At the beginning of the WASP. biography, there sits a cautionary note: You may find parts of this incredulous. However... you will find it is not only true, but that the contents have been heavily censored! Oh, yeah, sure, and I'm the ghost of Tommy Cooper - but hold on for a moment, disregard the hype, this just may not be the time for hasty conclusions...

A few days after I arrived In LA, W.A.S.P.'s guitarist shot himself. No, we're not talking here about artistic angst; Chris Holmes isn't the sort of chap to dispatch his frustrations at the wrong end of a smoking rifle. He was simply getting in a little target practice, aiming at a conveniently placed motor car, when the bullet kinda rebounded and deposited a flurry of shrapnel in his leg. Could have been worse.

Hardly unusual, though. The American education authorities started calling it a day with Chris when, at the tender age of seven, he was ejected from school for savagery burying little girls in sandboxes, things like that. Since then, he's signed his autograph for possibly half of LA's Police Department, expiating various offences by mopping the slops from the floors of many a cop shop.

Chris's mother used to be a Hell's Angel. Let her near a motorbike, and it's not unknown for her to perform wheelies down the street. She once greeted an unwise purse-grabber with a well-aimed slug in the face. Like mother like son and remember, Chris is only one quarter of W.A.S.P.

I think it's safe to say that W.A.S.P. are one of the most notorious bands to have risen to the fore of the burgeoning Los Angeles metal scene in the past couple of years. From the record company towers to the Hollywood niteries, the word has spread - tinged as often with loathing as with delight - in a self-promotion scheme that's given even Vicki Hodge a run for her money.

W.A.S.P are, if you like, the logical progression into 1984 shock rock, Kiss for the over-18 or those who can't wait to be. They call themselves electric vaudeville but I'm not sure that isn't a rather tame tag. The Video Nasties Of Rock 'N' Roll has been suggested as a maybe more accurate description.

Whatever they choose to call it, it's an 'image' that scarcely fails to capture the attention. What with the rack and the raw meat, the sawblades and the spikes, the banned Animal (Fuck Like A Boast) single climbing towards number 80 in the charts, the photographers clamouring for gore-spattered cover shots.... What's that? Did someone mention novelty acts? Better not let Blackie hear you say that!

W.A.S.P. is the brainchild of Blackie Lawless, six feet four with hair that's fast catching up and one fist almost permanently encased in black leather after throwing a punch that nearly paralysed his hand for life don't even ask about his opponent.

Indeed, looking at him, it isn't hard to see how he came to be offered the position vacated by the somewhat unreliable Johnny Thunders in the New York Dolls. It was, as he says, good learning experience.

I figured that if I could make it through that last tour - I think it was about six months - then I could make it through anything. That was the only band I know that could sit in an airport and miss five planes in a row...

When the Dolls collapsed, Blackie moved out west to LA, bringing with him ideas for his own rock band, an outfit that came together on his meeting present W.A.S.P. guitarist Randy Piper as Sister.

Suffice to say, Sister were not your rum-of-the-mill metal outfit, not with Blackie munching down the occasional mid-gig snack of live worms they weren't! But he claims that they were responsible for piloting a lot of the ideas used by the present OTT inhabitants of the LA music brigade, not in the least Motley Crüe, and doubtless Sister planted the seed that was to germinate into the altogether more professionally-minded W.A.S.P.

Because make no mistake, W.A.S.P. is serious band.
I was looking for the closest thing to penitentiary inmates I could find and I found them, explains Blackie. The idea was to look for an East Coast attitude In a West Coast band which isn't easy to do.

Thus he set about scouring the area for outcasts from the typically laid-back Pacific mentality... and found them in the oddest of places.

Randy was quick to rejoin the fold, while a worthy drummer was discovered in the form of Tony Richards who was happy enough to set aside his usual occupation of looking after elderly women . This had nothing to do with welfare, I might add.

And the aforementioned Chris Holmes was guaranteed a job when Blackie happened upon his picture in the Beaver Hunt section of Hustler magazine - a page devoted to the female readership - advertising his prowess as a guitarist.

It was enough to make Mr. Lawless switch to bass and W.A.S.P. was launched under a moniker that was controversial if you knew what the letters could stand for, or not, as the case may be. What the folks down in the Deep South make of it remains to be seen!

Once we had a name, we needed a visual hook to go out and attract people with, to get them to come and see us, explains Blackie. And that was largely where the outfits came in to play. We needed something that was a little bit futuristic while still looking like it belonged to Rock 'N' Roll.

Basically, we were looking for the next obvious step in the evolution of rock and we took it out and played live... I think we selected our demographic audience correctly.

Uh? I mean, that's not the sort of thing you expect to hear from your average metal merchant, and certainly not one that dresses up in bottomless (literally) tights and hazardously positioned sawblades.

But then Blackie Lawless is no mug. Sitting down and working out that by annexing LA's punk fans to its HM junkies he'd build himself a longer lasting audience is only part of the master plan; refusing to go live before collating more than enough good material wasn't such a bad idea either.
LA is basically spoiled. They've seen it all before, it is the cultural capital of the West Coast, and any band that ever came out of LA to do anything of prominence always had to have the material.

You might be able to sustain yourselves for a while as a novelty act but to rise with the escalation that we've done in just over a year" (from a handful of punters to selling out the Santa Monica Civic in form of nearly 4,000, before signing) you need something more that just the visuals because watching a show like this is a bit like watching a movie - how many times can you se it before you get bored? There'd better be something more there to keep your interest.

And if all this sounds a bit calculated?

If you want to sit there and think about what you're doing instead of beating your head up against a wall time and time again... the secret is homework, how you prepare yourself.

Similar planning lurked behind the choice of 'Animal' as W.A.S.P's debut single. Obviously, none of the band expected it to be welcomed with open arms by Mike Read and co...

We gave up a song, it's as simple as that, says Blackie. We gave up a good song and traded it in for the publicity, and even though we've lost that song, now that it's been more or less banned worldwide, we are still holding the big end of the stick. It's been more than an even trade; it's actually been beyond our wildest dreams, I think.

He is, however, amused by Capitol Records decision to consult Queen council over the lyrical content and their subsequent discovery that one of the company directors might have ended up 'inside' had the dreaded disc seen the light of day on the label.

It's a bit like going to the daughter's father and saying Sir can we screw your daughter? You don't ask you just do it and hope you get away with it! Anyway, now Music For Nations are realising it (codpiece cover and all) and I wish them the best of luck!

As a postscript, a sizeable percentage of WH Smiths stores, after originally throwing up their hands in horror at Kerrang! front cover pic of Blackie, agreed to stock Animal. Since then, however, it's been banned from Smiths, HMV, Boots and Our Price so if you're after a copy, or even the soon-to-be released picture disc, then you'd better be quick. But I digress...

There are certain people in the music business who reckon that Blackie Lawless and manager Rod Smallwood were made for each other. The decidedly peculiar yet mentally astute one-time possible pro baseball player and the almost legendary tight-fisted but business-confounding rugby fan are now great friends, although it didn't start out that way.

I first met Rod down at the Rainbow (an infamous watering hole in L.A where the toilets have probably seen more action than West Beirut) and I couldn't stand him! The second time, I liked him even less - he was as arrogant as hell. Actually, he gave me some advice at the time which I didn't agree with - about not touring the UK before we were ready - although he was right in the end. (W.A.S.P. now plan to visit in July, and possible to play at Reading).

Mutual admiration - and of course, the subsequent lucrative deal with Capitol Records - was reached when globe trotting warthog and photographer Ross Halfin took rod to see W.A.S.P. play at the Troubadour. Thinking he was going along for a Joke, he was amazed to discover the band's not inconsiderable song writing abilities and became an instant convert, adding to what Blackie describes as his little disciples everywhere - I guess that's where I got the expression for being the Jim Jones of Rock 'N' Roll!

Certainly people either love or loathe W.A.S.P's show. There is little room for fence sitters. Although they no longer lob raw meat into the audience - originally a technique to restore the flagging attention of individuals, in a reversed rotten tomato manner, but now fairly impossible in large size halls - there's still no respite from the bombardment of the senses.

Blackie likens it to a magic show; he's keen to stress the psychological angle to the insanity.

It's designed along the same pretence that magic is. You're not seeing what you think you are and often, it's not until the audience gets home, and they start re-running the show in their heads, that the images begin to register.
And then, of course, it starts getting blown up out of all proportion. I've heard of things we're supposed to have done, the next day, that never happened. The eyes start playing tricks and that is the beauty of all this: If we did half the things people say we do then we'd be out of business!

One example is the time that Blackie decided to take a few rats on stage with him and proceeded to feed one a lump of raw meat, dangling the stricken rodent over the microphone by its tail. The result? He was accused the next day of ripping the creature's guts out on stage.

But the idea is to confuse and bemuse, W.A.S.P. don't make any specific statements. We present bizarre images but we're not giving any answers.

It really aggravates me all these bands trying to make so many statements. Politics should be left to 70-year old crabby old men. Rock 'N' Roll should make you feel good, it should make you wanna Fuck. If it doesn't then there's something wrong with it!

Which leads us, I guess to the rack. Now don't tell Rose Rouse but around the middle of the band's live set appropriately during a song called Tormentor, a pair of double doors open to the audience to reveal a semi-naked woman spread-eagled across a spiked rack-like contraption, her face concealed by a hangman's hood.

Ok, so far? Well, Blackie then takes a sword and (optical illusion time, you'll be relieved to hear) sticks it through her neck. If you don't believe me, take a look at the bands appearance in up-coming horror flick Rage War.

This is immensely popular with the male clientele - I never get tire of looking at the face in the audience; it's every 15-year-old's dream, hell it's every grown man's dream, however it hasn't gone down too well amongst LA feminist population.

And yet, candidates are fairly queuing up for the job.

Some folks are just exhibitionists at heart. I mean, if you look ad modern sadism, you'll see that it incorporates many different facets - humiliation, metal and physical pain - and if you find on trait in someone them the rest usually follows. And that's the sort of people who apply for the job.

I'd be inclined to rap the knuckles over this attitude except I've met a few of the 'rack women' and... LA sure is a haven for musicians who use the title of being a musician as an excuse to be a bum and leech off women.

Take Chris for example. Down at the Rainbow one night, minding his own business, getting continually pestered by one young lady, quite insistent on taking him home with her.

She kept asking how much money it'd cost her to get me home and I really didn't want to know so I just said 200 dollars, you know? She just went off in a huff. And then, ten minutes later, she's back again, asking me: Will you accept a cheque?

It's a hard life...

In fact, it is quite a hard life at the moment. W.A,S,P. are in the studio recording their debut LP (tentatively titled Winged Assassins) with Shrapnel Record's boss Mike Varney co-producing.

It will, Blackie admits, be the ultimate test of whether they can transfer their personality and ideas from the flamboyance of the stage on to a piece of unbending black plastic. But from tapes that I've heard, it seems they're making successful moves. Heavy certainly - Blackie's vocals aren't gonna give Dio anything to panic about while Gary Moore can rest easy that his guitar supremacy isn't gonna be topped by these string driven things yet - but thick on melodies and in no way lacking the lasting commitment of energy.

The lyrics, inevitable, tend to be of a groinal nature and are no doubt going to offend more sensitive ears - but then folks do love to have something to moan about...

W.A.S.P. did a gig at the Troubadour last year at which half price admission was offered to anyone giving a pint of blood in the Blood Donor Truck outside. Now you'd think the American Red Cross would be touched by such a noble gesture. No way! On hearing that Blackie was supposed to have drunk animal blood on stage (not true), they scrapped most of it - and blood doesn't come for free in the USA!

Similarly, a goodly percentage of W.A.S.P.'s peers have reacted with less than brotherly generosity towards the band's recent success, in spite of the fact that many turn up regularly at gigs.

Blackie: Those guys when they say they can't understand what we're doing, it just proves they're getting older, getting more like their parents everyday... I dunno though, I think we scared a lot of people especially with the rack, but then again people should be glad that we're doing this, getting the kids to our gigs, getting them so they're too exhausted to go around stealing other people's hubcaps.

And that's as well because they might just decide to make codpieces out of them which, as Blackie will testify, can be a painful venture.

When I first got the codpiece form one of the road crew, it looked kinda big so I didn't bother to try it on and then, just before the show, when I did put the thing on, it didn't fit, you know so I had to get a glass of iced water and pour it down the front.

I had to do that tow time before I figured out how to wear the thing properly and the crew and everybody used to come in off the stage just to watch my face turn blue!