During a “VIP Experience” question-and-answer session before W.A.S.P.’s December 12, 2024 concert in Las Vegas, Nevada, W.A.S.P. mainman Blackie Lawless reflected on the songwriting process for the band’s classic 1992 album “The Crimson Idol”. The concept effort tells the poignant story of Jonathan, a young boy who dreams of becoming a rock star to escape the turmoil of his troubled upbringing. As he rises to fame, he grapples with the dark side of celebrity and the emptiness that often accompanies success. The narrative unfolds through the music and lyrics, showing Blackie’s storytelling prowess and personal reflections on fame and identity.Lawless said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “All authors will tell you writing is a process of discovery. Sometimes you have a germination of an idea that’s small, which is what that idea was. I mean, it started — I was in a restaurant in London when the epiphany first hit. But like I said, it was just a germination of an idea. It wasn’t very big. But it started growing from there. And that was ’87 when I had that idea the first time. So for three years, this thing was percolating in my head. We do ‘The Headless [Children]’ record [in 1989], but I’m still thinking about it. It’s in the back of my mind.”They say all writers write all the time, whether they’re aware of it or not,” he continued. “You’re constantly writing. And so what happens, it becomes a process of discovery. It has been said that when your brain goes into either an alpha or a beta state before you go to sleep, is when you’re your most creative. So, just before you wake up or just before you go to sleep, ’cause you hear guys talk about it all the time when they dream stuff. I dreamt stuff on ‘The Crimson Idol’. I dreamt ‘Hold On To My Heart’. But you wake up and it’s there and the lyrics, it’s like getting it for free. ‘Headless’, I dreamt ‘Headless’, complete with lyrics. Billy Joel says he dreams all of his [songs]. But you’re not gonna get every one of those to do that. So it’s always gonna be a process of discovery. And as you start digging, you’re going to find things.”Now, to give you the proper setup of that record, there was also — I was talking about a series of events that happened,” Lawless explained. “There was a series of events that happened on that record too, because believe it or not, we have done ‘Headless’ and I was in a place where I did not know if I could compete with the best songwriters in the world. I was in a place where I thought, ‘I’m never gonna be as good as those guys.’ I’m talking about the best of the best.”Reflecting on when he first met THE WHO’s Pete Townshend at Radio City Music Hall where “Tommy” played and Blackie presented Pete with the gold disc for the W.A.S.P. cover of THE WHO classic “The Real Me”, Lawless said: “Pete and I talked for about 45 minutes about songwriting that time, and I asked him, I said, ‘Is it easy for you? ‘Cause you make it look easy.’ He started laughing. And I could tell by his kind of nervous laughter that it was not easy. And I told him, I says, ‘All right, let me give you a picture and see if you can relate to this. We’re gonna write a song. We’re gonna start out with a block of stone. It’s square and has no real shape. You got a chisel in one hand and a hammer in the other. You just start whacking away and pretty soon it starts to take some sort of shape. Some shapes turn out better than others. But whether it’s a good shape or whether it’s a bad shape, somewhere along the way, you’re going to slip and your knuckles are going to get bloodied.’ And he started laughing. And I said, ‘So you can relate.’ He said, ‘That is the greatest analogy I’ve ever heard.’ Because that process of discovery that I’m talking about is painful. Because to do it right, to make it authentic, you’ve gotta go to places you don’t wanna go to sometimes. And if I had to bet, whether it’s me or anybody else, any other artist that has been able to capture an audience and take them for a lifelong ride, and when I say lifelong, I don’t mean five years or ten years — take them for that lifelong ride, the common denominator in it all is the lyrics. Probably everybody in this room, the reason you’re here is because of those lyrics. If that’s true, then how do I relate to you if I’m not authentic? And how am I going to be authentic if I don’t let you inside my head, literally let you crack my skull open, let you walk around barefoot, discover the good, the bad, the not so good? If I don’t do that with the lyrics, you’re never gonna feel like you know me. And if a fan or a listener does not feel like they know you, they’re never gonna develop that intimate relationship. And if they are not intimate with you, you will never take them on that lifelong ride. Because records are chapters in a book, and it’s not finished until the artist is done with it, and then the book’s complete. So when you look at it, all those records, they’re like a diary and they’re little pieces, little snapshots of where you were at that time.”I’ve said that the first record was an angry record done by an angry band. And it was true,” Blackie added. “It was. But you go five years down the road and we make ‘Headless’, it’s kind of hard to be angry when everybody in the band is driving Ferraris. It kind of loses something in the translation. So those records become snapshots of who you are at that time. But unless you are being authentic with your audience, allowing them, like I said, to see the good and the bad and the not so good, they’re never gonna feel like they know you. So if you’re gonna do it and you’re gonna do it authentically, it’s gonna be like Peter Gabriel said, digging in the dirt to find the places where we’re gonna hurt. And you’re gonna have to be willing to share that. A lot of writers don’t wanna do that, because they don’t want people to know about their private lives. Pop music is like that. But pop music is not the kind of art we’re talking about. Those are people who just make records. And that’s okay. I mean, there’s a place for that too. But it’s not what we’re talking about right now. So if you’re gonna do that, you’ve gotta be willing to lay it out on the table and say, ‘Here it is, folks.'”I laugh when people talk about nowadays or in this day and age where people get canceled and things like that,” Blackie said. “Whether it’s me or somebody like me, you cannot cancel us. We’ve already shown you everything there is to know about us. There ain’t nothing else left out on the table that you ain’t seen. So if you don’t like it, too bad. Go and harass somebody else, ’cause I don’t give a shit.”As previously reported, W.A.S.P. will perform its classic debut album in its entirety on the spring/summer 2025 European tour, dubbed “Album ONE Alive”.2024 marked the 40th anniversary of the release of W.A.S.P.’s first LP. To celebrate this milestone, W.A.S.P. will, for the first time in 40 years, play the entire album from top to bottom at headline shows across Europe. In addition, W.A.S.P. will appear at a number of European festivals, performing its greatest hits.W.A.S.P. is again offering fans VIP tickets that give fans a chance to meet Lawless, get a personal photo with Blackie, autographs and take part in a very personal question-and-answer session with Blackie. VIP tickets can be purchased at waspnation.myshopify.com.W.A.S.P. kicked off the North American leg of the “Album ONE Alive” tour on October 26, 2024 at Fremont Theater in San Luis Obispo, California.Along with bassist Mike Duda and lead guitarist Doug Blair, whose tenures in the band are 29 and 26 years respectively, W.A.S.P. is joined by longtime drummer extraordinaire Aquiles Priester.The 39-city run made stops across North America in Vancouver, British Columbia; Toronto, Ontario; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Dallas, Texas; New York City; Orlando, Florida; and more before wrapping up on December 14 at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, California.Because of the extensive back injuries Lawless suffered during the European leg of W.A.S.P.’s 40th-anniversary tour, the band’s previously announced 2023 U.S. tour was canceled.W.A.S.P.’s massive European leg of the 40th-anniversary world tour wrapped on May 18, 2023 in Sofia, Bulgaria at Universidada Sports Hall.W.A.S.P. wrapped up its first U.S. tour in 10 years with a sold-out show on December 11, 2022 at The Wiltern in Los Angeles. This marked the 18th sold-out shows for the U.S. tour, which kicked off in late October 2022. W.A.S.P.’s performances included the return of the band’s classic song “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)”, which hadn’t been played live in over 15 years.W.A.S.P.’s latest release was “ReIdolized (The Soundtrack To The Crimson Idol)”, which came out in February 2018. It was a new version of the band’s classic 1992 album “The Crimson Idol”, which was re-recorded to accompany the movie of the same name to mark the 25th anniversary of the original LP’s release. The re-recorded version also features four songs missing from the original album.W.A.S.P.’s most recent studio album of all-new original material was 2015’s “Golgotha”.[embedded content]