W.A.S.P. performs at Wichita’s Cotillion Ballroom on Wednesday, Dec. 4, with special guest Armored Saint.
The veteran band is celebrating the 40th anniversary of its self-titled debut album, a record that proved an auspicious introduction to a band that had created a stir in the Los Angeles music scene upon its formation in 1982.
Fronted by Blackie Lawless, a lifelong 6-foot-4 athlete, the group’s live shows involved raw meat, a torture rack and Lawless drinking blood from a skull. Inspired by a movement from the 1960s known as psychodrama, Lawless was intent on breaking down the division between audience and performers.
For some, it may have felt reminiscent of the kinds of stagecraft employed by artists such as Alice Cooper and KISS a decade earlier, and there was no doubt that Lawless was continuing a tradition as much as he and his bandmates were forging a new path.
The quartet -- initially Lawless on bass and vocals, guitarists Chris Holmes and Randy Piper, drummer Tony Richards -- created a stir when its first single “Animal (F**k Like A Beast)” was dropped from the debut album when major label Capitol Records feared that it would be too controversial. It saw the light of day in the U.K. on the Music For Nations label and predictably created a stir in that market.
When the full LP arrived in August 1984, W.A.S.P. had already built a solid fan base and gained some allies in the media. It probably didn’t hurt that they were then managed by Rod Smallwood, who was in the process of transforming Iron Maiden into a global brand.
Whatever the hype surrounding W.A.S.P., the group delivered on the musical front. The debut record, produced by Lawless and indie label mogul Mike Varney, announced itself with thunderous drums, British blues rock and glam-inflected vocals and songs that ranged from the anthemic “I Wanna Be Somebody” to the ballad “Sleeping (In The Fire).”
The chemistry that the four musicians had found seemed undeniable and yet Richards was soon fired from the band (reportedly for drug use) and replaced by Steve Riley. From that moment forward, W.A.S.P. became a different band. Whereas the debut record featured all four members on the cover, subsequent releases would spotlight Lawless and by the time 1992’s “The Crimson Idol” arrived, he would be the sole remaining original member.
There were other changes as well: Although the first three W.A.S.P. albums focused largely on typical rock ‘n’ roll lyrical fare (sex, mostly, with the occasional nod to being in a rock band), 1989’s “The Headless Children” marked a move toward explorations of global politics and social issues, which would continue with later albums such as 2001’s “Unholy Terror” and 2002’s “Dying For the World.”
By 2015, Lawless’ renewed dedication to Christianity revealed itself in the material on that year’s “Golgotha.” The man who had once shot sparks from his crotch on stage would no longer perform the group’s debut single in the live setting. And in videos posted on YouTube, he could sometimes be seen praying on stage or asking fans to take a moment of silence to acknowledge the victims of tragedies.
The group’s fan base remained loyal in various territories, although Lawless and his bandmates were absent from U.S. stages for a decade, only beginning to reconnect with American live audiences in 2022, albeit to high attendance numbers and positive reviews.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.
You had been in bands before W.A.S.P. but W.A.S.P. was the one that took off. What was different about the group that you were able to sign a deal with a major label?
It’s that 10,000-hour rule. It does take time to develop whatever you’re doing, to have the band look like they came out of nowhere is a little bit of an illusion because a lot of musicians in the L.A. area back then had been here for a long time, honing our craft, developing those songs. It may have looked like an explosion overnight, but that was not the case.
I remember when the first record came out in 1984. I had seen pictures of the band in magazines for months before and then to have the record in my hand and hear that the music delivered was great. Was there tension with the press early on, them thinking, “Well, this is just an image band?”
The show was so overwhelming it was like they weren’t hearing the record. We never got any of what you’re saying, and quite honestly, I never thought about that, and I guess we’re lucky to have dodged that. When we first went to Europe, we were doing interviews, several a day, and I wasn’t used to that pace, but there was a pattern. If an interview was 30 minutes, for 25 of those 30 minutes, they talked about the show. I thought, “OK, that’s all right.” But no one was talking about the record. That started to get my attention after the first couple of days. I thought, “We’re on a major label. Why is nobody talking about this record? We think the record’s OK.”
We’d get to the end of an interview, and I’d say, “OK, but we have this record out,” and they’d go, “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.” We learned a very valuable lesson: When you do something visually that’s really intense, people are always going to end up listening with their eyes. I think we’re all guilty of that to a degree. But that’s also part of the 10,000 hours.
You were signed to a major label, but you co-produced with Mike Varney, who had some credits to his name, but he was not someone with a string of gold albums attached to him. Did the label have any trepidation about that?
I’m sure they did, but they didn’t know what we were doing, so they didn’t know how to deal with us. I had signed with Rod Smallwood, who was managing Iron Maiden at the time. Maiden had a couple of records out already. They weren’t big stars yet, but they were certainly on the rise. But because EMI had no clue as to what either band was doing, they basically left us alone. The results were speaking for themselves. We were selling records, and they were happy, but they had no clue how we were doing it. They gave us the keys to the kingdom and said, “OK, just let us know when you’re done.”
I remember having conversations years later with other artists, and they would tell me how label guys were always in the studio bugging ’em. I remember thinking, “That must be odd.” Only twice in my entire career had anybody from the label ever come down to a studio while we were working. One of those times was when I invited one of them. The time that I didn’t invite them, I gave them such a cold shoulder because I didn’t appreciate them showing up unannounced that they got the message and just never came back. We were in bliss and didn’t really even understand that bliss.
It's very reminiscent of what bands from the ’60s would say about getting signed. The label guys didn’t necessarily understand it, but they’d go into a club on the Sunset Strip, see that it was packed with kids having a good time and say, “Well, maybe this should be on a record.”
That’s exactly what was going on with us.
I wanted to talk about some of the material on the album, especially the song “The Flame.” I know that some of the L.A. bands of the time were influenced by British bands such as Humble Pie, but I thought the four of you demonstrated on that song that you got that British/R&B groove in a way some of your contemporaries didn’t.
The germ of that song came from Mike Varney. I had known Mike for a long time, and he was working with a couple of guys in the Bay Area, up in San Francisco, and they had the start of it. By the time we got it, we put it through our filter, and it ended up becoming the song that you know now. But there were a lot of different influences going on. I am a huge Motown guy. And you mentioned Humble Pie. Look at Steve Marriott and the blues influence there. I’m a massive Slade fan, massive Beatles fan, Elvis, all the big ones.
“I Wanna Be Somebody” is in many ways the quintessential W.A.S.P. song. I wondered if 40 years later you have a different perspective on what it’s about.
About three years ago, Doug Blair, our guitar player, and I were talking about this very thing. He’s from Boston originally, but he goes back and forth between Boston and Sweden. He’s gotten to have a unique perspective of the European view of things. He said, “We look at that song from an American perspective. That it’s about hope. If I try and I struggle, I can get to where I want to go.” He told me that the European view of that is not what we think it is. I asked him to explain. He said, “The European perspective on that is that they feel they are never going to have the opportunities that we have here in America. To them, it’s a cry for help.”
After he said that to me, and I would talk with friends from Europe, I would quiz them about this very thing and to a man each one of them said that that was indeed the case. That that is exactly the way they saw it. So, there I was writing it from a complete American perspective, not even understanding the success it’s going to have around the world that I never intended. Like Ringo used to say, “Nothin’ like a good mistake.”
[Laughs.] I ask that because I had a conversation with a friend of mine not that long ago and he said, “I think that’s about someone who’s going to commit an act of desperation.” I had never considered that.
Tom Brady was talking about this earlier this year when he got inducted into the Patriots’ Hall of Fame. He said, “Successful people are not special. They’re just willing to do things that the rest of the people aren’t willing to do.” There was a character on the show “Barney Miller” named Ron Harris. He was writing a book called “Blood on the Badge,” that they called “BOB.” Before he started writing the book, he was sleepwalking one night and was going through this whole tirade of things that were not right in his life. Just before he woke up from sleepwalking, he screamed, “Oh God! I wanna be somebody!” I look at that and think that that’s exactly where I was at that time. I think that a lot of people have to feel like that.
There was a real chemistry with the lineup of the band on that debut record. Was it disappointing to you that that lineup was pretty much done by the time the record came out?
You always hear that phrase, “musical differences,” and that really was the case. I was growing. There were things that I wanted to do, and I needed a level of musicianship that I could just not get with that lineup. Tony Richards, our original drummer? Exciting. I loved Tony. I really did. He was gone early on and then, when it came time to do “Headless Children” (1989), the degree of drumming that I knew I wanted on that album could not be done by the person we had at the time. That really was the case for “The Crimson Idol” (1992). That was Bob Kulick (KISS, Meat Loaf) and Frankie Banali (Quiet Riot). That just could not be done by the original lineup.
With this tour, you’re coming out and doing the first album in order and then a second half that’s key tracks from across your career. I think that’s a good way for people to get a sense of the creative arc because by the time we get to “Headless Children,” it’s only a few years after the debut, it’s a different band; it’s a different world, too.
Not just a different world from the world’s perspective, but from ours as well. By that point you’re five years into your career; you’ve been around the world umpteen times, you’ve seen things would have never seen otherwise. You’re cramming five years of living into the average person’s one. You’re seeing and doing a lot of things that the average person is never going to see. It doesn’t make you better, it’s just different. As an artist, you’re saying, “OK, how do I make records that reflect who I am?” Five years down the road, I couldn’t write that first record anymore. I was a different person. I look at it now and scratch my head and go, “How did I do that?” I did that because that’s who I was at that moment.
When we were making that first record, that’s one of the most valuable things that I learned: Make records that reflect who you are at the moment, don’t try to pay attention to what’s going on in the charts, or what’s the flavor of the month, or any of that stuff because if you do then you’re going to be chasing trends and there’s no truth in that. You have to do what you believe in and if you’re doing that, you’re going to be one of those artists that’s going to develop a fan base that’s going to carry you throughout your whole career.
That’s the whole object of what any real artist does: If you do it for five, 10 years, that’s great. But if you’re an artist that can go 20 or 30 years, then you’ve got a fan base that’s going to stay with you that whole time. The whole point is for [the audience] to say, “OK, I’ve changed. I’m not the person I was five years ago, the person I used to be,” so when they hear a record today that they listened to five or 10 years ago, they’re going to hear it in a completely different way because they’ve grown but you have to have truth in that. If you don’t, then they’re never going to feel like you’re being intimate with them, and if you’re not intimate with them, you will never take them on that lifelong ride.
You’re playing The Cotillion and although I didn’t live in Wichita at the time, I’m aware that that was one of the stops on the famous 1985 tour with you, Armored Saint and Metallica. Do you have strong memories of that tour?
I have strong memories of that tour, but I have even stronger memories of that show because I wasn’t there.
Oh.
We got to Wichita a day before the show and had the day off. A couple of the crew guys wanted to go to a Greek restaurant. I had never had Greek food before. I tagged along, and I got something called tabouli. But I also got something in that tabouli that I wasn’t planning on. It was food poisoning. For three days I couldn’t get out of bed. They actually brought doctors into the hotel where I was at because I couldn’t get out of bed. That’s one of the times that I’ve been closest to death in my life. I’m not joking. A lot of people can die from food poisoning. It happens every year. I was one of those who got a really, really bad case of it. So, that is my memory of not playing Wichita the first time.
