Midnight Cowboys W.A.S.P get Blind in Texas and OTT in Arizona. On the LAWLESS trial, DANTE BONUTTO.

The streets are empty and the sun it up. It's high noon and there's tension in the air.

On one side of the main square stand four men - four strangers - rising tall out of the dust, eyes narrowed and pride scarred and raw. They believe in the justice of their cause and they will not go home unavenged.

OK, I'll man, we're waiting on yer, calls out their leader, taking one pace forward, thumbs hooked firmly into his belt, "anytime ye ready...

For a while all is silent; nothing, save for the sound of tumbleweed blown back and forth by the hot wind and the tallest of the strangers scratching at his stubble with a rusty beer can. Nothing, and then... a creak as the doors of the saloon swing open and a figure steps out into the sunlight, eyes pink through lack of sleep and large white boots a-jangle with silver spurs.

The figure, small yet purposeful of stride, moves down into the square and turns to face his challengers. The Boots ease forward, one after the other, cleaving through the dirt and causing the ground to shake and crack; clump, clump, clump, the sound is unsettling, the progress of the figure inexorable. Clump, clump, clump, at last he's there, face to knee with his opponents, no trace of fear to mar his fresh complexion.

The strangers shuffle nervously, flashing looks at each other as if uncertain what move to make. Should they play it cool, should they go for their guns should they? The small figure is in no mood for messing, in a flash, his right hand moves from his side, palm outstretched, inscribing an arc between him and the four like someone wiping clean a slate. Instinctively the strangers flinch, expecting the worse, only to find themselves soaking up nothing more lethal than words. Two of them, in fact. What could it mean? What was going on? They weren't too sure but there they were again, the same two, apparently harmless, friendly almost.
HI GUYS! Just that.

IN THE wake of the knuckle-rapping meted out to W.A.S.P’s second album in the last issue, many might feel a showdown of sorts ‘twist the band and Dave Dickson (who wielded the big stick) to be very much on the cards. But few of those, I suspect, will ever have had the pleasure of Blackie Lawless, WAS.P. bass player and vocalist, prime songwriter and spokesman co-producer of their records occasionally sole producer), arch admirer of Elvis and Mohammed Ali and general driving force behind all that they do. The guy may have got involved in The Biz for all the wrong reasons To get my dick sucked, is his candid explanation - but he's come, if you'll pardon the expression, a long, long way since-then. A Wild Child now steering a sensible, not to mention lucrative path, he's disciplined enough to cope with the success that’s finally knocking hard at his door, and by the same token certainly big enough to handle a single bad review.

I mean, let's face it, when you choose to adopt an extreme stance it's pretty much inevitable that the reaction you provoke will be likewise extreme: love or hate, adulation or sneers, five Ks or, uh, K½, the old double-edged sword slices the air once again. Blackie knows the score better than most, particularly as some of those none too impressed with its hand-picked troupe and theft bloody rack n roll antics have decided to come on strong not just with names but with sticks and stones and guns as well! The full armoury show. Twice the four have been shot at - once during a photo session in Los Angeles and once during causing Blackie ( he of the highest profile) to consider whether or not it might be prudent for him to pack some firepower himself.

I really wouldn't want to use something like that unless it's a life-or-death situation, though, he explains, sinking into a seat in the London HQ of the Smallwood / Taylor organisation, the management team also responsible for handling the affairs of Iron Maiden, but I got into a couple of situations on the last tour when I was away from the rest of the band, and if you have a woman with you and four or five guys come up I'd rather be carrying one than not, let's put it that way.

Despite the fact that he now finds himself living in the same LA apartment block as Motor City Madman Ted Nugent, a renowned hotshot not adverse to whipping a 357 Magnum out of the breeches at the merest hint of trouble, Blackie doesn't as yet conceal a weapon, choosing face his critics armed only with a tiger-eyed belief in the output of his group (completed by Chris Holmes / Randy Piper on guitars and Steve Riley on drums) and the quality of his lifestyle as a whole. He also happens to be very proud of the new album - whatever Dave Dickson might say!

O Just what is the deal with The Last Command? Is it really worth only K 1/2? Well no I reckon not, though I respect Dickinson's right to an opinion and the case he makes is convincing enough. I guess it all just comes down to personal opinion; I mean, I never had too much time for Hanoi Rocks, a band the Double-D could and indeed did rave about at quite indecent length, so there you go.

To my mind, the new W.A.S.P. album merits a four K rating, being an impressive and imaginative work a lunar leap ahead of the enjoyably energetic first LP (W.A.S.P. 1984). That took about, four months to record. Blackie co-producing with Mike Varney for the first six weeks then going it alone after that, but the current effort was all wrapped up in under seven weeks, and with Blackie having the excellent team of producer Spencer Ptoffer and engineer Hanspeter Huber to act as a reliable sounding-board for some of his more cavernous concepts, the end result is certainly on the plus side of potent. An ambitious assault and a varied one too; hardly surprising really when you consider that Blackie’s ultimate desert island disc is the Beatles varied White Album.

I laughingly refer to it as Pink Floyd meets W.A.S.P. says the Dark One laughing sure enough it's a pretty deep album; the kind of record that you'll listen to in five years time and hear things you never heard before. Your supposed on listen to it with headphones on because there's all kinds of stuff just zooming out.

There is indeed. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, but it might be a low-flying sitar, or maybe a Hammond organ, just two of about 14 different instruments Blackie turned his hand to in the course of recording, the ten new numbers being coaxed onto tape at The Pasha Music House in Hollywood where half of the first album was likewise laid down. Here, away from the sort of distractions that present themselves all too readily at a studio like the Record Plant, the band got their heads down and set to work, thriving on the momentum gained from doing something quickly and progressing smoothly enough to take a week-long break from recording to play some shows with Iron Maiden.

Prior to entering the studio proper, they'd allowed themselves some six weeks to break the back of the new material, but having notched up somewhere in the region of 170 gigs in 1984 they found they were pretty much ready to go for it after three - a tight, efficient unit with 12 tracks itching for vinyl fame. They did their homework and the dividends paid have been handsome. No detention for these boyz..

With the record chasing its tail at the appropriate rpm, the first thing that strikes home is the sound. BIG and multi-layered, more bangs for your buck, the adrenalised rush proud on the addect wave of sophistication that succeed in drenching even the baying Lawless vocals. Indeed, the latter certainly grab my vote as the most improved single aspect of the W.A.S.P. vinyl scream, why you can even hear what Blackie’s saying this time around, which is good news for those who like their lyrics salty and seasoned and wrapped in The Guardian rather than The Beano... well, 2000 AD at least. Lyrically and musically W.A.S.P. rest assured, a never less than good throwaway and occasionally a whole lot more.

Good throwaway, I guess that might be an apt way of describing the likes of Ballcrusher, Sex Drive and first single / video Blind In Texas, punchy, piledriving rock and rollers more in keeping with the W.A.S.P. of yesterday, the gore of yore if you like, yet at the other end of the scale be prepared to make way for material far, far grander in both conception and style. I'm flying the flag here for such prime cuts as Wild Child (surely a futures singles choice), Cries in the Night (the acceptable face of AOR) and, in particular, Widowmaker, a thoughtful exercise in macabre art wrecko that fair rattles out of the speakers on a monstrous guitar riff before pulling back its shoulders and declaring itself an epic, the genuine article. And a swift mention too for Jack Action, a number composed primarily by drummer Steve Riley - recording with the band for the first time - which boasts an equally monstrous riff and a convenient cowbell at the begining enabling Krusher to play along without leaving his desk, Nice one Ladz.

You know says Blackie, once the album has been played to me at plant-withering volume, the problem with this genre of music is that I don' t think there's enough imagination in it. I love heavy rock as much as the next guy, but who says it can't be heavy and still have some imagination?

Like W.A.S.P’s version of the Stones' Paint It Black, perchance? (The B-side of the School Daze single produced by Blackie and released in '84). There seemed to be a lot of experimentation going on there...

Yeah, this album is very similar to what that single was. You could see even then the direction I was leaning in, I just couldn't push it too quick too fast because I don't think people could have absorbed it all right away.

The first album I still like a lot, I think it's great for what it was; it has a lot of energy and it was designed to be a fun record, but this, this is a listening record. There are synthesisers all over this album, everywhere, yet with 99 out of 100 heavy rock groups if you told them you wanted to bring in a synthesiser they’d throw you out on your ass, they wouldn't want to hear about it. The thing is, though, you don't have to make those sound blatant; you can work it so you feel rather than hear them. That’s the secret in creating a record that’s got depth as opposed to one that’s just very black and white.

When I spoke to you last, you mentioned Billy Idol producer Keith Forsey as someone you'd be interested in working with, yet in the end its Spencer Proffer who's appeared on the scene for the second album. How come?

And I also talked to Paul Stanley when we were out touring with Kiss says Blackie, setting the record straight, when I met with Spencer he said two things to me that I'd already been thinking myself: one, that I wanted to make the vocals more elaborate on the second album, cos the thing that worked best on the first LP was the harmonies on the songs, so I knew that I wanted to load this record up in that way. And, also, I wanted to make it more imaginative; he'd heard what I'd done with Paint It Black and he said: Yeah, that really has got imagination and those two things that he said really struck me cos I had been thinking the same for months.

And then when it came to recording we did something real interesting that I'd never done before and Spencer hadn't either. First we did all the drum tracks and put all the bass guitar parts down, and then we took a song at a time and added the vocals, the guitars and the lead guitar and whatever overdubs we wanted and then finally mixed and put the song away. When you do that, right away you're making an album of singles - and I don't mean singles for radio - as opposed to an album that’s assembly - lined when you take it a song at a time you can see the record start to develop, plus you get a sense that you're accomplishing something all the time.

In fact the only thing that I didn't like was the fact that it seemed as though I was singing forever. I mean, I sang for five fucking weeks! Every third day I was in there! What would happen is that one day I would sing, then the next day we'd do guitars and I and overdubs and the third day, would be taken up with the mix, so after that I would be back in again.

Widowmaker was the last song I did and by that point it seemed like the eternal album. God, I sang my ass off on this record, I really did! It took me six hours to put the vocals on Wild Child - I did it all in one session - and it's the most painful thing I've ever done vocally in my life. It took me about a week to recover from that; singing at the volume I was singing at for that length of time just left me exhausted. I was like a dish rag by the time I finished.

And we also put a lot of thought into how we were going to approach the vocals. There's all kinds of things going on in a lot of places there is speaking beneath the vocals so your not quite sure what it is, but I like all that cos it makes you listen a number of times to figure out what’s happenning.

So you like people to listen to your lyrics then, they're not just disposable?

Well, some are and some is aren't... I think Widowmaker is a real good piece of Edgar Allan Poe that shows you don't have to sing about occultism or the devil all the time, that kinda crap. A song like Widowmaker paint a picture and so does Jack Action that s about someone whose girlfriend has been killed by this guy called Jack Action (and I thought it had referred to some deviant sexual abuse), he's looking for him and he tracks him down... things you like that are interesting to listen to. In fact, to me, lyrics are probably the best thing I do; usually, it takes me three days to write the words for one song, to get every syllable just the way I want it.

So do you listen out for the words when you hear someone else’s record?
Oh, absolutely!

A Ronnie James Dio record perhaps? Do you find his words play too elaborate to get into?

No, I see nothing elaborate coming from Ronnie. Let's just say that he's not one of my favourite lyricists! John Lennon, however, was brilliant when he was pissed off, when he was on a bitch-trip, and Roger Waters and David Gilmour are two of the best I've ever heard... and Lou Gramm from foreigner is excellent too.

EARLIER on mentioned that WAS.P had already been shot at twice, which must be worrying to say the least.

Were you previously aware of the problems that success can bring?

Yeah, I had a pretty good idea cos my dad worked on the carnival circuit when he wasn't at school and I heard some real war stories about things like that, especially in the old days. I used to hear people talk about death threats and stuff and I thought, Wow, what a superstar, but I tell you, when it happens you don't feel too much like a superstar.

Have you ever been worried that you won't be able to cope with success?

Well, I'm glad that I've reached the age I am now before it's happened because I am a lot more disciplined today that I used to be. When I was young I was wild! Chris Holmes is to me right now what I was to other people when I was younger. I used to be just like that, but he's settling down a lot now; he got drunk and ended up in jail in New Orleans when we were out touring with Maiden and I think he's learnt his lesson from that cos I wouldn't talk to him for like three days after.

I said,You know what to happens when you ask for something to drink in a bar and they bring you this bottle and you think it says Vodka on Well, it doesn't, it says Grief and that's what happens every time you get fucked up! He was just sitting there like a little kid, though the whole thing cost him about 1000 dollars cos the cops confiscated a new motorcycle jacket he'd bought in Canada which was worth about 300 dollars and then there was the fine to pay.

Blind And Fined In New Orleans, eh? Presumably a similar incident took place in Texas, the inspiration for the song.

Yeah, that song was written from experience; we were touring with Maiden for quite a while which took us into Texas, and for about three days there we were having a real good time just getting about as drunk as a human can and still survive.

You know, Randy does the solo on that song and I tell you it is one of the best I've heard in my life. He is from San Antonio, that is where he was brought up, and he really sounds like Billy Gibbons at his best on that one. I mean, solo just smokes!

But what about Wako, Texas. It must surely he one of the very few numbers ever to give that town a name-check?

Yeah, but you see there was a specific incident that happened in Wako that I really can't go into detail about here. Lets just say that it involved myself, Maiden’s tour manager Dickie Bell, a girl and a banana and leave the rest to your imagination, OK?!

Er, OK, though I have to admit that my knowledge on alternative rock ‘n’ roll uses for fruit and veg is a little on the rusty side at the moment, so excuse me while I flick through the pages of Don Costa’s comprehensive manual on the subject. Let's see, bananas, bananas, bananas... ah, here it is... OH, REALLY!!!

How US radio will take to The Last Command is an interesting question and one that even the ever-primed Blackie doesn't have an answer for, but if push does come to shove and radio decides not to support the band at all then the bassist is still confident in the record comprehensively tipping the million scale. Certainly, the Rick Friedberg directed... Texas video should help, an entertaining catalogue of ten-gallon titters that seems unlikely to receive the same short shrift from the powers-that-be as the LOVE Machine promo, dryly referred to by Blackie as an 180,000 mistake, and who knows before too long the latter may soon be realising the first of his three life ambitions: to play at New York's Madison Square Garden.