W.A.S.P.'s BLACKIE LAWLESS: 'I Wouldn't Say I'm Antisocial'

During a VIP question-and-answer session before W.A.S.P.'s September 30 concert at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, frontman Blackie Lawless addressed the public perception that he is somewhat "antisocial". He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I wouldn't say I'm antisocial. I'm just a human like anybody else. I'm gonna see things that are gonna aggravate me, but I think anybody that's in the public eye, they're not allowed to have regular days a lot of times, and if they get caught doing that, and I underline the word 'caught', then it's not exactly the same as somebody else. That doesn't necessarily make it true. I mean, maybe they're a full-time asshole. I don't know.

"I'll give you an example," he continued. "My dad calls me one day. We're building a house, and I'm down in what's the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. And he says, 'Hey, are you close to such and such place? I need something from a plumbing supply house that they have, and it's the only place in town that has it. Are you pretty close to them?' And I said, 'Yeah, I'm actually a couple blocks away.' He says, 'Okay.' He says, 'Can you go by and pick up this part and bring it on up to the house?' I said, 'Okay.' So I go in, and there's two guys that are waiting there to get whatever it is, part they needed. But there's a guy behind the counter. He sees me, he jumps up on the counter and starts doing [the classic W.A.S.P. song] 'L.O.V.E. Machine'. He's waving his hands in the air, and the two guys that are trying to get the part they're waiting on, they don't look at him. They look at me. What did I do to this guy to make this guy do this? And I politely walked out, and I called my dad, and I said, 'You ain't getting your part today.' So that kind of stuff happens. And on some days you can handle it better than others, and some days you just don't want to deal with it. So if you were in the same position, you too would do the same."

Asked what he does to "wind down" when he is not busy doing W.A.S.P.-related stuff, Blackie said: "You're looking at it. For the last I don't know how many years, it's like the old joke when you're not doing anything, you stick a broom in your rear end and sweep. It's a lot like that, and especially since COVID, because there was about three years there where nobody worked, so there was huge deficits that people — crew, band members, things like that — had to make up. So there's not the time that you might think to do this. To put this ['1984 To Headless' fall 2026 North American] tour together [with KK'S PRIEST], we started working on this in late March. So there's a lot of moving parts to the show that the idea is to make it look like it doesn't have that. And if you have to think about all the moving parts, it strips away the beauty of simplicity anyway. So we don't want it to be like that. But it is similar to a play in a lot of ways that the crew members have to know where they need to be at certain times to do certain things, and there's a lot of moving parts. So to get that from point A to point B, there's a lot of rehearsal involved, but there's a lot of planning involved to do that. And it's not a band that's just walking out on a stage and playing their little songs and wave their hand and say goodbye when it's over. It's not like that at all. But I've been working on the book, which I talked to different guys that wrote books and I said, 'How long did it take you?' And they said, 'Six months to a year.' And I'm thinking, 'Okay, that's what it'll take me.' Well, six years later, I'm still working on it, because I'm gonna do this one time, and I want it to be right. So there's a lot of stuff that people do not see that goes into this. And it really is like the old question that you run a business and there's nothing to do, it's because you're not running it right. There's a lot of truth to that. This is a business, just like anything else. The good part of it is there's a lot of things to do, and most of it the public never sees. But it takes up a lot of time."

W.A.S.P. kicked off the "1984 To Headless" 2026 U.S. and Canada tour with KK'S PRIEST on September 10 at The Magnolia in El Cajon, California. The 17-song setlist from the Lawless-fronted outfit consisted mostly of songs from W.A.S.P.'s first four albums — 1984's "W.A.S.P.", 1985's "The Last Command", 1986's "Inside The Electric Circus" and 1989's "The Headless Children" — opening with URIAH HEEP's "Easy Livin'", a song W.A.S.P. covered on "Inside The Electric Circus" but had never performed live. Blackie and his bandmates also played "Mr. Cool", a song that originally appeared on a demo from Lawless's pre-W.A.S.P. band SISTER, which later evolved into the track "Cries In The Night" from "The Last Command".

W.A.S.P. is again offering fans VIP tickets that give fans a chance to meet Blackie, get a personal photo with Blackie, autographs, a W.A.S.P. traveling museum with new items added since the last U.S. tour, and take part in a very personal Q&A with Blackie. VIP tickets can be purchased at waspnation.myshopify.com.

W.A.S.P. will take the "1984 To Headless" tour to Europe and the rest of the world in 2027.

Image credit: RichG LIVE