Blackie Lawless

“Reputations do precede, y’know,” admits Blackie Lawless. With a career largely shrouded in controversy, the public perception of the visionary behind W.A.S.P. doesn’t nearly begin to reveal the complexity of Blackie as a human being. Recently, Blackie took the time to engage in a lengthy conversation with Prime Choice. An avid, longtime fan, editor Roger Lotring naturally took the opportunity to delve into numerous topics of discussion regarding W.A.S.P. (including his recollections about previous band members), but also Blackie’s formative background, including misconceptions about the infamous New York Dolls, his childhood pursuit of visualizing through his imagination, and the effect of his education on his music. Also, he discussed the new live W.A.S.P. album and the re-release of the band’s musical catalog, as well as the still unrevealed statement reflected within the controversial visual presentation that was last year’s tour. The tone of the interview also took many whimsical turns, too, with the revelation of the inspiration behind the controversial song, “Animal (Fuck Like A Beast),” as well as some literal misinterpretations of that, and other, song lyrics. What follows is nearly the entire transcription of that hour-long conversation.

I’d like to start out by going a ways back, and ask you about your early days in New York. I was curious about the New York music scene during the early 70’s, like the Mercer Arts Center and Max’s Kansas City. How did you fit into that?

I didn’t. That whole thing is... I probably have to go back even further than that to really put you in the picture. I lived in Staten Island, but I had gone down to Florida to go to military school for awhile, and did most of my high school stuff there. So by the time I got back up to New York, I was like, eighteen, and didn’t spend much time there at all. And I went back down to Florida after that. And the [New York] Dolls had come through Florida—

Gee, how did you know that was the next question? [Laughs]

They threw Johnny [Thunders] out of the band. And I had known the guys before that, ‘cause I’d met Arthur [Kane] and stuff prior to that. So, I ran into him in a bar, and he used to say, “You wanna join the band?” And I thought, Oh, he’s drunk again. Well, come to find out, they were throwing Johnny out, and I ended up doing two shows with them, and then the band broke up. So, the biggest thing that happened out of that was not so much that I did any shows with ‘em—I mean, it’s kind of a footnote on my career, basically, because more has been made out of it than there should have been. The biggest thing for me is it got me to California.

Well, here’s an odd question. My wife has a friend of hers that’s really into a lot of the punk rock stuff of the 70’s, and he wanted me to find out if you are the same Blackie Goozeman on the Killer Kane singles.

That’s me.

Is it really?

Yeah, because what happened on that Killer Kane single is that when Arthur and I stopped playing together, he took that back to New York and he bootlegged that. And he changed my name on it to keep from getting sued.

Also in New York, the story is you and Ace Frehley were from the same neighborhood?

Ah, not the same neighborhood, but he grew up, like—well, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the area or not, but there’s five different boroughs in New York and I grew up on Staten Island and he grew up in another one. We met in our teens—well, I met him when Kiss was first getting together. And we both have a mutual friend that, y’know, we met from him and... it’s amazing, y’know. Two kids, y’know, who would think that that would happen?

You didn’t happen to be one of the thirty or so guys who auditioned for Kiss?

No.