When you mention the name ‘WASP’ to your typical classic rock fan, the images that comes to mind more often than not are exploding cod-pieces, nuns tied to racks, and that infamous KERRANG! cover photo with Blackie Lawless gleefully holding a blood spattered human skull. ‘Fuck Like a Beast’ was a glorious song, but lyrically it did Blackie no favours, and years later it’s a stigma that the band still find hard to live down. Which is a shame, because like that other larger than life rock frontman Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, Blackie is actually a very intelligent, deep-thinking individual who has been responsible for some indisputable classic songs over the years.

Now in 2004, WASP are ready to release their most ambitious project yet, the cracking ‘The Rise’, Part 1 of their two-part ‘Neon God’ concept opus. Morgan Heart met up with Blackie at the start of WASP’s UK tour in Glasgow to dig a little deeper…

So, what have you been doing since the last UK tour?

"If you think about it, we did KFD in 96/97, but the last proper UK tour, which was extensive, goes back about 12 years. I mean, we have played here since, but not what I consider proper tours. You gotta remember too that is wasn’t by our choosing. This kind of music that we do, not just us but a lot of bands, was killed by grunge in the 90’s, and that really hurt. It used to be you could come to the UK and do 16 or 17 shows, but it dropped off to half that, then 3 or 4, then 2 then down to one! So it was uncomfortable, unusual ... you know, it was always that the UK was ‘the rock’. It was UK first, Germany second and then all the other countries, and it reached a point in the 90’s when I thought ‘Is it over, and will it never, ever come back to the way it was again?’ So when you ask ‘What we were doing?’ well we’ve been busy but... it hasn’t been by our choosing [not to tour]."

Where did the inspiration for ‘The Neon God’ come from?

"Well I was looking for what I thought was the single, greatest, common denominator that we all know. For ten years I was looking for an idea, and I thought ... we go around and spend our lives asking ‘Who am I? Where am I going? Does my life mean anything? Will my life have meant anything when I’m gone? What’s it all about? Is there a God? Is there no God? What the heck is going on here? What does any of this mean?’ And so when I came up with the lyric ‘Oh tell me my Lord, why am I here?’ I thought all right, that’s it. That encapsulates the whole thing. For me, it put it all together in one line. Because I think that’s what we all do ... walking around asking these questions. Is any of it real? You can go around trying to figure it out, and I tell people quite clearly, in the liner notes of the record, that this record will not find that answer for you, but maybe it will help with the thought process. Because we’re all in this together, to try and figure out and make sense of what it’s all about. So for me, that’s what this whole album is all about, just trying to present that question. Because if you go back and look at our history, I was doing it even on the first album, and didn’t realise I was doing it. The first big song came out – ‘I Want to be Somebody’ – and it asked the same question. ‘Who am I? Where am I going?’ And if you go back and look through every album there are songs asking ‘What the fuck is this all about?’ So obviously it’s been a nagging question with me, and only now am I consciously asking the question, because I’ve been asking it this whole time, just not aware I was doing it."

So where did the name for the album come from - ‘The Neon God’?

"Well, normally when I’m doing interviews on this circuit, I don’t go into Part 2 because this does have to do directly with Part 2, but because you asked that specific question, I’ll answer it. This kid Jesse and his partner Judith, they create this cult, and it becomes a worldwide phenomenon. They start out on, like, Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park and then they get a hundred people, then it turns into a thousand, then ten thousand and so forth. They find themselves one day in Times Square in New York City, because they are now doing Pay Per View, they’re doing DVDs - this thing is a massive operation - and they look up to the massive TV screen right in the middle of Times Square, and they see him [the Neon God] on that."

The album itself is ambitious in design but no less potent than previous work. How hard is it to still to be creative when being in the business so long?

"You have to have some sort of inspiration. That’s what I was saying before about waiting ten years. It’s funny that I had the idea – I just didn’t know how to say it. I needed to find that one phrase that put it all together. That line, as small as it is and may seem in the scheme of the record to be insignificant, but for me it was the cornerstone to the whole concept, and once I had that and started writing the story – because I wrote the story before I wrote the music – I literally couldn’t write fast enough – and I don’t use a typewriter or anything, I write longhand. The ideas were just pouring out and I found myself writing ten or twelve hours a day on it. I literally could not stay up with the ideas. The ideas were coming so fast I was writing a portion of the line and I was already working on the next two or three ideas. But it’s all about inspiration. If you do it for 10, 20 or 30 years, you’ve got to find something that motivates you, that you feel passionate about. If you can find that then I think it’s worth continuing, and if you don’t have that then I think it’s a fair consideration to a) do nothing or b) take some time off until you can find something. Because to just continue to crank them out, I think that would be uninspiring, not just to me but to anyone listening to it. Makes it sound like you’re just going through the motions. I think records should be reflections of who you are and what you’re thinking of at that moment, not what’s in the charts at the time or doing something just to fill a contractual obligation."

Going off topic for the moment, who would you say are your biggest influence, past and present?

"I’m a huge Beatles fan. As a matter of fact, the last thing that I was listening to just before we left the other day - I’ve got some rare outtakes of ‘The White Album’ material which I got from somebody, and it’s fascinating listen to. That record will have half a dozen version of just one song, and you see in each version… like in one McCartney will be playing an acoustic guitar and in the next, maybe a couple of different instruments, and a third maybe some more, so you get to listen to the song being built through all the changes. So from a song-writing point of view, it’s fascinating to listen to something like that, especially when you listen to the original version which is maybe nothing like what the final product ended up being. So for me … that’s tutoring."

What would you see yourself doing if WASP called it a day tomorrow?

"I’ve worked on this record for two years, actually been formulating the idea for ten. The version on the album of ‘Wishing Well’, we did that five years ago! I wrote it seven years ago. We worked on it… I think it might even go as far back as ‘Helldorado’ when it was cut, so this thing’s been going on for quite some time, so it’s not that it just happened yesterday. So it’s been a long road on this one, and last night was the first night of a tour that’s going to take us to November 30th. So when you ask, ‘What you got flying?’ ... You know, please. Yeah, right [laughs]."

So what can fans expect from this WASP tour? Is it going to be as outrageous as it was in the past?

"When we did ‘The Crimson Idol’ tour I got really belligerent, because I had gotten really tired of the idea … of being under the pressure of creating these spectacles. So when we did ‘The Idol’ I said "That’s it, fuck it! We’re going to stand still and play this record." Because I got so tired of people listening with their eyes and not their eyes. You’ve got to remember, I did it defiantly, like ‘I dare you to say anything to me about not putting on a show’, and it’s funny, because I’ve been really lucky in my career… whenever I got really passionate - almost mad - about something, it seemed like it wasn’t just me feeling that way. There were a lot of fans that felt that way too, and they embraced it. And the thing I thought I was going to get slagged off about, they went ‘No, no….cool." There are some theatrics, but not what people are used to - they’re more avant garde theatre, and it really deals directly with some of the music that’s going on. So it’s not the spectacle that it was in past shows, but you also got to remember that when we did ‘The Crimson Idol’ there was no show at all, it was just the band standing there. Two records later we went and did ‘KFD’ which was one of the biggest over-the-top shows we ever did. I would say for this tour I’m not as belligerent as I was about what happened with ‘KFD’. I guess I’m more secure now, but we’ll do some presentation, but still I’m of a mind where I’m thinking I still would prefer them to listen to this more than they would just watching."

Are there any future plans for a live album?

"What we talked about when we were in rehearsals - because we think there is a whole lot of material that would really do well that’s not really representative of a live record, and it might be time to think about that. There was a thing that came out a few years ago that was a live broadcast that we did over the Internet, that was made into a record. I’ve never heard it but I understand that it was pretty poor, and I think it’s been pretty well documented that it did not have my blessings nor my support . The fact I can sit here and tell you I’ve never heard it, that tells you [how I feel]. There’s a reason I’ve never heard it, because I just didn’t want to know anything about it. And also I was contractually obligated to say nothing negative, with pending lawsuits over my head if I did. So I had to be very careful, but you get my drift.

So to answer your question, with all that being said … maybe. We’re going to record a lot over the course of this tour and I don’t know if we’re going to do anything with it at the moment … because I don’t know what we’re going to do next. But it would be nice just to have it in the bank."

So do you have the same motivation for touring that you did when you were recording ‘Live In the Raw’.

"[long pause] No. It’s different. It’s hard to explain. You’re talking about someone who was so motivated by his cock [laughs] that I could not literally see straight. It fucked me up bad. It sounds funny but it’s not funny. I mean, it fucked me up in every way. It clouded my judgement, made me think things I shouldn’t think, and it was really, really bad. Now, the motivation… let me put it this way, you just think a little more clearly now, thinking with the right head [laughs]."

So how does the current WASP line-up compare to the old ones?

Well, this would be tough to beat. And I’m not saying that just because it’s contemporary. There’s two line-ups that stand out in my head - this one and the one that did ‘The Headless Children’. Is one better than the other? I can’t say. They have different qualities. But they’re both very, very similar in a lot of ways. Stet’s been the most consistent thing - 14 years. No-one’s got a tenure - apart from myself - that long. But I would say, aside from him, quite honestly, and I can’t say enough about it, the addition of Darrell Roberts on guitar has been no small thing. I mean, he was there for me when we were making this record. He ran the machine while I was singing. He punched every line, every word that I sang on this record - as I do with him when he solos. So he was very, very instrumental - literally and figuratively - in the making of this record. Probably more so than any other individual in collaboration that I’ve ever worked with, in a guitar sense. And he’s coming from a place that is not enviable, because I did the same thing with the New York Dolls, that whole Johnny Thunders thing …I’m living in that prick’s shadow the whole time, and I know what it feels like, and Darrell’s got that Chris Holmes thing to bear. But he’s a really talented guy and he’s got a whole album’s worth of solo material, and I think that will eventually come out, and people will find really who he is and what he’s done.

And by the time Part 2 hit the shops, then maybe we’ll also find out just who exactly The Neon God is, and what he’s done! And going off Part 1, it’s sure to be another cracker!