On the August 15 episode of SiriusXM’s ‘Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk,’ W.A.S.P. singer Blackie Lawless discussed his band’s tour with Metallica. Lawless credited the frontman James Hetfield for his work in the band and added that Metallica is successful because of him. Lawless didn’t mention Lars Ulrich as one of the reasons for the band’s success.
“Honestly, I don’t think anybody has the ability to look into a crystal ball and see that,” he said when asked if he ever thought Metallica would get as big as they are today. “I see it differently. I mean, for me, Metallica is James. And I don’t say to slight any of the rest of the band — certainly not at all — but being a singer, I relate to the singer. And even to this day, I listen to how James drives songs and that singer lingo for when we drive a track, that means we’re pushing the crap out of it. We’re really hitting it hard, using the vocal to carry the track. And the way James drives it, I mean, he had that even then.”
He added: “To be completely honest about it, Metallica did not become Metallica until about ‘…And Justice For All’, at least not in the mass sense that we know it now. Did they have a following before that? Of course they did. But to get into where it became supersonic, like it is now, no. And it takes a while for that to happen. And literally the planets aligned for them. I mean, they had done ‘…And Justice For All.’ The ‘Black Album’ comes out, and it’s got that song [‘Enter Sandman’] on it, man. And history is rewritten at that point.”
W.A.S.P. and Metallica toured together back in early 1985 during Metallica’s ‘Ride the Lightning Tour.’ During a Q&A session before one of W.A.S.P.’s shows on their fall 2022 U.S. tour, Lawless talked about his memories of playing with Metallica.
“We had gotten there late. We had a long drive the night before,” he explained. “Nobody got soundchecks that day. We were scrambling to try to make it happen. So we were flip-flopping every night [on that tour] — one night they’d close, one night we’d close — and this happened to be one of the nights we were closing. The dressing rooms were all downstairs, and it was like a maze down there; I mean, nobody knew where they were.”
He also recalled his chat with Cliff Burton: “I’m in there shaving and I hear Metallica’s intro start. And I’m looking up in the mirror and I’m shaving; I’ve got the razor at my throat. The door flies open behind me. There’s Cliff standing there with his bass on. Now, their intro was playing. And Cliff’s standing there. He goes, ‘Blackie, Blackie, how do I get to the stage? How do I get to the stage?’ I didn’t know. I hadn’t been up there yet. And I looked in the mirror. He was behind me. And I said, ‘Cliff, honestly, I don’t know.’ And he goes, ‘Oh, f*ck you, Blackie.’ He thinks I’m busting his chops. Two minutes goes by. I’m still down there shaving. They are already into the first song, and I hear the bass finally come in.”
This fall, W.A.S.P. will kick off a North American tour called ‘Album ONE Alive,’ with Armored Saint and Undo Others as supporting bands. W.A.S.P. will play the entire album from beginning to end for the first time in 40 years during the ‘Album ONE Alive’ tour to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their debut album.