Metal Shock Finland (World Assault )

The Metal Voice recently spoke to W.A.S.P. frontman Blackie Lawless spoke about the bands upcoming North American tour, celebrating the bands 40th anniversary of their debut album.

W.A.S.P. for the first time in 40 years, will play the entire album, start to finish, on their North American tour, dubbed “Album ONE Alive”, this fall. Support on the trek will come from DEATH ANGEL and UNTO OTHERS.

When asked if he will be sitting down (as he did at Sweden Rock Festival) on the upcoming tour as he is recovering from back surgery

“I told the people at Sweden Rock I’m on probation. The doctors told me you can do the show but we don’t want you running any marathons. We want to make sure that this this thing heals completely and totally and you don’t have any setbacks. So that was the compromise that we had to make to do it. But I’m fully expecting that they’ll give me the green light anytime now. I see the doctors again this week and I’ll know more then.”

When asked about the upcoming tour celebrating the release of the debut album
“The date August 17th 1984 was significant cuz that was the day that first album was released so we have not done the album in its entirety since that original tour. People had asked for it before and quite honestly you know a lot of times when you’re the person that creates something you don’t ever really see it like other people will see it because you’re on the inside of that bubble. When I tested this idea on a half dozen people that I trust, different promoters around the country, the reaction was not just positive. I mean basically the word I kept hearing over and over was holy- [ __ ]. It wasn’t just positive it was almost one of those visceral reactions. I thought huh maybe we got something here. The artists a lot of times can be naive to that is we’re on the inside and we just don’t see it like someone else would. I had a friend of mine who’s a promoter that I trust a lot and he was telling me you know that this needs to be done or when you do it that they need to be done in chronological order the way they are the running order is on the album. And I argued him up and down on that. I go well listen that means you know we need to start with I want to be somebody (song) we’ve never done that before., you’re throwing a monkey wrench into my whole plan here. And he says listen he goes if Zeppelin got back together and they did Zeppelin 4 do you want to hear that album in it’s proper running order? So I sit there and I say, yeah. I came to the conclusion if you’re going to do it in its entirety you need to do it in its proper running order.”

When asked the possibility of bringing former guitarist Randy Piper and Chris Holmes on stage as special guests since it is the Album ONE tour
‘If the climate were right you would be correct but that climate is not right. There’s water under the bridge that I could not see that ever happening. But allow me to say this what I’m attempting to do here with this show is create an environment not dissimilar to what we did in the beginning. I want to take you back to that moment (early touring years of W.A.S.P.) because most of the audience that are at these shows never lived through it. I don’t want to just have you listen to to an older record. I want to take you back to where that time and space was and for the two hours that we’re in there I want to turn that clock back to make you think you’re actually living through it and with what we’re doing.”

When asked if they will perform any other W.A.S.P. songs on this tour along with the debut album and where does Animal (F like a beast) fit in?
“There’ll be a part one (Debut album performance) and a part two. So there’ll be an intermission in between about five -six minutes and then we’ll come back and we’ll do the second part which will be like our greatest hits type of presentation. Now Animal was never part of that debut record. I would say that any of that stuff that could potentially be done if it’s going to be played would be played in the second half but it’s not going to be part of the original album because it was never part of the original album. ‘