to live in the Sci-Fi Channel. It’s a perfect vehicle to do “Road Warrior” meets “Blade Runner,” sort of a futuristic and extremely nasty place.

So how many albums is that so far?

That’s 23 or 24 studio albums.

So you’ll probably be keeping your night job then?

Yes. Yes, as long as I stay healthy, skinny and can play the character well.

There’s a song on the new one called “Wicked Young Man.” Are you telling us it’s not the media’s fault and it’s not all your fault for all this youthful violence?

I think that’s just the easiest target. It’s the music and the [video] games--that must be it. If that’s true, then why didn’t every other kid at that school [Columbine High School in Colorado] kill everybody? They all played the same games, watched the same movies and listened to the same albums. Why just these two guys? I really just believe that there are people that are purely wicked. There are some people that are born killers. I really think these two kids, if they hadn’t killed then, would’ve been serial killers later.

Shock rock. Has it gone too far? Can it go too far?

Absolutely. I think it can. There’s places I don’t go. Everybody in the business has responsibilities. If you’re in the business and you’re a writer, a lyricist, a director--you definitely have a responsibility. You can write anything you want, but that doesn’t mean you can say “I don’t care who I hurt.”

Do you get royalties from Marilyn Manson, Slipknot and some of these other bands?

I should, shouldn’t I? When we broke down the doors of theater and rock, what crawled through crawled through. KISS came out. David Bowie came out and they all became theatrical acts. But before us, there were no theatrical acts--none that sold records, anyway. If you look at what Marilyn Manson does or what Slipknot does, we’re nowhere near them. They’re industrial and very high-tech kind of rock, while Alice is guitar-driven rock ‘n’ roll.

After 30 years, who have you angered the most?

Maybe the rock writers, because at the very beginning they really didn’t like this whole idea. They thought the pure musicians were like Cream, the Allman Brothers and the Grateful Dead, and if you had to do theater, then you weren’t very good musicians. Their idea was that you couldn’t play and be theatrical at the same time. We spent 90% of our time working on the music, because we knew we had to compete with Led Zeppelin. In the end, we had as many hits as anybody.

In 1970 the hippies were still happening. You guys were clearly an anecdote for all that.

Even the hippies hated us. They were peace and love, and they thought music should be free and wonderful, and we’re all just groovy out in this field, but Alice Cooper wanted a Ferrari and two blonds.

What did your parents say when you came home and said “Hello, I’m Alice now”?

They understood my sense of humor. They totally did. They got it from the beginning. They understood that for every hero out there, there should be a villain. And I had no problem being the villain.

How’s the stage show these days? How many truckloads of stuff do you bring?

I’m back to the big stage show again. If you’re going to, say, “Brutal Planet,” then you better give it to them. The cool thing about this show is it’s the same show we did in Moscow for 20,000 or in London, and it’s the same show we do in the theaters. We’ll do the same show for 20,000 as we do for 1,500. Personally, I think it works better in a theater.

So the roadies are in good shape?

Oh, yeah. They’re also in the show. Anybody that’s in my crew is in the show, even the truck drivers. Soon as they get unloaded, they get in costume.

Who goes to shows now compared to in the beginning?

Same thing. I do get the vintage audience, but I also draw as many 15-year-olds as I do 50-year-olds. It’s a pretty broad spectrum. The young kids know the history of it, because every time you see a Slipknot, Marilyn Manson or Rob Zombie article, Alice is always mentioned. So a lot of these kids want to find out what this Alice Cooper is about. “Oh, he’s the ‘School’s Out’ guy!” Or “he’s the ‘Wayne’s World’ guy” or the guy that did “Poison.” Whatever it is, there’s a history that they all understand.

What’s your secret to surviving on the road all these years?

I’m in great shape. I haven’t had a drink in 18 years. This stage show is an hour and 45 minutes of all-out aerobics. I’m in better shape now than I was 20 years ago.

I understand you’re an avid golfer.

I play every day.

So Mark Twain was wrong when he said “Golf is a good walk ruined”?

You know, those are just guys that can’t play well that say stuff like that. That’s funny because I play golf with Pantera and Iggy Pop. People may think golf isn’t cool, but every single rock icon plays golf. Lou Reed plays golf.

So would Tiger Woods wear an Alice Cooper T-shirt?

Absolutely. I actually gave him a black leather Alice Cooper jacket.

Anywhere you haven’t scared people yet?

I haven’t been to China, because there’s really not an audience there yet. But I think there will be a rock audience there at some point. And we haven’t done India, but we just did Bulgaria. It was like Detroit in 1975--long greasy hair and black leather jackets.

One more easy one--why Alice and why not Stephanie or Cathy?

It was the first name that came to me, absolutely the very first one. And then later on, I started thinking about it. It has a rhythm to it--Lizzy Borden, Baby Jane, Alice Cooper. It had sort of a macabre image of a little girl with a switchblade behind her back.

DETAILS

Alice Cooper, the Donnas at the Ventura Theatre, 26 Chestnut St., Sunday, 8:30 p.m. COST: $35. CALL: 653-0721.

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Being really cute didn’t hurt, but the four ladies in the Bangles also knew how to make hit records. Back together again after a decade-long hiatus, Susanna Hoffs, sisters Debbi and Vicki Peterson and Michael Steele will play some up-tempo pop rock Saturday night at the Ventura Theatre.

Emerging from the so-called “Paisley Underground” in the early ‘80s, the Bangles not only served as role models for a generation of female rockers, but they had lots of catchy pop hits including “Hero Takes a Fall,” “Walk Like an Egyptian” and a snappy Simon & Garfunkel cover, “Hazy Shade of Winter.” Their second album, “Different Light,” was No. 1 for four consecutive weeks and made Columbia Records bigwigs happy by going quadruple platinum.

Each player was involved in various solo projects during the ‘90s, but they began writing together again last year and had a song, “Get the Girl,” on the soundtrack of the last “Austin Powers” movie.

DETAILS

The Bangles at the Ventura Theatre, 26 Chestnut St., Saturday, 8 p.m. COST: $25. CALL: 653-0721.

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Pop diva Josie Aiello will be seeking to sell a few copies of her new album, “Unkunvenshunal Girl,” to the browsing bibliophiles at Borders in Thousand Oaks on Saturday night. Despite a lack of spelling skills, the Chicago native graduated from the Academy of Performing Arts High School where she was deemed Best Senior in the arts department. Claiming such diverse influences as Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin, Aiello has a Richter scale voice that should speak volumes in the store that sells them.

When Aiello came to Los Angeles a few years ago, she knew what she wanted--musical success. She worked and schmoozed, making countless demos for such heavyweights as Matthew Wilder, Don Henley and others. This led to a number of songs on movie soundtracks, which in turn led to a meeting with legendary producer Quincy Jones, the result being the new album.

“I’ve dreamed about being a recording artist since I was a little girl. I remember singing my heart out in my bedroom trying to hit Chaka Khan’s high notes. Now my dream is my reality . . . “

DETAILS

Josie Aiello at Borders Books & Music, 125 W. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks, Saturday, 7:30 p.m. COST: Free. CALL: 497-8159.