How BLACKIE LAWLESS's Faith Affected Making Of W.A.S.P.'s New Album 'Golgotha'

September 27, 2015

In a brand new interview with Ultimate Classic Rock, W.A.S.P. frontman Blackie Lawless was asked how being a born-again Christian affected the overall creative and recording process of the band's new album, "Golgotha". He responded: "Certainly, lyrically everything is written from the eyes of my faith, everything is through that filter. You're also talking about a genre [heavy metal and hard rock] that, in general, is obsessed with the idea of God and/or the devil. Jazz, pop, there is no other genre that is absolutely obsessed with it as this genre is.

"The Bible tells us, 'The truth has been placed in the hearts of all men.' In other words, people know what the truth is. What I see is people in the search of the truth. They're all on a journey, the people that are attracted to this genre are people who are really a lot more in tune with it than they think they are."

He continued: "I'm speaking from a direction where I know what I'm talking about. I was in the church until I was in my late teens, and when I left and came to California, I went as far away as you could possibly go. I ended up studying the occult for three years. I understand what they're looking for — they're looking for the same thing I'm looking for. I'm at a point now where I'm bilingual: I can speak their language. They can't necessarily speak my language, but I can understand where they're coming from.

"When we say 'religion,' we kind of use that as a general term, and when people have the resistance that they have to it, they have every reason to feel that way. That's part of what drove me away — the indoctrination of men that I received; it's man's indoctrination. Now, from my perspective, my faith is based on Jesus Christ and the Bible — nothing more, nothing less.

"I don't want to hear anybody telling me their ideas or their interpretations or interjections of what they've put into the Bible, like telling me I can't eat meat on Friday, or I got to go and worship somebody's old dead bones somewhere. That's not in my Bible. There's a lot of it. Every organized religion has it, every organized faith has it. That's not where I'm coming from."

Blackie went on to say: "When I left the church and then I studied the occult, I walked around for 20 years and thought I was mad at God. I realized after 20 years I was not mad at God, I was mad at man for that indoctrination I received. For me I had to settle this issue once and for all, because I am not going to walk around with this anxiety of what's going to happen to me and where I'm going. I got to know the truth. I got the Bible and I started reading and I thought I was going to disprove this thing once and for all.

"Everyone says the Bible is written by men, but the Bible says it was men who were directly inspired by God. But I didn't believe it for a minute. So I start reading and I start discovering and you have 66 books written by 40 different authors spread over three different continents, in three different languages, over a 2,000-year period. Most of the authors did not know each other, had no knowledge of each other, but yet I see consistently that they're not just answering each other's questions, they're finishing each other's sentences. It was mind-boggling, the deeper I got into it, and one day it hit me like a shot. I'm reading the living word of a living God. After that, I was just scratching the surface. Then, when you get even deeper into it, it's beyond comprehension.

"I cannot say it strongly enough. It is beyond impossible that it could've been written by men. I'm a writer, and even the writers that I know that I admire, I look at how we write, I know what our limitations are, and, like I said, it's so far beyond our comprehension."

"Golgotha" will be released on October 2 via Austria's Napalm Records.

Drummer Mike Dupke recently left W.A.S.P. after a nine-year stint with the band. He has since been replaced on the road by YNGWIE MALMSTEEN drummer Patrick Johansson and, more recently, by Randy Black (PRIMAL FEAR).

Find more on W.a.s.p.
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • reddit
  • email

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).