Ελληνικά
Last Updated on 09:02 PM by Nikos Nakos
The Beginning
The lucifer’s magic that makes you numb
The passion and all the pain are one..
We are in the mid 70s where Steven Edward Duren aka Blackie Lawless is getting his first taste of rock ‘n’ roll stardom. In 1975 as a live session musician for the New York Dolls – a few months before the forefathers of glam rock collapsed he moves west with his former band mate and bassist in the Dolls band, Arthur Kane. There they form the short-lived Killer Kane (known at the time as Blackie Gooseman), trying their luck in the bustling, but largely underground, hard rock scene of Los Angeles.
Like all journeys on the road to success are not paved with rose petals, this one had its difficulties. Unfortunately, the late 1970s was a bad time for heavy metal and shock glam rockers Sister (who initially linked him to his future W.A.S.P. band mate Randy Piper as well as later Mötley Crüe co-founder Nikki Sixx who was involved but ultimately didn’t continue with them) failed to attract the interest of record labels despite a loyal following. Other bands Blackie had played in at the time were Circus Circus and London (originally again with Sixx). Blackie and Randy stayed in touch and in 1982, when Blackie felt he had enough good material to form a new band, he contacted Randy.
Having low budget and no much room for other openings through Beaver Hunt magazine, he tracks down his ex – US Marine and later long life guitarist Chris Holmes with whom they would make history together before parting ways years later. After several auditions, the lineup is solidified and along with Holmes on guitars, Randy Piper (due to a previous life together), Tony Richards on drums with Blackie on bass in addition to vocals. The band also experimented with bassist Don Costa briefly before joining Ozzy Osbourne as a live session musician.
With a strong heavy metal component of this new creation imbued with the 80 “s glamour of the era and aiming to provoke in all areas they start their live performances. The main man’s disturbed childhood, who never lost sight of his vision of becoming, in every way, a person who will stand out from the masses, is the prologue of this particular attitude. Their first concert was at a place called ”The Woodstock” in Orange Country, and by May 1983, they managed to sell out the then 3000-seat Santa Monica Civic Hall. The momentum grew with a series of sold-out shows at the Troubador in Hollywood. Capitol and its people knew they had a spectacle on their hands when they discovered them. A spectacle they both respected and feared through the carnally savage stage show – with its raw meat, tubs of blood and half-naked bound women.
But before he established himself in the public’s consciousness in August 1984, this new face in shock rock with his powerful, brash and simply impossible to ignore self-titled debut album was already mired in controversy. Prior to its initial release, the controversial track ”Animal (Fuck like a Beast)” was deleted from the album. The Parents Music Resource Center, labeling the song as one of the ”Filthy 15” songs, deemed it morally objectionable to cut. Led by Tipper Gore, wife of then Senator Al Gore, this organization at the time was pushing for labels on recorded music. Problems with this organization at the time included Frank Zappa and Twisted Sister. W.A.S.P. didn’t forget this adventure back then and captured it in the song ”Harder, Faster”, on their infamous 1987 live album ”Live…In the Raw”.
Capitol Records (which had signed with them for $3 million at the time) bowed to pressure and withdrew the song, not wanting to risk the album being banned by the major chain stores. In fact, in the press release of the time to justify her attitude towards the band she stated the following ”This is not an ordinary song where there is an unacceptable use of words from those that have been deemed chronically unacceptable in commercial recording. It is a song about animal sex without any emotional or erotic dimension, something that can corrupt the youth”.
The Americans eventually released it as a single in the UK in April 1984 via the independent label Music for Nations, with whom they achieved a one-off deal, setting the charts on fire and making it sought after in North America as an import. The song, which sparked the censorship crisis of the mid-1980s more than any other, was reintroduced on the album as a bonus on the 1998 reissue. But what happened at the time worked in their favor because the intro to their debut album became heavier, faster and set the tone for what followed.
With an accompanying music video clip, “I Wanna Be Somebody”, as the album’s second single, was released in late July 1984 and became so popular that VH1 later placed it on its list of the “Top 100 hard rock songs” of all time. Recorded at Fort Apache Studios in Malibu and intended to be released under the title “Winged Assassins”, an idea apparently forgotten, the album is released as W.A.S.P. 40 years ago and their full length journey begins. They were the band that mothers hated. They were the band that shocked God-fearing adults and made them think W.A.S.P. was the left hand of the devil. But they were also the band that kids wanted to hear (and see). And they did!
With the 3rd single ”L.O.V.E. Machine” dating back to Lawless’ pre-W.A.S.P. band Circus Circus, who often played the song live but never recorded it, following in October of the same year, the Americans monopolized the world metal attention with Rod Smallwood giving them a stage slot on the 2nd leg of Iron Maiden’s World Slavery Tour in 1985. And while the singles ”School Daze” and ”Sleeping (In The Fire)” completed the album’s promotional assault on the metal world in November of that year Tony Richards decides to step down, giving his place behind the drum kit to the immortal Steve Riley with whom the group would go on to the next two recording epics. This is the first membership change we encounter in the group.
To sum up, the debut album of the Americans was a killer album for the time, musically, lyrically and visually. A pure fantasy trip album, inextricably tied to the era of Reganic catharsis, outside of which it can hardly be appreciated. Even Blackie himself went so far as to describe it as extremely violent and negatively charged, after being tortured by the artistic prison in which the influence of his birth trapped him, from August ’84 onwards. An album that connected seamlessly with reality through his songs which ranged from basic anti-power offences, such as the youthful delinquency in “B.A.D. “, truancy in “School Daze” and pyromania in “The Flame” to more serious offences – including violence in “Tormentor” and “The Torture Never Stops”, occult rituals in “Hellion” and varying shades of S&M in “L.O.V.E. Machine”, “Sleeping (In the Fire)” and “On Your Knees”. An album that with the promotional power of a major label like Capitol Records, well-crafted video clips tailored to MTV and the escalating popularity of heavy metal in America helped W.A.S.P. rise to prominence by providing maximum sonic/visual entertainment at very high decibels to their audience.
Moreover, several of the songs on the album have been covered by other bands. “Sleeping (In the Fire)” by Tiamat, “Hellion” by Children Of Bodom, “L.O.V.E. Machine” by Fallen Man, Lullacry, Fozzy and Alghazanth, “I Wanna Be Somebody” by Sentenced, Catamenia, Witchery, Avulsed and Gates of Ishtar and “The Torture Never Stops” by Torture Division. While the song “Tormentor” features the band in the 1984 film ”The Dungeonmaster” as known as internationally ”Rage Wars”.
