“Fall 1982……..and the Climb”
That last show went pretty well and we were basking in the afterglow of it, feeling that we were beginning to find our true direction. Although there were less than 100 people at the show, things would change quickly as the crowds would double at each new gig. But it was clear that we were gonna be musical orphans as far as a major record company was concerned, at least until we could make enough noise where they would be forced to pay (and I mean PAY $$$) attention to us. So if a record label wouldn’t adopt us, then it would have to be the people. That’s really what happened. We did it the old fashioned way. We took it to the kids and let them decide. One of the
crew that worked for us had a workshop that his Father owned and it was a  complete metal and woodworking shop. We spent months there, day after day, night after night, working on whatever idea’s we could dream up. The first thing we built there was the “torture rack” that we used with the half naked girl, which we would refer to latter as “the rack girl”. Over the years there were 5 different girls that played the part. The song “Tormentor”, on our first album, was written specifically for this part of the show. In show business these type of things are called “gags”. That’s what we were doing in that shop. Coming up with as many “gags” as we could to create a visual bombardment on the audience. As we started to get a feel for the direction of where we were going, what I wanted to do was, unlike most Rock Shows when it was over, the people were walking out of the venue all excited and talking loud. I wanted people leaving our shows to be able to hear a pin drop. I wanted them to be running the video tape in their heads backward and ask themselves, “What in the World did I just see”?
Now all of this being said, I knew we would be thought of as a “Shock Band”, but I wanted more. I wanted to make a social statement. I wanted to make people think. To think about, not what they just saw, but how it applied to their lives. If it was only “shock for shock’s sake” then that, as I’ve said before would be incredibly boring with absolutely no point. So really the whole social comment thing was my way of saying to the world, ”Hey, if you don’t like what you see in this Band, don’t blame us, were only a reflection, a mirror if you like, of what’s really going on in the real world”. Looking back now, nobody got it !! Nobody got the message and I’m sure even if they would have it would have come off as me trying to be “self righteous”. None of this would become clear to me till a couple of years latter.
Back to the workshop. After the “rack” was finished the next thing we started on was the W.A.S.P. “flaming sign”. Now this thing was a monster in it’s own way. Not only the way it looked when it was finished, but equally what we had to do to build it. None of us, and I mean NONE of us had any clue how to put this thing together or how to make it work. Talk about trial and error. First, we built the W.A.S.P. letters out of plywood and then the bolt heads were added on it to make them look like the logo I designed for the earlier advertising posters. Then came the frame for the propane (fuel) that went around the letters. The problem was, the metal pipe that made the frame had holes drilled 1 inch apart, all around the inside of the frame for the propane to come out. We didn’t know we needed EQUAL pressure all the way around the frame. That pressure is what makes all the flames equal in height. All propane tanks have a shut off valve and something called a spark arrester. They are safe with those two things on it, but if you take them off, well, you potentially have a bomb on your hands because the flames can sometimes go back up inside the tank. If that would have happened…..BANG!!! I would not be writing this right now!! It would have taken a whole building down. But it was the ONLY way we could get the thing to work, so guess what? Some nights when we were playing the Troubadour, the flames would shoot up so high, it would burn the wooden support beams over the top of the stage. Only by the Grace of God did we not ever have a major problem!!! To this day you can still see the burn marks on the wooden rafter beams.
We also found later, that the sign would get so hot, it made people drink more…….a lot more!!! The Troubadour knew it too and once we actually threatened them not to use the sign to get them to pay us more money. So they did!! We set records for alcohol sales there that have never been broken.
 It was one afternoon while we were in the workshop, I looked over and leaning against a window was a 12 inch round saw blade. I looked at it and just started laughing. The others looked at me wonder what was so funny and I said, “I wonder what that would look like between my legs”? A kind of half crazy smile came across their faces. Now this was either going to be the best thing ever, or, the dumbest thing ever imagined. You gotta remember, nothing like this had ever been done before. So is it cool, or is it STUPID? Only one way to find out. We made a cardboard template as a pattern and then cut the metal blade with a cutting torch to fit me. I walked out at the next show and the place went wild!! Looking back you might ask, why was I worried? I really felt I was taking a big chance. Little did I know that our trademark logo was being born. The arm blades were added later as sort of a matching ensemble!! The original codpiece in addition to the blade also had large screws coming out of it and I had a matching arm gauntlet with the same kind of screws. The idea of not being sure if this was or was not a good idea too, seems funny now because there are all kinds of bands that have nails and screws coming out of their stage outfits, but when nobody had done it yet, you always wonder if you’re going to get laughed off the stage.
Now while ALL of this is going on, the Band is rehearsing. I’ve told the story before but even now it seems unbelievable. In the very beginning we rehearsed in a two car garage but that only lasted about a month. Then we moved into an abandoned laundry mat for a month. For everybody outside the U. S., that’s a place you take your clothes to get washed. Too bad the machines didn’t work because in those days clean clothes were hard to come by. Imagine stopping in the middle of a song to throw in another load! but no such luck. As a side note, where the laundry mat was located was on the corner of Santa Monica Blvd. and Vine St. in Hollywood. The reason I mention this is, across the street was the building where we would eventually build the “Fort Apache” studio where the first album we recorded was “The Crimson Idol”. Honestly, getting from one side of that street to the other was one of the longest walks I ever took.
The next place we rehearsed, even to this day, nobody believes when I tell them. We found a place that sold farm products and had large refrigeration units where they stored milk, cheese and meat. Yes, we were rehearsing in a Meat Locker!! It still had the hooks on the walls for hanging the meat. It was a very small space, about 2 meters by 6 meters and the temperature was keep around 3 degrees Celsius (38 degrees Fahrenheit) and you could see your breath. When we took breaks we would be sweaty and you could see the steam rising off the tops of our shoulders and our heads. It was $25 a week and we were there for about two months. When we would tell people that the Band that threw Raw Meat was rehearsing in a meat locker, no body believed it. That’s a TRUE story!!
We played the Troubadour working our way up from a Tuesday night to a Wednesday night to a Thursday night to a Friday and then a Friday/Saturday nights. All in a four month period. Every show the crowds got bigger and bigger. Many nights the shows were over sold beyond capacity. There were a large set of double doors at the entrance. Some nights the doors would be opened to handle the shear volume of people and from the stage I could see people standing out in the middle of Santa Monica Boulevard (it’s a divided 4 lane road) and there would be 100 or more people standing out there that couldn’t get tickets. I would turn and sing to them out in the street and they would go crazy!! Try to picture that. I’ve not seen anything like that since. It was highly unusual, but then again….so was the Band!!!
The local music magizine was the Music Connection and every week they published a list of the top ticket selling groups in Los Angeles. Eventually we became the number one band. We had NO money, but we looked like we had MILLIONS!!!! All from the things that were born in that workshop……Thank You Kirk!!
From there we moved on to bigger venues and then theatres, and less than eleven months from the time we played our first show we played the Santa Monica Civic Arena (3000 seats). We were connecting with the crowds and we grew very quickly. So much for the band that never had any intention of playing live!
All this with no manager and NO RECORD COMPANY!!!! We were now too big for them to refuse to pay attention to us any longer. Very Soon, EMI/Capitol Records would come calling!!!!.
More Next Month!!!
B. L
W.A.S.P. "30 Years Of Thunder" - Part Four |
“BLOOD MONEY”
It’s now the summer of 83’ and we were in A&M Records studio doing our 3rd set of demo’s. What was wrong with the first 2 demo’s you ask? Years later I would ask myself that same question. Those early demo’s were fantastic. They were raw, gritty and nasty and actually better than what our first record ended up sounding like. So why all the torture? At that time all the major labels were looking for a more polished sound with a more sophisticated production. So, we bought into that garbage. By the time we finally got around to recording the album the energy was being sacrificed by attempting to satisfy a labels need for that type of sound. I’ll explain all that later on down the road. So there we were, doing a demo on “Love Machine” (and the rest) for the 3rd time. There was just one small problem. We were broke !!
With little to no way of paying for the studio time. A&M was a very
expensive place. About $1,000.00 a day. We were in studio A (the big
room). The same place were the video for “We Are The World” was done a
year later, It’s also the same room were the video for the Hearing Aid
“We’re Stars” was shot (which Chris and I participated). Because we were
not signed to a major label, the studio would not advance us time
WITHOUT payment first. What money we had from the earlier shows from
that year was almost gone. We had been there almost a month and still needed another couple of weeks. While all of this is happening I am becoming very concerned about the lack a any major Iabel making a serious offer to us. I knew they all were watching us very closely to see if we could sustain the momentum we had built up. It was vital that if we were to play live, we had to keep moving up in the size of places we played. We could not go down in size of the venues or it would look like we were some kind of novelty act with no real chance of becoming a Band that could sell records. The problem was, we had already gone as far as we could without help from someone or some thing. There were 3 absolutely crucial moments throughout the life of this Band. Had all three not been overcome, W.A.S.P. would have never survived. This was the first of the 3. I’ll explain the other 2 in future installments. I cannot exaggerate the importance of where we were at this time in the development of our career. See, in L. A., everything is about perception (which is why I don’t live in L. A. anymore). If the perception of us in the eyes of the majors were to go down because we had to go back to smaller venues, then it was all over for us…….. Unless….. there was a great reason !!
 The Troubadour had been offering us Big sums of money to come back and play there. I kept refusing the offers because of the whole “perception” thing. Things got pretty bad and I needed money so when Cheri Curry called me up and asked me if I was interested in doing a movie. I asked what it was and she said, “don’t worry, they asked for the most “metal guy” I knew so I told them about you”. The movie was “Spinal Tap”. I got about $1000. The guy who was the booking agent at the “Troub” was Mike Glick. Not much has been written about him but I can say here and now, without him, the entire 82’-83’ metal movement in L. A. would have never happened. He was responsible in finding almost every band that came from the west coast that would later become famous. He had a fantastic ear in listening to bands demo tapes and determining who was real and who wasn’t. He kept making offers but now I was getting desperate. We needed cash, and a lot of it to finish the A&M demo’s. Then Mike said the magic words……. “$10,000.00 to come back and play 3 shows”. This was unheard of type of money back in 1983. But, we needed an “excuse” if we were going to go back to the “Troub”. A couple of days later I had seen on TV that blood donations in the U. S. were way down. At the time HIV/AIDS was just starting to get into the public consciousness but people still thought you get AIDS from donating blood. That’s when I came up with the idea for a “Heavy Metal Blood Drive”. It seemed perfect with our image, plus it was different, it had never been done before in the Rock world. But, we needed a big name sponsor to get involved. The American Red Cross was perfect because it would help them……and help us too!! They had the Name, the huge profile, and besides, they had the trucks with all the nurses to get all the blood out of the kids. The idea is just too perfect. Just one problem. Convince the mighty American Red Cross to come down with all their gear and get involved with a Band that Drank Blood, threw raw meat at the audience, and had a torture rack with a naked woman. NO PROBLEM!!!!
 The “Troub” wanted the show as bad as we did, so Mike got an appointment to go to Downtown L. A. (where their offices were) and meet with them to try and sell them this insane idea. Honestly, I didn’t think it would even get that far. So off he goes in his suit and tie (something he never wore). I didn’t go to the meeting because we didn’t want them to get a look at me, because the whole thing would have been over before it started. So after waiting all afternoon for him to get back, he walks in and says, “I think I got them to go for it”! I said, “You have to be kidding”, what kind of garbage did you tell them to get them to agree. He said, “actually they were OK with the whole idea at first, but we talked for a couple of hours and as we got to the end of the meeting they became very skeptical and asked me about the type of kids at these Rock shows with all the drinking and drugs, and I had to think of a good answer real fast”. I asked him, what’d you say? He said, “I told them, well, I’m not exactly sure what kind of kids will be at these shows, but they gotta be better than the wino’s you’re siphoning down here on skid row”!!! I screamed out loud, “YES”, I couldn’t believe he pulled this off!!! In that one statement he had performed an ABSOLUTE STROKE OF GENIUS!!!!
As a side note, 2 days before they were to bring their trucks down to that first show, I was watching TV and I saw the National Head of the American Red Cross with President Reagan. He was receiving an award for the Red Cross from the President for $1,000,000. Needless to say this got my attention but I didn’t think about it anymore that night. The next morning, about 9 AM the phone rang. I was still asleep (typical musician), and I thought, I don’t know who this is but whatever it is it better be good!! I answered the phone still half asleep and the voice on the other end says, “is this Blackie Lawless”, I said yes, he says, “my name is Mr. Xxxxxxxx(I’ll leave his name out), I’m the National Head of the American Red Cross”. I’m thinking, Wow, this is the guy I just saw get a $1,000,000 from Reagan last night! I said, can I help you? He started screaming at me, asking, “is it rue you drink animals blood on stage, because if you do I’m canceling this entire fiasco right here, right now. I will not have the Red Cross involved in any kind of heathen theatrics like this”!! He goes on and on and I started talking REAL FAST. It took me about 30 minutes to calm this guy down. The whole time I’m talking I’m seeing everything we’ve done go up in smoke. Oddly enough, at the end of the conversation he turned out to be a pretty nice guy and said he hoped everything went OK for us. I hung up the phone and laid there and breathed a HUGE sigh of relief. Actually there were a few times that the “Blood Drive” came very close to being cancelled for one reason or another.
I remember standing there on the afternoon of the first show with that gigantic blood truck out in front of the “Troub”. All the kids there with all the nurses inside, it was incredible. Mike and I just stood there in amazement at that logic defying spectacle. We couldn’t believe what we had pulled off!!!
I asked him, “do you believe what your seeing here”? He said, “we did it buddy”!!!
But believe me when I say, this whole thing was no small feat. I cannot overstate how important these shows were to us at the time. It all came just that close to never happening. Furthermore, if everyone of the events, that needed small miracles to make happen had not happened, it’s quite possible the world would have never heard of us. It’s been said that destiny’s have been changed by missing a bus. Truer words have never been spoken!
We got the $10,000.00 and finished the demo’s. A couple of months later we went back and did a Halloween show at the “Troub”. I didn’t think the labels would question W.A.S.P. doing a “Halloween” show. That was the last show we played for about 7 months. We did the Halloween gig and it was what everything everyone had come to expect. The place was packed, the show was great, but in the back of my mind I knew the clock was ticking on us. There was NOWHERE left for us to go!!!
Enter the Manager Man…. complete with horns on his head……how appropriate!!!!
More Next Month
Merry Christmas!!!!!! Happy Christmas!!! Feliz Navidad!!! Happy New Year!!!!!
B. L.
W.A.S.P. "30 Years Of Thunder" - Part Five |
 “Howdy There Partner…
...
Let the Screaming Begin”
The Halloween show in 83’ was actually the night before on the 30th of October. As I said before, the show was great and the Troubadour was a mad house as usual. Kerrang magazine had sent one of their primary photographers to shoot the show. We had been making a big noise for a while out in L. A. and Kerrang had already featured us prominently in some earlier issues. So Ross Halfin was there shooting the show, but he wasn’t by himself…. he brought a friend!
So I woke up the next morning, feeling good about the gig, but still having this lingering idea in the back of my head. This was it, we had NOWHERE left to go. We were literally at the end of our Rock’ N’ Roll Rope! This whole L. A. Record Label perception thing had us painted into a huge corner. We had played the game as well as it could be played, maybe better than any Band head ever done, but still none of them were ready to commit.
Looking back now it’s easy to see why. Major labels suffer from the same thing the American Red Cross suffered from….Protecting Their Precious Images!!!!
They don’t want to get involved with any Band that’s going to  tarnish their perceived image with the other Labels in the business, especially a Band like us, or any of the Thrash Bands at the time. I remember the first time I ever heard about anything like this was Chris saying that Eddie Van Halen was aggravated with their Label, Warner Brothers. It was the late 70’s and when Van Halen was in L. A. they would go down to the label to do press and they’d get treated like embarrassing step children because the Label heads were more interested if another artist like Ricki Lee Jones were in the building at the same time. As a side note, Chris knew all of this because he grew up in the same neighborhood as Eddie and remained friends. Years earlier it was Eddie that taught Chris how to play guitar.
All this is the reason that there are MANY Bands that should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but are not. They’ve got the same mentality as the major labels. They ALL want to appear “respectable” to each other. It drives me insane because it’s called the “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame”, NOT the “Pop Hall of Fame”. If they want a “Hall” for themselves, FINE, go get their own, but don’t humiliate the Genius of Rock and Roll with their Grandparents idea of music!!
It is funny how W.A.S.P. and all those Thrash Bands all got deals with Major Labels. Once those guys got a whiff of the money they all came running like the true prostitutes they are!! (See “Chainsaw Charlie’) You need to remember W.A.S.P. were not really the same sort of band like the rest that came out of L.A. at that time. We had a much harder edge musically, and the show, well, that spoke for itself. We had a bit of a similar problem that Metallica had, which pushed them to go to San Francisco. We met them at a show in Palo Alto in 83’. We’d be on tour together in the U. S. 18 months later. It was big fun !!
All that said, the next night was Halloween and I went to the Rainbow to try to numb my anxieties. Halloween at the Rainbow was always crazier than it was even on a regular night.
So I’m walking through the restaurant trying to get to my table and an arm reaches out and grabs me. I look down and there’s this guy sitting there with a Viking helmet on his head…complete with horns on it. He pulls me down on the seat next to him and immediately starts telling me what I’m doing wrong with the band and how the presentation won’t work outside of L. A. .
After about 3 minutes of me listening (without me saying a word) he finishes his opening statement and I say to him, “Who the Hell are You”?
I’ve NEVER met this man in my life and he’s going on like his opinion really matters. I didn’t know who he was and frankly I was offended by him, so I got up and proceeded on to my table. I didn’t think much more about it that night. So the next night I go back down to the Rainbow again. I’m walking along, an arm grabs me again and pulls me down. Guess who? Yep, same guy, but this time no Viking helmet. He starts in again on me with the same speech as the night before, you’re doing it ALL wrong, etc. This time I took REAL offense. Remember, The Band had accomplished some pretty remarkable stuff to that point so we had to be doing at least SOMETHING right. We had No help, No Label and No manager and had become the number one Band in L. A. which is a huge market that’s jaded beyond belief. It’s a place that’s seen EVERYTHING 20 times!! Very tough to impress!!
So I’m not really liking what this guy is throwing at me and I started to get up and leave and a girl that was standing there, who could see I wasn’t too happy with this line of questioning leaned over and said to me, “he’s the manager of Iron Maiden”. Now I had heard of Maiden, but they weren’t yet near as big in the U. S. as they would latter become. Randy had heard some of their songs and was getting into it but I didn’t know much about them. So I’m sitting there (for the second time) and it dawns on me, I don’t even know this guy’s name. So I say, who are you? He says, I’m Rod Smallwood….I manage Iron Maiden. He had gone with Ross (against his will) to the Troub for the Halloween show. He said later he had seen pictures of us and thought we were some sort of a joke and couldn’t be taken seriously but Ross insisted he go. He told Rod he thought this was something he needed to see. Rod’s a huge Door’s fan and in those days we used their song “The End” as the opening to the show. He said, well maybe this won’t be so bad after all. By the time the show was over he was becoming a believer!!
So we keep talking and it’s starting to get a little heated. That’s to say, a little angry cause I really don’t wanna hear what this guy’s got to say anymore. I wasn’t much impressed with him being the manager of Maiden. Remember, I was still talking to Bill Aucoin at the time and it looked like we were going to sign with him. Now Rod was already a star in the U. K. but I didn’t know it, and honestly at that moment I didn’t care.
I started to leave again and in a much calmer, more sincere voice he says, “listen to me, you’ve got something with  your Band that has the chance to be big but you can’t do it by yourself”. Those were the magic words. It was like he had been reading my mind. Probably everyone has had a moment where they almost left someone and that person said ONE thing that stopped you and it changed everything. This was one of those moments!! I then relaxed and we kept talking and talking the rest of the night. We tuned out everyone else that night that was trying to talk to either one of us and focused on each other. Somewhere in the middle of that conversation I realized he was really interested in what the Band was doing. After the placed closed we went back to his hotel room and talked till about 7 AM, talking about the music business, the theory of theatre rock bands, how to sell records and that sort of thing. I didn’t realize he was feeling me out. Kind of sizing me up to see if I had the brains to make a real career in this business. I was doing the same with him. With everything we talked about that night it all seemed like something special was taking place. You could feel it. It was one of those meetings of the minds. It was crazy, everything we talked about our thoughts were lining up with each other. What happened was, in the beginning I don’t think either one of us had any idea of really working together. It was more of something that gradually happened as we kept talking. We spent a lot of time together the next few days. He had to go back to England 4 or 5 days later and by the time he left I instinctively felt I had found the one thing I had been looking for my whole life….a true PARTNER!!
I owe Ross a great deal of gratitude for dragging Rod to that show.
Once again, destiny’s changed by NOT missing a bus.
I’ve spent a lot of time here writing about my partnership with Rod because that’s just what it was. Over the next 14 years he was my sounding board more than anyone, even in the Band. We had a relationship based on whoever screamed the loudest won the argument. That’s not a bad thing. We learned that with strong personalities the one who is willing to fight the hardest on any given problem or idea is usually the one who is right. At least most of the time! But let me tell you, we had some absolute knock down drag outs!!!
We were pretty good at putting our ego’s aside and trusting each other even at times when we were not sure what was right. You gotta remember, when you’re doing things that’s never been done before, you’re literally making up stuff as you go. We had to trust each others instincts and the only way you can do that is with mutual respect.
I’ve said a lot here about having a partner. I cannot over emphasize the importance of that for me. No matter how my personal career may have developed over the years, I’ve NEVER wanted to be in this all by myself. That’s all some guy’s want. Not Me!!
I was always envious of the partnership Gene and Paul (KISS) have had. I watched it from the very beginning. Although Ace was my friend, those two had the REAL partnership in that Band. It was what I always wanted. I was about 18 and I was really thinking about giving up the music business because I was pretty depressed that I couldn’t get anywhere and I called Ace. They were on their first tour in the U.S. and Gene got on the phone and asked me what was wrong. He knew the band I was in at the time and he said, “you gotta get away from those losers you’re playing with. You’ve got something special. Find somebody that’s got the same things you’ve got. Whatever you do, just don’t give up….JUST DON’T GIVE UP”!!!
He was very convincing. I got off the phone and felt a lot better. Had he not said that to me I definitely would never have been in the right place to stumble into the “N. Y. DOLLS” thing that happened about 2 weeks later.
That led me to California, to W.A.S.P., and to Rod….My Partner!!!
Happy New Year!!!
More Next Month
B. L.
W.A.S.P. "30 Years Of Thunder" - Part Six |
 “ The Class of 82’, 83’ "
Rod had gone back to England and we kept in touch over the next few weeks. Both of us were trying to determine where we were going and WHO we were going to go with. Rod needed time to process the demo tape we had done and to really think about if there was a real future with us. Getting involved with any band requires a tremendous amount of time and dedication. Even the most successful bands usually take years to develop into a major act so he needed time to think. So did I. I was still talking to Bill Aucoin. Honestly, the thing with Bill was beginning to make me uneasy. He was managing Billy Idol at that time and they had released the “Rebel Yell” album and it was burning up the charts. Bill was VERY involved with managing Billy and I was afraid of him possibly not having enough time to devote to us. Years ago Ace gave me some of the best advice anyone ever gave me. He said, “remember that the first contract you ever sign will more than likely determine everything that will ever happen to you in your whole career”. I’d later find out he was 1000 per cent correct. What he meant was, if you sign a bad deal, even if your successful, you’ll get ripped off so bad you can never recover from it. Many successful artists find they’re so far in debt that they can never get out of it and it follows them forever. It’s not unusual for even big name artists to have 2 or 3 bad management deals hanging over their heads that they will pay for the rest of their lives and I promise you, those old managers don’t just go away. They stand there with their hands out the rest of your life!! 
Now I didn’t feel that this might happen with Bill, I just wanted a situation were we could get the attention we needed. I liked Bill and respected him a lot but my connection with Rod was special. It’s one of those things that you just instinctively know. We had a lot in common, both of us were ex athletes, and STRONGLY believed in the concept that “Might was Right”!! In other words, if something was in your way, then remove it…..by ANY means necessary!!!! Rod was tough and smart and I would NEVER have that relationship with Bill and it was something that I truly wanted. It was right after Christmas 83’ that Rod called me and said he wanted to manage us. I had about 3 months to think about it and by the time he called I knew he was the guy I wanted. It had absolutely nothing to do with his success managing “Maiden”. I wanted him whether he had been successful or not. I knew he was the one!! 
So he came back out to L. A. a couple of weeks later and we started laying out a plan. First we needed a record deal. He initially went to EMI/Capitol because that was “Maiden’s” label. They were more interested now because they felt with Rod as manager they might have something. But still they were not willing to commit. There was a smaller local label Called Enigma Records that believed in us and wanted to sign us months before. The owner of the company offered to mortgage his house to sign us. Actually we came very close to accepting his offer. So while EMI were dragging their feet we made it known that Enigma wanted us pretty badly. A couple of weeks later EMI finally said “I Do” and we signed the largest deal in history for any previously unsigned Band….7 albums for $2.5 million. We had won the lottery overnight!!!
The day we signed the deal with EMI we went down to the Capitol building in L. A. and they took us to the conference room. Inside was a long table, about 5 meters long with chairs all around it. All the bosses were there and we all sat down and in the middle of the table was a freshly cut cow tongue. It was huge and it smelled nasty!! Just sitting there in the middle with blood running down the table dripping off the edge!
Nobody said a word about it. They just kept talking like it wasn’t even there. They were all acting like everything was normal, like nothing unusual was happening. After about 10 minutes I couldn’t take it anymore and I jumped up and screamed, “Get that Damn thing outta Here”!!!! The whole room exploded with laughter!! It was EMI’s way of saying: ”Welcome”!! All of the original people EMI/Capitol turned out to be fantastic and we had a great relationship for years.
 We went into the studio a couple of weeks later to record, “Animal – F like a Beast” with the B-side “Show no Mercy” with my old friend Mike Varney as producer. The song was originally to be released as a single to get the whole world ready for the album that would come later that year. When we finished the single EMI in the UK had circulated some advanced copies. The Queens Council heard about it (they are a UK government social watchdog group) and they informed the heads of EMI that if they released that song that they would all go to jail for 21 days each!! Needless to say EMI had no desire for that so they stepped aside and allowed Music for Nations to release the single. We could not buy that kind of publicity and it exploded in the UK Metal charts!!
While all that was going on we were in the studio recording the first album. It was exciting and exhausting at the same time. The pressure was intense. We had been given much and much was being expected. Anything less than gold was going to be considered a failure. Fortunately, the record was later well received but at the time I had no way of knowing how the world would receive us. Something I’ve never really shared before is, the first record was so well received that it actually went gold in several countries right away but the first award that was presented to me came from Canada. We had just gotten back to L. A. after our first world tour and I remember taking it and setting it next to the TV and all night long I sat on the bed. I’d watch the TV for a couple of minutes, then I’d watch the gold record for a couple of minutes. I was by myself, and this went on all night!! This is part of the fantasy fulfilled. It’s what you grow up dreaming about. It was one of the greatest nights of my life!!!
 We went on to finish that first album and shot the video’s for “Somebody” and ‘Love Machine”. A couple days before we left to start the tour I was in the studio and ran into Kevin Dubrow. Quiet Riot had just come back from England and he told me, “You better get ready, there’s some kind of W.A.S.P.mania going on over there”. I had no idea what he was talking about. Then we were off to the UK to start that first world tour. We landed in England and the press were there to meet us. On the way into London we stopped at a stop light and on the cover of the daily newspaper the headline read, “American Sex and Blood Rock Group Banned in Ireland”!! I looked at it and thought…who is that? I had no idea…it was us!! 
Because of all the pre tour hype that surrounded us we had been banned from playing in Ireland from the time we got on the plane so we had NO idea until we landed. Norway also banned us on that tour.
But looking back, the moment we landed in London, everything we had done as a band, the demo’s, the home we had made at the Troubadour, the Blood Drive, building the props, ALL of it had lead us to this point. This was that moment, the beginning of everything we’d worked so hard for….but also the end. The end of the magical run that we had in L.A. with all the friends, the triumphs, the insanity that was that time in 82’ and 83’. It was one of the greatest times of our lives. Kind of like that one magic school year you wish would have never ended. You don’t really think that you’re saying goodbye but when we finally got a break 3 years later and looked around L.A., nothing was the same, EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY had changed. But, we were living the Dream. We were famous, we had money, we were dating movie stars and centerfolds. It was all good….but none of it could replace what we had in those early days. As I write this I find myself pretty nostalgic about those times. It’s been written, “You Can Never go Home Again”.
It’s like an old friend…..one you know you'll never be able to see again.
More Next Month
B. L.
W.A.S.P. "30 Years Of Thunder" - Part Seven |
 "The New World Disorder"
About 3 weeks before the first tour was about to begin, Rod came to Chris and myself and said: “we’ve got a problem”. Apparently Capitol/EMI were becoming extremely concerned with reports about drug abuse and erratic behavior with our drummer Tony Richards. Rod says to us: “he has to be replaced….Now!!
Both Chris and I felt, if we could just get out on the road, whatever was concerning the label would go away. We both put up a fierce defense for Tony. For 2 hours there was a lot of screaming and threatening to leave the label, but at this point Capitol/EMI had so much money invested in us there was really little any of us could do. I remember sitting there, having this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was like a bad dream where I could see it happening right before my eyes like it was in slow motion and there was nothing I could do to stop this tidal wave from coming down on us. It was the first time I remember thinking, “they (EMI) own us now”!
In my mind I thought back to something Ace had told me years earlier. He said: “when you sign that dotted line, your life doesn’t belong to you anymore”. I would later write about it in “Chainsaw Charlie”, “sign right here on the dotted line”. This was the first time for us that monster would
rear it’s ugly head. Nobody outside of our immediate circle understood that trying to replace Tony was a MAJOR problem. This guy could do it all, he played great, he looked great and there was something about his personality that definitely jumped out at you in photos. This combination in people is almost impossible to find and I knew it all to well.  It took me years to find this magic combination of personalities to create this Band and we’ve not even played our first gig outside of California and now this Behemoth of a label is telling me I can’t have my hand picked starting lineup. Furious…to say the least! Looking back it was at THAT moment that we were nearly fatally wounded. For years, and I mean years later, Chris and I would talk about “what if”. What if we could have just got on tour with him. What if we told EMI to go screw themselves. What if, what if… even now it’s haunted us throughout our careers. You see, he COULD NOT be replaced, not the way we needed it to be. Whoever was going to be picked to take his place was going to have a really unenviable task. On the front cover of the first album you saw all 4 of us. Never again on any album would you see that from us. Reason? We felt that all four created this “Thing”. Something that was greater than our individual selves. With him gone, we were never the same, and that "‘Thing” had been severely wounded so we never again had the confidence to ever put the Band on a cover again. We used me on the next 2 album covers but after that it would be conceptual art covers. Something that continues to this day!!
Enter Steve Riley. Steve was a good drummer but he was being dropped into a no win situation. No matter how good a new member is, he still has to deal with the ghost of the previous guy, and sometimes that “previous guy” casts a giant shadow. As was the case here. But we licked our wounds and carried on. It was like cramming for a  big test with only days to go before our first World tour, but Steve was good and we got through rehearsals OK. So, off to set the world on fire, and with our flaming W.A.S.P. sign….we meant it literally!! Banned in Ireland, Preachers following us around to shows and picketing outside and inside the gigs, kids using enamel paint to put white streaks in their hair, protesters at most of the shows…and this was only the first month!! The U. K. as a whole didn’t really know what to think of us at first, but the kids loved us!! It was the Lyceum show, that’s now famous for the “Live at the Lyceum” video”, that helped create the buzz with the press. Rod had done such a good job getting them ready for us that by the time we got there the press all believed we were Elvis and Attila the Hun all rolled into one!! We showed up and did not disappoint!! Looking at that video now I can see why it scared the hell out of the whole country. Some people were expecting us to be like cartoon characters but when you look at that video its clear to see, we meant business. You could see it with the look in our eyes… we were not playing!! I remember going into a club a few years later when we were recording “Headless” and seeing it for the first time since we filmed it. I could then see what scared parent so bad about us. I watched it like I was watching someone else. Those guys up on that screen were a SCARY bunch!! We were young and hungry and MAD at the whole world and it showed in abundance!! That anger was dripping off of us. I had never seen it before. I never really knew until that moment what we truly looked like. Because of where my head was at the time we were making “Headless” I was watching somebody else and I saw it with a completely different set of eyes.
So after we permanently scarred the U.K. we went on to mainland Europe. Sweden was so enthused with us they had a debate about us on National TV that went on for 3 days. Norway didn’t even w ant to know about us and wouldn’t let us in to the country. Finland loved us from the very beginning but at the first show in Helsinki I introduced a song that Chris was supposed to start. I said the name of the song but there was no Chris. I said it again, still no Chris. I looked over and he’s laying on the stage. He’d been knocked out cold!! In those days we were doing the “raw meat” so some of the fans thought they would help us and brought meat of their own. Somebody had smuggled in an entire rump roast and threw it at the stage. It hit Chris in the head…oops…THE SHOWS OVER!!! He was out for several minutes. It was very close to the end of the show anyway so it really didn’t matter that we didn’t finish. This kind of stuff was happening everyday everywhere we went. It was INSANE…but it was great!!! We went on to destroy Japan and the returned home to start the U. S. tour. We did tours with Krokus, Kiss, Quiet Riot, Metallica and Iron Maiden. There was a 3 Band bill that we did that was Armored Saint, Metallica and W.A.S.P
Anyone who was lucky enough to have seen any of those shows really saw something special. All of those bands in t he early stages…WOW!! Usually, when Bands are just starting out is when they are at their best. They’re raw and unrefined and have zero polish on themselves. These 3 Bands were no exception…Rude, Crude and Lewd!!! Those shows are now considered legendary. There was a tremendous amount of competition between us but we had major Fun!! It was one of those special times. I remember it with great memories. Once we were playing in Indianapolis and we all got there late from a long drive the night before, and nobody got a sound check that day because we were so late. Metallica and us would trade off every night closing the show. One night they would close, the next night W.A.S.P. would close. This night we were closing and everybody was rushing around trying to get everything ready before the show. It was an old type of theatre and the backstage was like a cavern with a million hallways and VERY easy to get lost in. None of us had even been on the stage so if you didn’t have somebody with you who knew where they were going show you how to get there, then you had no chance of making it on you own. Well, I’m in the bathroom getting ready to shave and as Metallica’s getting ready to go on their intro music starts playing. The bathroom door flies open and there’s Cliff (Burton) standing there, by himself, and screams, “BLACKIE, WHERE’S THE STAGE”!!! I had just put the razor up to my neck to shave and saw him in the mirror and I said, “Cliff, I really don’t know”. He shouts, “SCREW YOU BLACKIE” and storms off. He thought In was messing with him but I honestly wasn’t. I really didn’t know how to get to the stage. It was a true Spinal Tap moment!! I started laughing so hard I was about to cry because he was so mad and he was about to have a major panic attack. He thought I did it on purpose but I really didn’t. The Band was about 2 minutes into the first song before I heard the bass come in. Man those were fun times!!
We finished the rest of the U.S. tour and were getting ready to start rehearsals for our next record. That’s when we first started to hear murmurings from back east in Washington D.C.. Something about this thing called the PMRC and some woman named Tipper Gore.
Apparently, it had something to do with us!!!
I wonder…what could it possibly be?
More Next Month!!
B. L.
W.A.S.P. "30 Years Of Thunder" - Part Eight |
 "AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH"
So we were just starting the 2nd album, “The Last Command” and as we were cutting the tracks we heard from our publicist that something was happening in Washington D. C. concerning the single “Animal F – Like a Beast”. There was an organization being put together – supposedly – to advise parents as to what the kids were listening to. We found later they were called the PMRC or, the Parents Music Resource Center. They were trying to impose a ratings system on records that would be similar to the way ratings are done on movies. At first, we honestly had no problem with the idea of a ratings system, but as time wore on, we started to hear rumors about who would be making those decisions and what the criteria would be in making those decisions. I assumed it would be a sort of self imposed system that the labels themselves would oversee. Again, similar to the way movies are rated. As we got closer to finishing the album the real truth started coming out….WRONG!!!
This PMRC bunch, later known as the “Washington Wives” was being lead by then Senator Al Gore’s wife Tipper Gore, and Secretary of State James Baker’s wife Susan Baker. When I was a kid my mother used to have an expression: “Who died and left you the boss”?
I start asking myself that same question. Who did these folks think they were? Who or what qualified them to pass judgment on the entire Music Industry in America? Apparently, they were electing themselves!! All along being helped by the powerful husbands they had behind them. Husbands with their eyes fixed on more than just being a Senator…a lot more!! As we finished the album an invitation came to me from Washington D. C. to attend a Senate Hearing on the “problem of  obscene lyrics in music” with W.A.S.P. and our “Animal” single being on a targeted list called “The Filthy Fifteen”. I was being invited to more or less defend myself in front of the Congress of the United States. All because of something I said. In the U. S. the very first Amendment of the Constitution of the United States guarantees “Freedom of Speech”. I would later see pictures of Senators holding up the “Animal” cover. It was surreal, Senators holding up a photo of my crotch in front of the United States Congress!!
I just couldn’t believe it!!
About 2 days before I was supposed to go to Washington, Rod and I sat down with our publicist, Mike Jensen and talked it over. Mike said he was “concerned that something about the whole Washington thing just didn’t feel right”. So we made the decision that I would not attend those Senate Hearings. I was scheduled to go to New York a couple of days later to attend the “New Music Seminar” which was one of the biggest music conventions in the world. There would be worldwide press there so I’d be able to address the PMRC issue on my own terms without literally being “on trial”. At the Senate Hearings the music industry was being represented by Frank Zappa, country music star John Denver and Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider. After the Hearings took place, I went to New York where I met with  Frank (Zappa) and discussed what took place there. Frank had seen this before because he had dealt with censorship in the 1960’s. He told me that I really didn’t miss much. He called it a “dog and pony show”. That’s an American expression that means something was just for show. In other words, a big joke that’s only designed to impress people that don’t really know what’s going on. So, were those Hearings just a big joke or was there something more sinister going on behind them?
Several weeks went by. We were on tour with Kiss at the time and I had an interview with a local magazine in one of the places we played. The journalist had a tape that she played me. On it was Tipper Gore and Susan Baker talking about what their real motivation was. It had nothing to do with rating records. Their words were shocking because it was about creating political profile for themselves. It became abundantly clear later that Al Gore was using the PMRC the same way Richard Nixon used his communist witch hunts in the 1950’s to create profile for himself, to run for President of the United States. Al Gore would later run for President…. and LOSE!!!
 All of this was making W.A.S.P. a household word in the U.S., meaning everyone knew who we were. We were on the cover of magazine after magazine and our profile was getting out of control. Funny, the PMRC were trying to create a larger profile for themselves and inadvertently made it happen for us. It was unbelievable; we couldn’t turn on the TV and not hear somebody talking about us. Day after day this was going on. At first we were having a blast with all the attention and really thought it was going to sell a lot more records. But it didn’t. Did they make us a household word? Yes, but the problem was, all the kids already knew who we were. It didn’t help us that now people’s grandmothers now knew who W.A.S.P. was. But that’s why they went after us in the first place. For the PMRC, what better way for them to get attention than to go after an attention getter. But there were some serious down sides. After about a year, little by little, things started to get ugly. All the massive publicity started to bring out the “crazies”. A lot of folks started thinking that the world might be a better place if W.A.S.P. were not in it. Over the next 2 years I got shot at twice, 100’s and 100’s of death threats. Once, one of my cars was seriously tampered with. I had just got on the Hollywood freeway and the left front wheel of the Jaguar XKE I was driving came off. I had just gotten up to 55 MPH when the wheel came off. I was in the far right lane and when the wheel came off the hub started digging into the pavement and it started pulling me over into the far left lane of this 5-lane freeway. I fought the wheel to keep it from pulling me over, but I couldn’t stop it. I looked in my side view mirror, a large simi truck (18 wheeler) was about 10 feet behind me in the lane next to me that I was being pulled into. He slammed on his brakes to keep from hitting me  and I could see his tires smoking. He came within just a couple of feet from running over me!! It was an absolute miracle that I wasn’t killed!!!!
But for the Grace of God I go!!
The car was taken over to the mechanic who normally worked on the car and after looking at how the wheel had been tampered with he said: “you should have been dead already”! We contacted the FBI to investigate and they advised me to not live by myself anymore, so I started having some of the road crew live with me whenever we were in L. A.
This was only ONE of MANY incidences that happened…. there were many more!!!
David Coverdale came by the studio one day. We were talking about all the insanity that was going on around us and he asked me, “how are handling all of this”? I said well, when I wake up in the morning I don’t feel bad – but – I don’t feel good either! He said, “well that’s pressure son”! I said, “is this what that feels like”? I used to make fun of guys that talked about all the pressure that they were under. I used to say, “they’re doing what they want to do in life so how bad can it really be”? I found out the hard way that’s there’s different kinds of pressure!!
By the time we had finished the “Inside the Electric Circus” album all of this had started to turn me into a recluse.  During the tour of that record, several times entire venues would have to be cleared before we came on stage because of bomb scares. That means, ALL the people in the venue were forced to leave, and after the venue was searched then they were allowed back in. It would take about an hour each time. It was happening everywhere. Our security later told us that the ONLY place that we did not get a bomb scare on that tour was the last night of that tour at Long Beach Arena in California.
We were on tour with Maiden in the fall of 86’ and we were in Lisbon. We had a day off and stayed in a little seaside village right on the Atlantic Ocean. It was great! We’d be someplace where NOBODY would know who we were…at least for one day. I had gone to lunch with one of our security people and as we were walking back to the hotel we turned down a narrow cobble stone street. It was really cool, like something out of an old movie. I turned the corner and there was a small shop with a large glass window. It was a small record shop. In the window was a 2 times life size poster of the front cover of the “Circus” album. I just stood there and looked at it and felt like someone kicked me in my stomach. It became clear at that moment, I was trying to run away from all this insanity and there was now NOWHERE I could run to get away from it!!!!
During the U. S. tour we were in an Arena in Toledo, Ohio. Looking back, subconsciously, I was getting fed up with everything that had happened and what we had become as a result of it. We were in the dressing room, getting ready to go on stage. The guys were hyped up to do a show, as we always were. I was sitting at the makeup mirror and I could see everybody behind me, rushing around getting ready for the show. I just sat there watching and said, “are we going to continue to be this “Circus” we’ve created, or are we going to do something of REAL MUSICAL MERIT!!!
I could see the looks of horror on their faces. They were thinking, “oh no, it’s all over, he’s finally lost it”!!! They were correct!!!
We finished the rest of the tour, but when it was over, I had some real soul searching I had to do about the musical direction this Band was going, but also the idea of “what in the world had just happened to me”!!
Twice in this story a mirror played an important role. In a later work, I would again write about a mirror!!
But never again would I write the same. Never again would I be the same.
The early stages of the Band were finished. It was over…. I had seen way Too Much!!!
More Next Month
B. L.
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there but there was only one problem – no bass player. Randy could sing and I needed another voice to do all those harmonies with. I had sent copies of the demo tape to both Ace Frehley and former Kiss manager, the late Bill Aucoin. They had agreed to come out to L. A. to see our first show at the Troubadour that was quickly approaching. Now we have one of two options, find a bass player and rehearse him in 3 weeks and I just sing lead, OR I play bass. The other two would not even discuss the idea of them doing it. Holmes said, “we’ve already got 4 very volatile personalities, we don’t need a fifth guy to make it even worse”. So it’s off to Guitar Center (there was only one back then and this was the original on Sunset Blvd.) to buy myself what I would eventually refer to as “the tool of ignorance”. That description was unfair but it described my anxiety and frustration toward that instrument at the time.
So back to the show on the 28th. The idea of “psychodrama” led me to throwing the “Raw Meat”. This was the first “Big” idea that we needed. It was vile, it was rude, it was crude and it was perfect. I later said it was like, “going to a Baseball game, you had to pay attention or you’d get hit with a foul ball”. It was taking what was on the stage and putting it out in the audience. Although to someone talking about it that had not seen it, it seemed incredibly juvenile. But if you were there and saw it, it was terrifying. First of all, when you go to a live show there’s an invisible barrier between the audience and the band. If you're out in the crowd, you're safe, nothing is expected of you, you're basically invisible. NOT AT THIS SHOW!! The Meat DESTROYED that invisible barrier! No rock band had ever broken that imaginary line before like that. Now, nobody was safe, nobody knew who was going to get hit next. A few shows later when the crowds got really big it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Because there were so many people, nobody could move. I’d single people out and there was nothing they could do to get away. I’d look them in the eye and they’d start shaking their heads franticly screaming, “NO, PLEASE, NO!! Now this created the “car wreck on the side of the road” mentality for everybody else in the audience. You watched it in a morbid curiosity even if you didn’t want to. Nobody ever got hurt though because I made it look like I was hitting them a lot harder than I did, but the spectacle of it was intense. It was also where eventually the “Blood Drinking” came from. We put the meat in the “Raw Meat” box and one night during one of the shows I looked down in the box after I had thrown the meat into the crowd and noticed there was about a cup of real blood in the bottom of it. I always loved improvising on stage so it seemed obvious to me, so………down the hatch!! Nothing like a good mistake!! Another W.A.S.P. trademark was born. Not by design but total improv. That’s how a lot of the early stage gags came about, some were defiantly planned, but some were not. I was always surprised that nobody ever saw the connection between us and those movies. It was one of those things where we were waiting for somebody somewhere to bust us for it, but it never happened.