Those Spinal Tap moments hit every band at times, and blood-splattered concept rockers WA.S.P. are no exception. DAVE REYNOLDS is in Preston on the first date of their UK tour, fully expecting to travel with the band to the next show in Wolverhampton. But, much to the giant BLACKIE LAWLESS’S dismay, W.A.S.P.’s luxury tour bus turns out to be a Transit Van! Oh well at least they’re on after the puppet show.....

In the bar of the Post House Hotel in Preston, Sky News has just reported that Preston North End have beaten Blackpool 3-2 in the first league derby game for three seasons.

As the result rolls in, the match report is drowned out by a recital of Chopin and Stravinsky on the house piano by Philip Wolfe.

Wolfe is a man of mystery, a man who remains unseen by W.A.S.P fans on the gore-turned-concept rockers current UK Tour. But it’s Wolfe who provides the grandiose ivory-tinkling that brings W.A.S.P’s conceptual extravaganza ‘The Crimson Idol’ to life.

The man has a impressive CV of minor engagements: Impellitteri, Keel, Vinnie Vincent Invasion, Driver, Rox Diamond and the one of the more recent attempts to resurrect Angel have all benefited from Wolfe’s ghostly thinking hands.

Aside from Johnny Rod (back in W.A.S.P. but minus those ridiculous hair extensions), the touring band features drummer Stet Howland, Guitarist Doug Blair and of course Blackie Lawless, the giant leader who’ll do anything for W.A.S.P right down to eating raw meat and considering running for political office.

Blackie is an imposing figure on stage and off. For reasons best known to himself, he prefers to wear shorts whenever possible. And whilst the rest of the band have white bathrobes ready to slip into post-gig. Blackie’s is, naturally black.

He is in an affable mood after the gig at the Guild Hall, the first date on W.A.S.P’s return trip to the UK after their Donington appearance. He seem pleased with tonight’s show, although he admits it was more of an afterthought after another date had fallen through.

"I love it in the UK," smiles the man, "though to be frank with you, I'm a little disappointed with the reaction of the new record (‘The Crimson Idol’) here. It’s failed to meet its target sales-wise.

" I kinda see it this way. Britain and I have had a lover affair for the last eight years, and I could compare the relationship to having a girlfriend that you think you’re going to impress more that all the other girls, only she is not impressed by you at all. I’m really taken aback, but I've thought very deeply about the situation, and I understand that the British are very traditional about things. They don’t like change.

"To tell you the truth, I thought more about the UK when making this record than anywhere else. I had this feeling that it would be a strong base to launch it from.

"Now I'm not crying the blues here, but I would’ve liked to have it some other way. Let’s be honest, even when press wasn’t kind to the record. I don’t know whether they understood it or not, or if they even gave a damn.

"This is a far better album, light years away from ‘The Headless Children’. But it’s funny, because when I told Pete Townshend about it, he told me that ‘Tommy’ and ‘Who’s Next’ didn’t do what they originally thought they’d do out of the box. It took several years for those records to gain legendary status. I took that with pinch of salt when he told me, but, hey, hopefully that can happen with us. Who knows? I sure don’t!"

But regardless of whether ‘The Crimson Idol’ will be regarded as a work of genius in years to come, many were surprised that it came out as a W.A.S.P. album rather than a Blackie Lawless solo outgoing.

"What difference would it make?" Counters the man. "If my voice is a trademark of W.A.S.P., then whatever I do is gonna sound like W.A.S.P., so it’s a case of being damned if I do and damned if I don’t. At the end of the day, I like the power of the name W.A.S.P., especially in print - so why give it up?

"With the musicians in this band now, we’ve got the best incarnation of W.A.S.P. there’s been. Unless they all get hit by a truck, this is the line-up that will record the next album."

In conversation earlier, Blackie had remarked he’d been willing to take a step backwards in order to take two forwards, which goes some way to explaining why the re-launch of W.A.S.P. occurred in a blaze of gory publicity. Remember the photographs of Blackie with a chainsaw stuck in his guts?

"It was a very calculated move," he readily admits. "The feeling was that we’d been away for to long, so it was a means to attract that core audience back to the cause. It was all graphically applicable to the ‘Chainsaw Charlie’ single. Everything on the albums a euphemism for something else. Charlie ripped people to pieces by stealing from them."

Like Blackie says it was all done as a means to have W.A.S.P.s core audience re-identify with the band. Yet not everyone fully understood what was going on, which is why Lawless is still turning down requests from European magazines to have him pose in slaughter-houses for cover features.

Palmer, who has just discovered that the provocatively-dressed young girl who had volunteered to be pictured with Blackie had grown tired of waiting and had gone home, duly complies.

"A close friend of mine came up to me a few months ago," confessed Blackie, and told me that I should have made the move I've made personnel-wise about five years ago.

"After ‘The Decline Of Western Civilization Part Two’ (in which Chris Holmes was interviewed in a vodka-fuelled, tired and emotional state in his swimming pool) it was over. We shouldn’t have done the last tour. I tried my best to cover things up but it’s like but it’s like trying to cover shit up, with a little bit of sand. The stench was still there."

With a new team and better chemistry within, Blackie Lawless appears far more relaxed that he was when I first encountered him, back in 1984.

He’s not, though , a man who suffers fools gladly. So one can only speculate as to his initial reaction to the news that much to the horror of his tour manager, transportation to the following night’s gig in Wolverhampton would not be made in a luxury tour bus, but rather a 12 seated Transit Van, thus destroying our plans to join W.A.S.P. on their onward journey.