W.A.S.P.‘s fifteenth studio album, titled “Golgotha”, has been released on October 2 via Austria’s Napalm Records. Over the next 6 months frontman Blackie Lawless will be writing a monthly installment that chronicles…The Making of “Golgotha”. Here is the third Installment:
“The Last Runaway’s Coming Home”
We came to Hollywood in 1975 with $162 dollars between us, We, meaning Arthur Kane and myself. The New York Dolls had just broken up and he and I found ourselves orphaned. We started what would become the band “Killer Kane”. It was actually Arthur’s nick name but it seemed cool so we went with it. I mentioned the $162. It didn’t go far. We were broke in just a few days. I was in L. A. just one week and started selling my personal gear that I had accumulated over the years, and that went pretty fast too. I tried to make the band work but it was impossible. The last time I ever spoke to him I told him he had to get himself together and he said: “Hey, you’re not pulling that Paul Stanley crap on me”. He resented Kiss for their new-found success, and made it clear he wanted nothing to do with me or them. For the first 2 months I was in L. A. I slept on a couch in the garage that was our rehearsal space in a house in Laurel Canyon. But the band disintegrated and for the next year and a half I was basically homeless. I slept on floors in the houses of whoever would have me at the moment. Eating, well that became an extra curricular activity. In other words, I literally never knew where my next meal was coming from, and there were a lot of times it didn’t!! It’s interesting, a year and a half goes by pretty quick when you’re writing about it, but in real time, it’s an ETERNITY!! When I first got to L. A. I saw a Hollywood Chamber of Commerce statistic that said a teenage girl came to Hollywood once ever 13 seconds. That didn’t include the guy’s or the guy’s and girls over 20. Just teenage girls. When they’re in school they’re the best looking, the most popular, and voted the most likely to be “whatever” and think they’re going to set Hollywood on fire. They don’t realize that every other girl with the same exact credentials from “anytown” in the world is all thinking the same thing. They all come to Hollywood with stars in their eyes and get eaten alive!
That same statistic said the life expectancy there was 6 months!!
Only a fraction of 1% will ever have even minor success. It’s the same for music too.
It’s a place where the competition is enormously fierce and nobody even wants to know your name. But, there is a place there for those that want it more than life itself. I remember, I was 12 and my Father telling me America was one of the last places on earth where a man could still become a self made millionaire, “if he wanted to pay the price”!!
I said, “yeah Dad, I wanna pay the price”. But I had NO IDEA of what I was talking about. But I soon learned.
Fans ask me now how they can become successful. I tell them, “you don’t choose it, it chooses you’!! In other words, if you CANNOT live without it, then go for it. But if you think, for even one moment, you can live without it, you should seek another line of employment, because you WILL NOT make it. Show business is tough, but Hollywood is flat out cruel. I didn’t make these rules. I’m just telling it like it is!!
The song, “Last Runaway” is a musical/autobiographical account of my years in the wasteland called “Hollywood”. Was I scared to death? You better believe it !! But there were also times of tremendous joy. In the chorus I write: “It was the best years of our lives, the world was ours to run”. Even in the midst of all that misery, nothing I’ve ever written has been more true. At times it was glorious!!
I’m sure most people at some time in their lives have gone through something that has been extremely challenging. Something that took them out of their “comfort zone”, something that made them want to “runaway”. This song is for ME and THEM!! I know your pain!!
There’s a line in the first verse that says, “on borrowed beds of nails I wailed and I’d lose control”, well that goes back to the year and a half sleeping on other peoples floors. Think about it, it’s one thing to be on a “bed of nails”, but ones that are borrowed? That just adds to the fear and the angst because as uncomfortable as they are, they’re not even yours!!
There are a million other horror stories that came out of that time, but there was also a tremendous amount of hope. It was the life blood of what we all lived on!! As the song say’s, ”just one last chance to change it, give me back the life I can’t wait to live”!!
Out of the ten’s of thousands of musicians that came through Hollywood at that time, there were only a small handful of us who “made it out”. You know who we all are. Some are still with us and some have passed on.
No matter what, it’s a song about our survival, but even more so…….Redemption!!!!
More Next Month
B. L.
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Currently W.A.S.P. is on tour through Europe, remaining dates are listed below.
Upcoming Shows:
SEPTEMBER 19th 2015 UK NOTTINGHAM ROCK CITY
SEPTEMBER 21st 2015 UK WOLVERHAMPTON WULFRUN HALL
SEPTEMBER 22nd 2015 UK BRISTOL MOTION
SEPTEMBER 24th 2015 NETHERLANDS EINDHOVEN EFFENAAR
SEPTEMBER 25th 2015 GERMANY OBERHAUSEN TURBINEHALLE
SEPTEMBER 26th 2015 GERMANY HAMBURG MARKTHALLE
SEPTEMBER 29th 2015 SWEDEN MALMO MORISKA PAVIJONGEN
SEPTEMBER 30th 2015 SWEDEN GOTHENBURG TRÄDGARN
OCTOBER 1st 2015 SWEDEN KARLSTAD NÖJESFABRIKEN
OCTOBER 2nd 2015 SWEDEN ESKILSTUNA LOKOMOTIVET
OCTOBER 3th 2015 SWEDEN KARLSHAMN VÄGGAHALLEN
OCTOBER 5th 2015 SWEDEN LULEA KULTURHUSET
OCTOBER 7th 2015 FINLAND SEINAJOKI RYTMIKORJAAMO
OCTOBER 8th 2015 ESTONIA TALINN ROCK CAFE
OCTOBER 9th 2015 FINLAND HELSINKI KULTTUURITALO
OCTOBER 10th 2015 FINLAND OULU AREENA
OCTOBER 11th 2015 FINLAND TAMPERE PAKKAHUONE
OCTOBER 13th 2015 NORWAY TRONDHEIM BYSCENE
OCTOBER 14th 2015 NORWAY DRAMMEN UNION SCENE
OCTOBER 15th 2015 NORWAY BERGEN RICK’S TEATER
OCTOBER 16th 2015 NORWAY HAUGESUND BYSCENEN
OCTOBER 18th 2015 GERMANY HERFORD X
OCTOBER 21st 2015 SPAIN ZARAGOZA TEATRO LAS ESQUINAS
OCTOBER 22nd 2015 SPAIN GRANADA EL TREN
OCTOBER 23rd 2015 SPAIN MADRID LA RIVIERA
OCTOBER 24th 2015 SPAIN BILBAO SANTANA 27
OCTOBER 26th 2015 BELGIUM KORTRIJK DE KREUN
OCTOBER 28th 2015 GERMANY FRANKFURT BATSCHKAPP
OCTOBER 29th 2015 GERMANY MUNICH THEATERFABRIK
OCTOBER 30th 2015 AUSTRIA TELFS RATHAUSSAAL
OCTOBER 31st 2015 GERMANY GEISELWIND MUSIC HALL
NOVEMBER 1st 2015 SWITZERLAND PRATTELN Z-7
NOVEMBER 3rd 2015 ITALY BOLOGNA ESTRAGON
NOVEMBER 4th 2015 ITALY ROME ORION
NOVEMBER 5th 2015 ITALY PORDENONE DEPOSITO
NOVEMBER 6th 2015 ITALY MILAN LIVE CLUB
NOVEMBER 8th 2015 CHECH REPUBLIC OSTRAVA GARAGE
NOVEMBER 10th 2015 RUSSIA ST. PETERSBURG A2 CLUB
NOVEMBER 11th 2015 RUSSIA MOSCOW RAY JUST ARENA
NOVEMBER 13th 2015 SWEDEN STOCKHOLM ROCK CRUISE