W.A.S.P. Biography
This biography was originally from Snapper Music with few modifications.
A history of blood, guts, extreme heavy metal and rock n' roll.
There have been more rock bands to come down the
proverbial pike then anyone would care to count - each boasting
that they are unique, different and in some cases better than
all the rest. There are only a select few who proudly bear the
tag "shock rock" as the key to what makes them truly different
and interesting. They are those artists who take the music, the
live show and the life style beyond the extreme simply because
they can. And though many have tried their hand at the "art of
sick" few have mastered it and only one has coined it as their
own, leading the way for some of today's top acts. That band
is W.A.S.P. They prove that the
spirit of sonic, in your face, sleazy rock 'n' roll is more
than just alive and well. It's spitting blood and taking names.
Founded in 1982 by X-rated frontman and Staten
Island native Blackie Lawless, who was born on 4 September 1956
(formerly of New York Dolls and Killer Kane). Having grown up
in religious surrounding with a deacon for a grandfather and a
preacher for an uncle it was pretty much in the cards that
Blackie would rebel against his background. But no one could
have predicted just how far he would go.
In the late '70's, Blackie
set out to gather some musicians together to help him record
some demos after a short stint punk band, Sister which was best
known for chewing worms on-stage and for being the first LA
outfit to adopt a pentagram as their symbol (this was to
become almost standard for West Coast acts in the mid to
late 80's). Finding undeniable chemistry with the troupe he
had assembled, which consisted of Lawless (lead vocals and bass),
guitarist Randy Piper (also from Sister) guitarist Chris Holmes
, born on 23 June 1961 (who Blackie recruited after spotting him posing nude in the
"For Ladies" section of Hustler) and drummer Tony Richards,
the four set out to play gigs around LA. By 1983, they had done
an excellent (and quite unrepentant) job developing a
reputation for themselves as the most outrageous on this or
any planet.
Just one year later, W.A.S.P.
newly signed to Capitol Records, released their self-titled
debut, which blasted on to the charts and shook the very
foundation of the music biz. Combining hard-edged guitar work
with pop laden rhythm, the band created an overall sound of
heavy yet catchy music while lyrically dealing with the
obscene, disturbing and truly scary. What was to have been the
lead track, "Animal [F*** Like A Beast]", was dropped from the
record by Capitol due to its controversial nature, however it
was later released through The Music for Nations label and
sold about 400,000 units. This track may stand out as one of
the most notorious of the rock 'n' roll era, a caustic
celebration of all things primal and evidence of this band's
indeed potent chemistry.
Replacing Tony Richards with Steppenwolf's Steve
Riley, the band embarked on their first world tour only to meet
with extreme opposition from all corners. With Blackie
's stage antics that ranged from "Meat Grinder" where he would
throw live rats into a meat grinder, crank the handle, pull out
hamburger from underneath and fling it and other raw meat into
the crowd, "The Rack" where he would simulate slitting the
throat of a beautiful woman trapped in a large wooden case,
"Shoot From the Hip" a codpiece he wore that shot sparks,
drinking blood from a skull and more, W.A.S.P drew the
attention of the parents Resource Music Committee. At the
1985 Senate Commerce Committee Hearings, W.A.S.P. became a
prime example of all that is obscene in rock, illustrated with
a photo of Lawless posed with a chain saw jutting
none-too-subtly between his legs. While history shows that
many tour dates scheduled around the world throughout their
career, eventually had to be cancelled as a result of local
civic groups bringing pressure to bear on promoters as to the
kind of acts they were inviting to their towns, the resulting
media coverage boosted the band's notoriety especially with
teen's all too ready to rebel against their parents. The media
frenzy also served to boost album sales.
Several line-up changes and five album later
(totalling over 4 million sold), it would seem that the
W.A.S.P. days were winding down. In 1993, sounding the end of an era, Blackie
announced that the band would disband and that he would begin
pursuing a solo career. Still Not Black enough (Castle Records)
was released in 1996 (actually under the W.A.S.P.
name). It was only soon thereafter at England's Donnington
Festival, that Blackie and Holmes announced via the
enormous video screen their plans for reuniting for a new
album. "We're going to make what we used to do look like
f***ing Ghandi!" claimed Lawless.
W.A.S.P went on to release K.F.D. (Kill f*** Die) also for Castle Record in 1997,
solidifying their place as the kings of shock rock. But beyond
the antics, the controversy and the strong look of the group
- "futuristic primitive" in catwalk jargon - there was always
danger, particularly early on, of outside observers losing
sight of the strength of music, the substance behind the
show. Yet lack of substance was something Lawless could never
be accused of!
Throughout their storied career, W.A.S.P.
have never been a band that's been afraid to take risks. Their
early recordings, like their self-titled debut and 'The Last
Command', ignited the war over censorship and album
stickering while the politically charged 'Headless Children'
and the conceptual 'Crimson Idol' revealed that behind all
the controversy was a heavy metal band of substance. W.A.S.P.'s
1997 release 'KFD' was the band's darkest effort and the
world tour supporting 'KFD' was considered downright
blasphemous by some.
The May 1999 release of 'HELLDORADO' was an
unabashed return to W.A.S.P.'s early sound of sex, blood, and rock 'n' roll. No fancy
frills, no distractions; 'HELLDORADO' is rock 'n' roll the
way it was meant to be - hard!
"You know when you're walking down the street
and you see an old girlfriend, and she's looking pretty
good, and you're like, 'Hey, why ain't I f***ing you anymore?'"
asks W.A.S.P. founder and mainstay, Blackie Lawless."You
know what I mean? You miss it. When we did 'Double Live
Assassins', it re-introduced us to the sound and style of
our first two albums. Now I'm kinda like 'How did we get
away from this style, this attitude?'"
"The mood that you're in when you make a
record is reflective of who you are at that time. When you
look at how dark 'KFD' was and then you look at the frame of
mind Chris and I were in when we first got back together in late'95, there was like a
shroud of hostility around us. By the time we did the live
album, we didn't feel like that anymore. Once we got the
whole 'KFD' thing out of our systems it was like, 'OK we've
done that, now what do we feel like doing?'"
"I don't like making records back to back that
sound the same," explains Blackie. "Because of that I'm hard to pin down and unpredictable. I'm
sure that has hurt me but I've been lucky enough to sell
enough records to keep me floating. I've got a dedicated fan
base that's enabled me to keep the flexibility to experiment.
Historically W.A.S.P. have always made records that reflect what we were thinking at the time."
"When a band starts out they take the approach
that they're not going to do anything in the studio that they
can't do live. After a band has an album or two under their
belts, a producer will suggest, 'Let's do this and let's do
that.' Eventually most bands will give in to the idea of what
you can do in the studio versus what you can do live. The
logic goes from 'No, we can't do that live so we don't want
to do it all the way' to 'Okay, let's do this for the record
and then we'll figure out what to do live later. By that
direction, it puts you in a space where the writing becomes
less technical and the songs have a characteristic all their
own."
Blackie may have gotten into the music business for one simple reason
("to get my dick sucked"), but once the plunge had been
taken he stoically set about pursing a vision that had
nothing to do with preaching or pontificating, and everything
to do with entertaining an audience in different ways and on a
multitude of different levels. He led W.A.S.P.
to continuously pierce through the heart of hard rock music
to a metallic sphere where few willingly go, puncturing an
otherwise listless and dull surface. For light to exist there
must be darkness.
CHAINSAW CHARLIE 2000-2004