W.A.S.P.‘s fifteenth studio album, titled “Golgotha”, will be 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 first Installment:
“Skull and Crossed Bones”
The recording of this album began in Spring of 2011. It continued on over the next 4 years with various interruptions, some were planned, some were not.
After the 2010 World Tour I was scheduled for reconstruction surgery on my right shoulder, which was done in January of 2011. After all the years of sports and touring the thing was an absolute mess. I had the left one operated on after the 89’ Headless tour and it too was hanging by a thread at the time. If you’ve never had any kind of reconstruction surgery I strongly recommend that you don’t!! I had a torn rotator cuff, a torn labrum and the shoulder head and joint were cracked and broken in 3 places. I was living on cortisone shots throughout the entire tour to get me through it and deal with the pain. I did the same thing on the 89’ tour getting shots once a week to keep going. We were in Switzerland toward the end of the 2010 tour and a doctor came to the dressing room before the show. He gave me 7 shots of cortisone in that shoulder and it had zero effect!! He could hit none of the spots in my shoulder that were inflamed. Honestly, I don’t think that poor man could have hit water if he fell out of a boat!! The last 2 weeks of that tour was a LOT of fun !!
I guess I should have been thankful because the right one lasted about 20 years longer than the other. The rehab was insane on this one and lasted 3 months but I was able to start writing in about half that time. The first song written was “Last Runaway”. We went through a number of possible songs early on and then over the next year started to narrow down which one we would actually record. In the Spring of 2012 we started preparing for the 2012 “30 Years of Thunder” Anniversary tour. We felt that tour was important to put a lot of attention into that tour because anytime any band can make it that far into a career, it’s something to celebrate!!
We started work again on the record in early 2013 but had a little problem in May. Specifically May 22nd. I was moving some stuff on the ranch property we have here in California and I got knocked out of the back of my pickup truck into a pile of bricks. When I hit the ground I new I was in bad shape. I tried to get up but my right leg wouldn’t move. I laid there for 2 or 3 minutes without moving because sometimes if you get hit really hard the body will respond after it’s had a chance to recover the shock of the impact. Then tried to move again and to say it hurt was a gross understatement. I tried to get up but my leg was like rubber, like it had no bone in it. I found out later why. I knew then I was in big trouble. An ambulance was called and when they put me in it I felt like I had been hit by the truck I was just in. Now the property here is fairly large with many dozens of acres and the roads have no pavements. On the way out the driver told me he had to drive over a cattle grate. For those that don’t know what a cattle grate is, it’s a set of metal rails in the ground with open spaces in them which create holes that keep cows from walking over them. It acts like a fence and they’re used on roads where a fence stops and lets cars go through but cows won’t cross over them for fear they will BREAK THEIR LEGS !!!!! Wow, how ironic !!!! I looked up on the inside of the ambulance where I was lying and saw there was a plastic net hanging from the inside of the roof. I asked the paramedic if it would support my weight if I pulled up on it to take the pressure off my leg when the driver drove over the grate. He said it would, so just before the driver went over the grate I reached up and tried to pull myself up. He was only going about 5 miles an hour and I’ve never screamed from pain before in my life but when he hit that grate I screamed louder than I’ve every screamed before in my life !!!! I pulled myself up to take the pressure of the leg but the leg was totally dead and wouldn’t move, so pulling myself up had no effect and I felt every rail a hundred times over . Pain…..I’ve broken about 10 bones in my body over the years doing one crazy thing or another, Take all of them and put them together and it STILL would not equal that pain !! It was unlike anything I ever experienced before. I got to the hospital and when the ex-rays came back I then understood why the pain was what it was. My right femur was broken and completely detached from just under my hip. The femur itself was split length wise, from just below the hip all the way down to the knee. The surgery lasted 6 hours and when it was over I was then the proud owner of an 18 inch titanium rod that will now be with me for the duration !! I’m big fun in Airport security now!!!
Tracklist:
01. Scream
02. Last Runaway
03. Shotgun
04. Miss You
05. Fallen Under
06. Slaves Of The New World Order
07. Eyes Of My Maker
08. Hero Of The World
09. Golgotha
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