Geoff Barton of U.K.'s Classic Rock magazine recently conducted an interview with W.A.S.P. mainman Blackie Lawless. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
Classic Rock: You wrote the songs on Babylon while the world was experiencing a global financial meltdown.
Blackie Lawless: It's no secret that I wasn't Bush fan, neither Bush No. 1 nor Bush No. 2. In general, I don't trust politicians. But when this supposed global meltdown was happening a year ago and I saw all these world leaders calling for a one-world government, a one-world system and a one-world currency, I thought to myself: "They gotta be kidding." I mean, do these guys understand what they're talking about? I don't think that they do.
Classic Rock: What sort of stuff makes you grit your teeth?
Blackie Lawless: The whole Lockerbie situation. Freeing that Libyan bomber was a despicable act. Plus, as I say, you look at how it's been socialized. I was watching a TV program the other day. It was a British kid here in the U.S. The interviewer asked him: "What did you come here for?" The kid said: "I wanted to start a small business and I couldn't do that in the U.K." There's no help from the government. You can't get a bank loan. There's no incentive to get anything done. Those days are gone. I thought to myself: "Is this where America's going?" It really hurts me to watch your country go that way. The pride factor has gone.
Classic Rock: You were a supporter of John McCain during the U.S. presidential election campaign.
Blackie Lawless: By default.
Classic Rock: So, how are you finding life under Barack Obama?
Blackie Lawless: I was very, very critical of Obama during the campaign. I wrote a long letter and I sent it out to all the press the night before the election. I pulled no punches with this guy because I had really done quite a bit of research on him while the election was going on. He's one of these old-time 60s radicals from way back. He thinks he's going to change the world and he's hell-bent on doing that. When he stood there the night of the nomination and he said that he intended on "fundamentally changing" America — a chill ran down my back. Thousands of people were just standing there, wildly applauding, and it reminded me of Hitler standing on the steps of the Reichstag. I thought, "These people don't understand what this man is talking about, what his true intentions are, and how he is going to go about doing this." This man, like I said, is straight out of the '60s school of radicalism where he thinks he's going to be Robin Hood and rob from the rich to give to the poor. I subscribe to the theory: if you work, you eat. And if you don't, you don't. It's really no more complicated than that. Do we want to be compassionate? Yes. Do we want to help each other as best we can? Yes. But that doesn't mean that I bust my hump to create something and somebody comes along and decides that I can't keep that anymore. That's not what either one of our countries was really built on.
Read the entire interview from Classic Rock magazine.
Quality fan-filmed video footage of W.A.S.P. performing the song "Wild Child" on June 19, 2009 at Hellfest in Clisson, France can be viewed below (courtesy of "FinnishPrkele").
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Classic Rock: You wrote the songs on Babylon while the world was experiencing a global financial meltdown.
Blackie Lawless: It's no secret that I wasn't Bush fan, neither Bush No. 1 nor Bush No. 2. In general, I don't trust politicians. But when this supposed global meltdown was happening a year ago and I saw all these world leaders calling for a one-world government, a one-world system and a one-world currency, I thought to myself: "They gotta be kidding." I mean, do these guys understand what they're talking about? I don't think that they do.
Classic Rock: What sort of stuff makes you grit your teeth?
Blackie Lawless: The whole Lockerbie situation. Freeing that Libyan bomber was a despicable act. Plus, as I say, you look at how it's been socialized. I was watching a TV program the other day. It was a British kid here in the U.S. The interviewer asked him: "What did you come here for?" The kid said: "I wanted to start a small business and I couldn't do that in the U.K." There's no help from the government. You can't get a bank loan. There's no incentive to get anything done. Those days are gone. I thought to myself: "Is this where America's going?" It really hurts me to watch your country go that way. The pride factor has gone.
Classic Rock: You were a supporter of John McCain during the U.S. presidential election campaign.
Blackie Lawless: By default.
Classic Rock: So, how are you finding life under Barack Obama?
Blackie Lawless: I was very, very critical of Obama during the campaign. I wrote a long letter and I sent it out to all the press the night before the election. I pulled no punches with this guy because I had really done quite a bit of research on him while the election was going on. He's one of these old-time 60s radicals from way back. He thinks he's going to change the world and he's hell-bent on doing that. When he stood there the night of the nomination and he said that he intended on "fundamentally changing" America — a chill ran down my back. Thousands of people were just standing there, wildly applauding, and it reminded me of Hitler standing on the steps of the Reichstag. I thought, "These people don't understand what this man is talking about, what his true intentions are, and how he is going to go about doing this." This man, like I said, is straight out of the '60s school of radicalism where he thinks he's going to be Robin Hood and rob from the rich to give to the poor. I subscribe to the theory: if you work, you eat. And if you don't, you don't. It's really no more complicated than that. Do we want to be compassionate? Yes. Do we want to help each other as best we can? Yes. But that doesn't mean that I bust my hump to create something and somebody comes along and decides that I can't keep that anymore. That's not what either one of our countries was really built on.
Read the entire interview from Classic Rock magazine.
Quality fan-filmed video footage of W.A.S.P. performing the song "Wild Child" on June 19, 2009 at Hellfest in Clisson, France can be viewed below (courtesy of "FinnishPrkele").
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