REPROBATE'S CORNER
By Val Potter
By Val Potter
December, 1993
W.A.S.P. may be no more, but frontman Blackie Lawless will never die! Val Potter has a very revealing chat to the heavy metal legend...
Name:
Blackie Lawless! Okay, my real name's Steve.
Date of Birth:
09.04.56
Place of Birth:
Staten Island, New York City
Current Home:
Thirty miles north of Los Angeles, in Malibu but in the hills. I've got 10 acres up there and my nearest neighbours are half a mile away.
Level of Education:
Two years of college. I was studying political science.
What did you want to be before you became a musician:
It's what I always wanted to do. My mother says when I was two years old she'd take me to a store and put me in one of those little carts, and she's forget something and go to another aisle, and by the time she came back I'd have people around me and I'd be down on the floor, doing "Hound Dog" with all the gyrations! She says she should have known then what I was going to be!
First band:
I started playing drums when I was eight, but my parents decided after three months that I was not going to be a drummer, for obvious reasons! I started playing guitar and put a little trio together to play parties. It was the first time I made money, playing music - $16.35! Little did I know that was a lot more money than I was going to make for years and years!
Prized possession:
I almost got married earlier this year, but it didn't work out and I would have said her! [laughs] I guess I don't have one; I'm not as materialistic as I used to be. I used to collect Jaguars and all kinds of sports cars, and although I still do have them and I appreciate them and enjoy them, I don't covet them as much as I once did.
Highlight of your career so far:
Surviving it. Man, I tell ya, I've lived four or five of somebody else's lifetimes! This business is everything you've heard it is - and more! It's kinda like The Grateful Dead song, What a long strange trip it's been... I've been doing this for ten years - and I'm threatening to make a career out of it!
Has any gig been a complete disaster:
Probably the worst one was last year, when we were doing the Monsters Of Rock tour, and I'd gotten some kind of flu. The doctor saw me on Wednesday afternoon and the first show was on Saturday, so he says, I'm gonna give you something that's gonna kill anything, but it's gonna get worse before it gets better". Thursday I couldn't even get out of bed; Friday I was a little better, but not much, and I was seriously thinking about cancelling us playing. Saturday rolled around and he was right - I was a little bit better, but it was bizarre. I walked out on stage, and for the first four songs I didn't even notice there were people there! At the end of the fourth song, I picked up my head and thought Wow - a lot of people have showed up!" Everything was in slow motion, shrouded in fog. the only thing I can remember thinking was, Don't walk off the end of the stage!, because those festival stages are about fifteen feet high and there's no rail on 'em! I can't remember anything else, except that the whole time I was there, I was intense pain. If I never have to go through anything like that again, it won't break my heart!
Weirdest request from a fan:
I don't think you'd be able to print it! Well, probably a letter I got from a mother who requested to reprint some of the lyrics from one of my songs on her daughter's headstone.
Has success changed you:
Yeah. In the beginning I prided myself in thinking I had my feet firmly planted on the ground and I did, in comparison to most, but even I was not aware of what was ahead. Most people think they want to become famous, but like the old cliche, it can be a double edged sword. W.A.S.P. became a household word, and especially in America with the PMRC, it got really out of hand for a while. And America is the kind of place where, if they see someone on TV like the PMRC telling them I'm the Devil incarnate, there's some lunatics in places like Arkansas and Alabama, they think they've got to rid the world of a menace. I got shot at twice, we were having bomb scares at every show, one of my E-types was tampered with and the left front wheel flew off after I'd gotten on the freeway, and the FBI had to come in a couple of times. I was advised not to live by myself and I got tired of jumping every time a floorboard creaked in the middle of the night. All of those things have led me to become more of a recluse, so it's changed me in ways I could never have foreseen. It made me a better songwriter and there have been parts of it I just couldn't believe, but there is a price to be paid.
Have you ever been arrested:
The first time I was arrested as an adult was in LA, for allegedly robbing a grocery store. I fit the description of the guy they were looking for so they took me down and held me for six hours, until lo and behold, they found out I wasn't the guy they were looking for! They knew damn good and well I wasn't that character, but they didn't like the way I looked. Yeah, sure, I stole the asparagus!
