There will be several surprises when W.A.S.P. take their place on the Castle Donington stage later this month. As they undertake their first ever festival appearance, they'll have a familiar stage show, and a new member to show off as well.

Yep, it looks as though Blackie Lawless and his band will be reverting to their controversial old image of chainsaws blades, racks and raw meat. As has been widely reported recently W.A.S.P. have been constantly hounded by their old sparring partners the P.M.R.C. (that's the Parents Music Resource Centre, a body of senators and their wives who are devoted to fighting anything that even hints of outrageousness). Finally Blackie has decided that enough is enough. The P.M.R.C. have offered a presidential candidate for the next election and appear to have cooled down while they focus their attentions in another direction. So he's decided that the time is right for the old show to resurface. The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, there's a good deal more opportunity for them to do exactly as they want while the heat's off, and secondly because it's a valid form of protest. In a much publicised move, he's also taking the P.M.R.C. to the high court, claiming that they've printed photographs of LP sleeves and misquoted the band's lyrics in a recently published book. We'll have more details on the case in a major feature in September issue, and for now we'll just concentrate on the band's immediate plans. The most important of which is obviously the return of the chainsaw blades and associated imagery.

If they thought that we were bad before they'd better bend over stick their heads between their legs and kiss their arse goodbye, pal, because it's gonna be rough this time, hey says with an aggressive glint in his eye. That's no bullshit. The rack's coming back for starters, and although this show won't be exactly the same as the first one, it'll make the other one look like a boys scout's troupe. There are obviously going to be restrictions made on what W.A.S.P. can and cannot do at Donington, but they're keeping their hands close to their chests on what they've got planned.

Donington's a festival and nobody's supposed to do anything, says Blackie mysteriously, but I underline the word supposed. You can expect a few surprises on the day I promise, One of these is that the band are hurriedly searching for a new drummer, a Steve Riley who joined the band on the eve of their first British tour, has flown the coop.

Yeah, we're in the process of going through another drummer, he confirms. I don't know who the replacement's gonna be yet, but I would certainly hope that we get one before Donington. I don't relish the thought of playing as a three-piece, especially without a drummer. He chuckles, It wasn't a hostile split or anything, in fact Steve and I are still real good friends. When the situation with Randy Piper and Tony Richards came down, that certainly wasn't a friendly split, but this is. It just got the point where there wasn't enough thought going on in the band, it all got a little routine for everybody. It's not a situation where you can point your finger at just one person, but when it gets where it's a little like punching a time clock I don't think that's right. I would rather be involved with some new blood in the thought process, especially as we're going back to a similar type of show to the one we had in the beginning. It's important to have some vitality.

But never fear the chances of W.A.S.P canceling their appearance are extremely remote. Blackie's looking forward to it and counting the minutes. They've never played a festival before, but Blackie attended 1984's show, headlined by ZZ Top, and it made a definite impression on him.

Maaan, I've never seen anything like it in my life, I went back home and tried to explain it to the guys, and it really can't be done, I'm talking about the crowd now, a gig's a gig as far as bands go. The crowd's what makes Donington different, when they start heaving those Fucking bottles the sky's littered and the sun's almost blocked out. When I tried to explain it to people I compared it to an Animal House with the food fight, but with 50,000 people out there doing it. And, naturally, I'm looking forward to being hit with a bottle of piss. No, don't print that or people'll start doing it be cause they think I like it.

W.A.S.P. have been around for some time now, it seems odd that they've yet to play their first outdoor show. There is some logic behind it though.

Blackie: We've tried to steer away from all that kind of stuff because we couldn't do the presentation that we like. But Donington's different I think. We've played in daylight before though, and we were surprised that it worked. We found that with a little thought beforehand that some things which worked at night wouldn't work in daytime. But at the same time, there are some things that you can do in daylight situation. It's kinda the same but different. The 1987 bill is probably the strongest in the festival's history. Blackie's impressed too. For us to be on the bill where we are it must be strong, he say modestly. I thought after the tour we did last year that we'd have been higher up on the bill. But when I look at the rest of the bands who are playing, what can I say?