Fun Fact

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"BLOOD MONEY”  

It’s now the summer of 83’ and we were in A&M Records studio doing our 3rd set of demo’s. What was wrong with the first 2 demo’s you ask? Years later I would ask myself that same question. Those early demo’s were fantastic. They were raw, gritty and nasty and actually better than what our first record ended up sounding like. So why all the torture? At that time all the major labels were looking for a more polished sound with a more sophisticated production. So, we bought into that garbage. By the time we finally got around to recording the album the energy was being sacrificed by attempting to satisfy a labels need for that type of sound. I’ll explain all that later on down the road. So there we were, doing a demo on “Love Machine” (and the rest) for the 3rd time. There was just one small problem. We were broke !!

With little to no way of paying for the studio time. A&M was a very expensive place. About $1,000.00 a day. We were in studio A (the big room). The same place were the video for “We Are The World” was done a year later, It’s also the same room were the video for the Hearing Aid “We’re Stars” was shot (which Chris and I participated). Because we were not signed to a major label, the studio would not advance us time WITHOUT payment first. What money we had from the earlier shows from that year was almost gone. We had been there almost a month and still needed another couple of weeks. While all of this is happening I am becoming very concerned about the lack a any major Iabel making a serious offer to us. I knew they all were watching us very closely to see if we could sustain the momentum we had built up. It was vital that if we were to play live, we had to keep moving up in the size of places we played. We could not go down in size of the venues or it would look like we were some kind of novelty act with no real chance of becoming a Band that could sell records. The problem was, we had already gone as far as we could without help from someone or some thing. There were 3 absolutely crucial moments throughout the life of this Band. Had all three not been overcome, W.A.S.P. would have never survived. This was the first of the 3. I’ll explain the other 2 in future installments. I cannot exaggerate the importance of where we were at this time in the development of our career. See, in L. A., everything is about perception (which is why I don’t live in L. A. anymore). If the perception of us in the eyes of the majors were to go down because we had to go back to smaller venues, then it was all over for us…….. Unless….. there was a great reason !!

The Troubadour had been offering us Big sums of money to come back and play there. I kept refusing the offers because of the whole “perception” thing. Things got pretty bad and I needed money so when Cheri Curry called me up and asked me if I was interested in doing a movie. I asked what it was and she said, “don’t worry, they asked for the most “metal guy” I knew so I told them about you”. The movie was “Spinal Tap”. I got about $1000. The guy who was the booking agent at the “Troub” was Mike Glick. Not much has been written about him but I can say here and now, without him, the entire 82’-83’ metal movement in L. A. would have never happened. He was responsible in finding almost every band that came from the west coast that would later become famous. He had a fantastic ear in listening to bands demo tapes and determining who was real and who wasn’t. He kept making offers but now I was getting desperate. We needed cash, and a lot of it to finish the A&M demo’s. Then Mike said the magic words…….“$10,000.00 to come back and play 3 shows”. This was unheard of type of money back in 1983. But, we needed an “excuse” if we were going to go back to the “Troub”. A couple of days later I had seen on TV that blood donations in the U. S. were way down. At the time HIV/AIDS was just starting to get into the public consciousness but people still thought you get AIDS from donating blood. That’s when I came up with the idea for a “Heavy Metal Blood Drive”. It seemed perfect with our image, plus it was different, it had never been done before in the Rock world. But, we needed a big name sponsor to get involved. The American Red Cross was perfect because it would help them……and help us too!! They had the Name, the huge profile, and besides, they had the trucks with all the nurses to get all the blood out of the kids. The idea is just too perfect. Just one problem. Convince the mighty American Red Cross to come down with all their gear and get involved with a Band that Drank Blood, threw raw meat at the audience, and had a torture rack with a naked woman. NO PROBLEM!!!!

The “Troub” wanted the show as bad as we did, so Mike got an appointment to go to Downtown L. A. (where their offices were) and meet with them to try and sell them this insane idea. Honestly, I didn’t think it would even get that far. So off he goes in his suit and tie (something he never wore). I didn’t go to the meeting because we didn’t want them to get a look at me, because the whole thing would have been over before it started. So after waiting all afternoon for him to get back, he walks in and says, “I think I got them to go for it”! I said, “You have to be kidding”, what kind of garbage did you tell them to get them to agree. He said, “actually they were OK with the whole idea at first, but we talked for a couple of hours and as we got to the end of the meeting they became very skeptical and asked me about the type of kids at these Rock shows with all the drinking and drugs, and I had to think of a good answer real fast”. I asked him, what’d you say? He said, “I told them, well, I’m not exactly sure what kind of kids will be at these shows, but they gotta be better than the wino’s you’re siphoning down here on skid row”!!! I screamed out loud, “YES”, I couldn’t believe he pulled this off!!! In that one statement he had performed an ABSOLUTE STROKE OF GENIUS!!!!

As a side note, 2 days before they were to bring their trucks down to that first show, I was watching TV and I saw the National Head of the American Red Cross with President Reagan. He was receiving an award for the Red Cross from the President for $1,000,000. Needless to say this got my attention but I didn’t think about it anymore that night. The next morning, about 9 AM the phone rang. I was still asleep (typical musician), and I thought, I don’t know who this is but whatever it is it better be good!! I answered the phone still half asleep and the voice on the other end says, “is this Blackie Lawless”, I said yes, he says, “my name is Mr. Xxxxxxxx(I’ll leave his name out), I’m the National Head of the American Red Cross”. I’m thinking, Wow, this is the guy I just saw get a $1,000,000 from Reagan last night! I said, can I help you? He started screaming at me, asking, “is it rue you drink animals blood on stage, because if you do I’m canceling this entire fiasco right here, right now. I will not have the Red Cross involved in any kind of heathen theatrics like this”!! He goes on and on and I started talking REAL FAST. It took me about 30 minutes to calm this guy down. The whole time I’m talking I’m seeing everything we’ve done go up in smoke. Oddly enough, at the end of the conversation he turned out to be a pretty nice guy and said he hoped everything went OK for us. I hung up the phone and laid there and breathed a HUGE sigh of relief. Actually there were a few times that the “Blood Drive” came very close to being cancelled for one reason or another.

I remember standing there on the afternoon of the first show with that gigantic blood truck out in front of the “Troub”. All the kids there with all the nurses inside, it was incredible. Mike and I just stood there in amazement at that logic defying spectacle. We couldn’t believe what we had pulled off!!!

I asked him, “do you believe what your seeing here”? He said, “we did it buddy”!!!

But believe me when I say, this whole thing was no small feat. I cannot overstate how important these shows were to us at the time. It all came just that close to never happening. Furthermore, if everyone of the events, that needed small miracles to make happen had not happened, it’s quite possible the world would have never heard of us. It’s been said that destiny’s have been changed by missing a bus. Truer words have never been spoken!

We got the $10,000.00 and finished the demo’s. A couple of months later we went back and did a Halloween show at the “Troub”. I didn’t think the labels would question W.A.S.P. doing a “Halloween” show. That was the last show we played for about 7 months. We did the Halloween gig and it was what everything everyone had come to expect. The place was packed, the show was great, but in the back of my mind I knew the clock was ticking on us. There was NOWHERE left for us to go!!!

Enter the Manager Man…. complete with horns on his head……how appropriate!!!!

More Next Month

B.L.