Blackie Lawless interview with Adam Currey on Headbangers Ball during the headless children-era. This also includes the video for "The Real Me". A song that was originally done by "The Who"
I recorded this show and listened to this interview a ton of times. Headless Children was a very underrated metal album. You could listen to the whole album without any throwaway songs. Every song was good on it.
I think this interview suprised me. I was expecting to hear a typical outspoken wild man with a typical "rock star" ego. He's pretty intelligent, not a fake bone in him. This is a great rendition of this song by the way
God Bless you Blackie !! The man is a stone cold, in your face tell it like it is musician ! Total class, amazing musician in one of metals ALL TIME GREATEST BANDS !! IN MY TOP 5 !!
Japp .... "the headless children" is one of the best metal albums from the 80s. With one of the best unknown ballad of its time "Forever free" - Always I'm on a bike .... I sing "... uhhh I ride the wind, forever freeeee..." Brings you a sweet shiver to the spine.
Met blackie in LA in the late 80s at a spot that was private to him.It was just dumb luck.said hey,respected his privacy and ended talking for about an hour.Honest,educated,intelligent and a all around good guy.We talked about everything not just music.Talked about Hammerjacks.Im from a Baltimore suburb and he asked me about Hammerjacks.It was the best rock club on the east coast.what a great guy and great band.
Rad story, dude! (Here I am commenting a year later cuz I'm bored and I like reading veteran rockfan's stories, lol) I hear/read too many stories of so-called fans having bad experiences and talking about what an antisocial asshole Blackie was/is, and like 90% of the time (not surprisingly) these are over-eager, hysterical, fanboys/girls with no sense of personal space, can't read body language, who go too much out of their way to get in someone's face and harass them for an autograph or a photo-op. Yes, I get that it's very exciting to meet your idols, but understand they are still real people with boundaries -- especially offstage-introverts like Blackie -- who don't necessarily want to talk about work all the time, no matter how fascinating it is to you as a fan. Show some respect, "read the room" before you approach/engage with a (famous) stranger, and maybe you'll be lucky enough to have a pleasant exchange or conversation, and overall more positive encounter. It takes 0 effort to show basic consideration. There is nothing more off-putting and exhausting (for both parties, actually) than somebody who tries too hard to get your attention or approval. Stop exhausting yourselves by scaring people.
I heard "Mean Motherfuckin Man" on KNAC radio in 1992. Was instantly hooked on WASP. "The Headless Children" became a favorite album of mine and Blackie is my favorite rock vocalist.
had so much fun with W.A.S.P at the Troubador,several times,I don't know where the center of the Music universe is now, But it's not in LA anymore.I Miss those days
Thank you so much for putting this up, I'm a die-hard WASP fan myself and this is stuff that haven't seen the daylight since 89. Really..thanks man, this made my day! :)
i like seeing Blackie this way. Slim and on full form with truisms and worth while good patter, and meaningful topics. Cool and slim......her could easily be again. :-) Long live Blackie.
My childhood music is built from W.A.S.P's first album and Quiet Riot's "Condition Critical". One album on each side of the tape and I played that over and over! I always have respect for Blackie, he seems to be a smart dude. Last time I saw WASP was on the Helldorado tour. Cool to see Chris Holmes as well. After the show he came out to greet some fans in the first row that he apparently knew, he was wearing beach flip-flops, that's heavy metal for you =)
Really under appreciated band in my opinion. It bums me out that greats like these guys, Dokken, and Motley Crüe (and the big influencers like UFO) who invented the whole "hair metal" thing get obscured with the copy cat waves that came in the later 80's. I feel this album is W.A.S.P. 's Operation Mindcrime, i have really grown to LOVE these bands later albums like the Crüe's '94 album, this, the Crimson Idol, Skid Row's Subhuman Race etc.
Blackie is one of those few guys that if i sit and talked with him i would have this "lower" feeling. At first atleast, cause he aint dick but he is very intelligent (i think he probaply has mensa class iq), well spoken, self confident man. His one of those guys who has vision of something and they achieve it step by step and have everything visioned and planned inside their head.
Wasp, Motörhead, Motley, Saxon.... the true pioneers and you don’t get that wrong. They are in a class of their own. A notch above rage against the machine, limp biz kit and the others!
"Forever Free" came to life for me. I actually lived that song out but it wasn't a good thing really. The names and places all came to life as the story unfolded. It was pretty amazing.
Blackie was a good lookin guy back in the day outside of the saw blades and cod pieces. I saw him with Kiss in the mid eighties. I'll never forget being a mid teen in the first few row looking up at Blackie wearing what amounted to men's panty hose and nothing else. Quite the eye opener in middle America. Then Kiss comes out to several girls in the crowd with no tops on!
This is where WASP lost sight. As a lot of bands at the time wanted to be taken seriously so they started singing about child abuse and things that weren't so rock-n-roll, ya know? That caused them to lose their fan base that wanted to escape the news of the day and our troubles. It's good to take yourself seriously but, here's a few that went a lil far, KISS with music from the elder, Poison's native tongue, Motley's '94 album, and WASP's the headless children and Warrant's Dog Eat Dog, all albums which tanked horribly. Then came in rap and it was fun and exciting and sang about partying and fast cars and drugs. I guess the bands just got older and didn't know what to do unlike The Rolling Stones, Aersosmith, and some other's that knew how to grow without losing their sight.
How old are you? Did you live through this time period and remember it? That's not how it happened or why it happened. If "The Headless Children" isn't your favorite WASP album so what, but don't write bullshit lies mixed in with your opinion. I have no problem with your opinion about bands never changing. Actually, (and Blackie Lawless would agree with this version of events) this is when WASP grew out of niche they started as and separated themselves forever between the LA glam bands like the ones you mentioned before the cancerous grunge came in the early 1990s.
dude, I'm 37. I remember in the later part of the 80's a lot of bands like wasp was getting more into deeper stuff other than the normal. Not much of a problem and don't know why you would get so offended bout me saying that. But, that's just the way it was getting. They were growing up and wanting to be respected instead of feared. Besides, this is wasp, not a lot there to being with.
charlton mcmillen My stance is that is YOUR version of events is not supported by what the majority of the general audience at the time remembers, the fans that are there and never left (ONLY THE FAKE FANS LEFT AFTER GRUNGE BECAME THE NEW THING), as well as the most respected heavy metal journalists all consider to be their finest or 2nd to finest output in "Headless Children" . If you live in a country besides England, Canada, or the States maybe you got the wrong idea because when you go to amazon.com and look at the reviews for "Headless Children" and the follow-up "The Chrimson Idol" you will never see anybody think that. You said that "THE HEADLESS CHILDREN" "TANKED HORRIBLY". That is misleading. It's their highest charted album of all: www.billboard.com/artist/277767/wasp/chart?sort=position&f=305
k, man.cool. not that big of a deal, its only opinion. don't let it destroy your day. To argue over Wasp is just about as pointless as their lyrics. later
The metal bands had to be sighing at the posers that they had to talk to when they visited HBB. Ricki Rachtman had only slightly more metal cred than this guy.
Adam Curry's hair was just too fake looking and too done up. Over-groomed....if that's a word. You all know what I mean. And the late Frankie on drums...good cover song.
Dude, your right about that. I couldn't stand Johnny Rod and it's funny that we were all fooled by the hacks who pretend to be something their really not. At least with the crue, what u saw was what u got but, even they started contradicting themselves.
I used to believe anything those guys said. It's funny that Alice Cooper, Blackie Lawless and some other's that are getting older and closer to their deaths they are turning Christian and refuse to sing some songs that were wrote and supposedly believed in. It was nothing but a gimmick, a hoax. Even KISS in the 70's would never come out and say they were or weren't to keep fans interested. I cringe now knowing they were leading a lot of young people down a hard dark path yet, they sit in their mansion's and laugh at their two-face lies while they're "trying" to save themselves now.
I think this interview suprised me. I was expecting to hear a typical outspoken wild man with a typical "rock star" ego. He's pretty intelligent, not a fake bone in him. This is a great rendition of this song by the way
