Blackie Lawless
Blackie Lawless |
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Steven Edward Duren (born September 4, 1956, in Staten Island, New York), better known as Blackie Lawless, is best known as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist for heavy metal band W.A.S.P.. He has become notorious in the heavy metal community for his live performances, controversial album covers and lyrics.
Biography
Duren's musical interests began when he was nine years old ("My brother had a guitar and I used to sneak down to his bedroom and play it when he wasn't there"), he had his first guitar about a year later and earned his first pocket money with his first band called "The Underside."
He was in a street gang with Ace Frehley and suffered a serious stab wound in a fight. At the age of 14 his father sent him to a military school in Florida to learn discipline, but Blackie was soon thrown out for beating up a drill seargent. At 16, Blackie played with the band "Black Rabbit" in local bars, another early band was "Orfax Rainbow." After leaving high school he worked two years for his father's construction firm.
Music career
For about fifteen days, in May 1975, Blackie played guitar for the New York Dolls, replacing Johnny Thunders at two shows, during their tour through Florida. After the tour, he went to California with Arthur Kane and helped found the "Killer Kane Band", (Single "Mr. Cool"), where Lawless was the singer. At that time his artistic name was "Blackie Goozeman." About a year later Kane went back to New York while Lawless decided to stay in Los Angeles.
In 1976, he formed Sister, who are believed to be the first Los Angeles group to use the (inverted) pentagram as their logo. Randy Piper, later of W.A.S.P., was Sister's second and longest-staying guitar player. Lawless' stage antics at the time included lighting his boots on fire (the trick he later gave on to Nikki Sixx) and eating live worms. Around 1978, a new lineup was assembled that included the aforementioned Sixx on the bass and Lizzie Grey on guitars. This lineup tried to record a few songs, but the outcome was so terrible they decided to scrap the idea altogether. Around that time, Chris Holmes came into the picture for the first time to play guitar. According to Holmes, this lineup managed to play live at least once.
After this version of Sister failed in its turn, Lawless started his next band "Circus Circus", in 1979, with Randy Piper again appearing in the lineup. When it became clear that this band was going nowhere as well, in 1981, Lawless joined Lizzie Grey and Nikki Sixx's relatively successful London, with whom he played a few gigs and recorded two songs as demos, already without Sixx. In 1982, Lawless assumed bass duties and along with Randy Piper formed W.A.S.P.. The lineup was soon completed with Chris Holmes on lead guitar and Tony Richards on drums.
W.A.S.P.
During W.A.S.P.'s long history, there have been numerous band/lineup changes, and today Lawless is the only remaining original member. He writes pretty much all of the songs and music scores on W.A.S.P.'s albums and says his favorite album to date is The Crimson Idol. Many of his songs tend to deal with religion, due to his fundamentalist Christian upbringing and the fact that his grandfather was a deacon and his uncle was a preacher, but veer into socio-political topics from time to time. Lawless even spoke often about going into politics, but has not yet actively pursued that action.
Lawless' influences include AC/DC, Black Sabbath and the Beatles. His notorious stage theatrics were influenced by Alice Cooper and The Who, but he took it one step further with throwing raw meat into the audience and girls positioned on torture racks. During the 1980s he was severely criticized by organizations like the Parents Music Resource Center because of W.A.S.P.'s rather extreme live shows with concerts regularly cancelled by local authorities and, in some countries, banned from playing entirely.
In 2003 Lawless was an outspoken defender of Pete Townshend (from The Who), who was arrested on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children. W.A.S.P. did a cover song from The Who's "The Real Me" on the The Headless Children (1989) CD.
Acting
Apart from being a musician, Lawless can be seen in Can't Stop the Music (1980), a musical about The Village People, and in the 1985 fantasy/horror film The Dungeonmaster. He also had a cameo role in the 1984 movie This Is Spinal Tap.
Lawless was tapped to play Sammi Curr in the horror film Trick or Treat (1986), but declined the offer. The role was instead given to Tony Fields.
Lawless was also considered for the role of the liquid-metal T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, although his height proved to be a problem. In an AOL chat, Lawless explained: "Probably the biggest regret that I have, though I didn't turn it down, was a part in Terminator 2 that Robert Patrick got. Schwarzenegger wanted me to do the part, but when he found out I was 6'4", I couldn't. I regret not being able to do that."
Recent times
In 2006 Lawless was found not guilty of criminal assault in an Arizona courtroom. The charge dated back to August 2005, when he reportedly kicked a security guard during a tantrum whilst performing in Scottsdale, Arizona.
The band cancelled its previously announced European dates in July 2006, after Lawless was diagnosed with an abnormality in one of the arteries leading to his heart.
Trivia
- Lawless is of Native American ancestry.
- Baseball legend Ryne Duren is his uncle. Before becoming a musician, Lawless played in the minor leagues for the Cincinnati Reds organization. He is a fan of his hometown team, the New York Yankees, but despite his involvement in baseball has stated that Muhammad Ali is his idol.
- Lawless has been friends with fellow Staten Islander and former New York Dolls bandmate David Johansen, as well as with Ace Frehley of Kiss and Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe, with whom he once worked in the band London.
- As part of the W.A.S.P. stage performance, Blackie mounts a demonic-looking metal sculpture that doubles as a microphone stand (Known by fans and Blackie as 'Elvis'). Reportedly weighing in excess of 1,000 lbs., it is mounted on springs to allow Blackie to climb atop and swing from it during the show to dramatic effect. This mic stand is often cited by the band as the reason for its cancellation of shows, due to its tremendous weight being too heavy for the stage.
- Often it is wondered what the bands name stands for or if it stands for anything since it is written as an acronym. In an interview several years ago in the 80's the band claimed it stands for "We Are Sexual Perverts." It is not known for sure if they were serious when saying it though. It is believed by many they said it for shock value, but that is the most frequently used meaning of the acronym known. Another common interpretation by the band's critics was "We Are Satan's People". In a recent interview, he was asked what's the real meaning. He replied "We Ain't Sure, Pal."
- Blackie Lawless has told another story a time or two before on how W.A.S.P. got their name. He said once he and a friend of his or a band member were walking in the backyard and while clueless as to what to call the band, saw a wasp nest on the ground under a tree and decided to go with that and call the band W.A.S.P. The band later decided to add a period between each letter to make it stand out more when people saw it.
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