W.A.S.P FRONTMAN BLACKIE LAWLESS SAYS THE BAND WILL RELEASE A NEW ALBUM CALLED “GOLGOTHA” IN 2015
W.A.S.P. will be returning with a new studio album entitled Golgotha next year, one that founder and frontman Blackie Lawless says will sound similar to 2009’s Babylon and 2007’s Dominator.
“We’re about three weeks away from finishing the next one, so it will be out next year and it will be called Golgotha,” Lawless announced at a Sweden Rock Festival press conference. “Golgotha is Hebrew for place of the skull and it’s the hill where Christ was crucified. It’s interesting when you see a lot of bands going around using Satanic images, or images of death and things like that, and I’m thinking all they need to do is look at the source cause it’s right there. If you want death, there’s enough to go around there.”
As for what fans can expect musically from Golgotha, Lawless says, “It sounds… probably more similar to the last two that we’ve done. We’ve been working on this thing for four years now, and I don’t know if you guys heard but I had a little hiccup last year, and that delayed recording for about a year. I broke my leg — that too was an interesting trip (laughs). There’s one thing I learned when I was doing The Crimson Idol. If you make a record over too long of periods of time you have to be very, very careful because the record you start out making is not the record you end up finishing because you’ve changed so much as a person over a three or four year period. You’ve got to be very careful to hold onto that vision. But from what I’m hearing so far, and it’s not completely mixed yet, but it has definite overtones of the last two records.”
Lawless also addressed his decision to stop playing the W.A.S.P. classic Animal (Fucks Like A Beast by saying, “”I look at it like this. I’m a representative of the most high God, and I have to be very careful about the things I say and do. I’m gonna answer one day for the things that I’ve done and I wanna make sure that when I do, that my slate is clean. But equally as important as that, I think, is I’ve been given an opportunity to stand in front of people and you’re either gonna say something positive or you’re gonna say something mindless –there is no in between. You’re either one or the other. And I’m just trying my best, and I’m not saying that I’m doing it all the time, but I’m trying my best to say something that I think could help somebody’s life.”
Watch video from Blackie’s Sweden Rock Festival press conference below.
additional source: sleazeroxx.com
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I saw WASP open for Iron Maiden on Maiden’s classic World Slavery Tour (I’m an old fart!). Blackie and the boys were vulgar, vicious and beyond awesome! WASP’s first four albums are required listening and Blackie is an amazing songwriter. But he’s obviously losing the edge he had all those years ago. We need the rebellious and dangerous Blackie Lawless back to knock us all on our asses again and scare the shit out of every parent and politician. I miss that Blackie.
W.A.S.P. (and Blackie) spans three decades. I would expect an artist, especially one who writes and produces, to change with the years. As B.L. has said numerous times, he was brought up Christian, but took some time to check out other streams of thought. So, expecting an artist to pump out something they created many years ago, over and over again, would be just plain boring and would show a great lack of maturity. He is in his 50’s after all.
Golgotha? Halford used that for a song title on “Crucible.” Great song, btw.
Sun is a wicked tune from Crucible.
I think more people have seen Jesus over the past several years (in the U.S.) than have seen W.A.S.P. These guys have abandonded the U.S. market. What a shame.
I thought the biggest farce for a band wrongly retaining its bandname went to Guns ‘n’ Roses with honorable mention going to the Kiss cover band, but Backie takes the cake on this one. The only thing more ridiculous than this would be if Slayer tried becoming more politically correct for the sake of a religious belief. The whole band achieved its success on shock rock, hedonism, and not conforming to anything. This band was one of the best 80’s metal pioneers, but after guys like Randy Piper and Chris Holmes left, they were never the same musically and haven’t put out anything really decent in over twenty years. Now we have a guy calling his band WASP that’s editing what he sings and plays, which goes completely against the grain of what the band established itself on. So what, is the new acronym for WASP (We Are Saved Protestants)?
Blackie seems like a decent guy and I wish him the best, but stop killing the legacy of the band and just move on to something else more befitting of where you’re at now. Do a duet with Michael Sweet or something. Maybe only three people would buy it, but at least it’s honest. I can’t imagine more than a handful of people interested in him trying to sell WASP today as this anyway. It blows me away how much weight a name carries and how gullible people are to buy into this sort of thing when they’re watered down versions of their former selves. In this case it’s not even watered down, it’s a completely different product. It’s like Coke-a-Cola bottling piss with some people evidently still gulping it down like it’s the real thing.
“We Are Saved Protestants!” I love it! 🙂