In a new interview with Mane Campos of Chile’s Heavyfonía, Blackie Lawless of W.A.S.P., whose single “Animal (F**k Like a Beast)”, landed at No. 9 on the PMRC‘s (Parents’ Music Resource Center) “Filthy Fifteen” 40 years ago, spoke about the importance of free speech. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): ”Quite honestly, I think censorship is worse now than it was in the ’80s because with the Internet, you have people that are just afraid to speak.
“Censorship is an ugly thing because — the idea of freedom of speech, it’s not to protect popular speech; it’s designed to protect unpopular speech,” he explained. “And I don’t care what anyone has to say — they can come up with the craziest ideas they want. I have enough faith in my fellow man that they will determine what’s bullshit and what’s not. And you give the people the ability to decide, the majority of the time, they’re going to come up with the right ideas. So, like I said, I don’t think that trying to limit speech in any way has ever been a good idea.”
Asked if he thinks social media isa democratic way for people to express themselves or a platform for “cancel culture” and polarized views, Blackie said: “Well, it’s both. But from what I see… I don’t spend a lot of time there, so I really don’t know a lot about it, but from what I hear, the concept of being able to cancel people, that’s a scary thought.
“If you have someone like me — I don’t care what you say about me; I just don’t care,” Blackie insisted. “But the majority of the world is not like that; they’re very sensitive to what other people think. And so someone like that would be easy to cancel. Someone like myself, you cannot cancel us because we don’t care. You can only cancel someone if they care. If I believe in something that I’m doing, I don’t care if somebody believes it or not. What’s important is what I think. And I’ve spent my career telling our fans — the only thing that really matters is to think for yourself. Come up with your own ideas. Come up with your own opinions. Don’t listen to what someone next to you is telling you. Yes, you can listen, but at the end of the day, you have to decide what is right for you, and that’s really, really important. Like I said, I’ve spent my entire career talking about this one idea. So, the concept of censorship definitely fits into this.”
Asked about his comment from a couple of decades ago where he expressed his interest in becoming a U.S. senator, Blackie said: “At the time, I was pretty passionate about that, but I think I can say more by making records for a longer period of time than I could have been if I would’ve went [sic] to Washington. So I made the right decision staying where I am, because my voice has spoken louder for a longer period of time than if I would’ve gone there and done that.”
Asked if he is “disappointed” in politics today, Blackie said: “Yeah, because you know the old expression, ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ And there’s a lot of truth to that. It’s all about money and power — that’s what politics is — and I’m the kind of person, I don’t do well in environments where people are not allowed to speak truth. I just don’t do well there. So I’m way better off doing what I’m doing now because I can say the things I wanna say without restriction. Because they say politics is the art of compromise, and I don’t do well when it comes to compromise.”
Pressed about whether he changed his mind a bit about rock and roll’s ability to change the world, Blackie said: “No, not at all, because if you look back at the ’60s and the ’70s, rock and roll helped win the war. Any time you can get people to listen to ideas, that’s a powerful thing. And that’s one of the reasons that rock and roll has always scared people, because it’s dangerous. Because it’s dangerous, because of the ideas that it talks about. And that’s what’s made it so revolutionary. And I think that rock and roll is missing that today. I wish there was more of that because when it was truly revolutionary, it was something to fear, if you were someone that did not agree with it. And I miss that today.”
Toward the end of the interview, Lawless was asked to describe U.S. president Donald Trump in one word. He responded: “A winner.”
Last November, Blackie defended his decision to praise Donald Trump during the band’s concert in New York City, saying the then-U.S. president-elect was “a patriot” who was “willing to die” for what he believed in.
Prior to launching into the closing song, “Blind In Texas”, of W.A.S.P.‘s November 16, 2024 show at Hammerstein Ballroom At Manhattan Center, the 68-year-old Lawless, whose real name is Steven Duren, addressed the crowd, saying: “We’ll do something a little different tonight. We are in the appropriate city to do this. You know, it was Shakespeare that said, ‘Some are born to greatness. Some have greatness thrust upon them.’ It was the Greek historian Herodotus who said that when it comes to tragedy and things like that, that we do not rule circumstances, circumstances rule us.”
Reflecting on his experience with the PMRC (Parents’ Music Resource Center) four decades ago, Lawless continued: “Now when I was a little kid, growing up across the bay over here in Staten Island, I never, I never ever imagined that my time would come where I would be thrust into a situation where I had no control over. Now, it will be 40 years next year, there was a situation that happened, and it was called the PMRC. And there were hearings, there were hearings done in Washington, D.C. And two days later, Frank Zappa and myself stood on a stage just around the corner here and we talked about the evils that would come about them. Because censorship is an ugly, ugly thing. And it ain’t just in music. It happens in all forms of life.
“Now, down the street here in lower Manhattan, there’s a chapel down there. It’s called the St. Paul’s Chapel. We now know it as the chapel from 9-11. But before that, when George Washington was elected the first president of the United States, after he was sworn in the federal building, he walked into that street and he walked down to that chapel and he consecrated the United States of America to God Almighty right there on that spot.
“The very first amendment of our constitution guarantees freedom of speech,” Blackie added. “Our founding fathers were genius enough to know that if you can control speech, you can control thought. And these men knew this. These were great men. Fast forward a couple hundred years, 250 almost, now we have a situation in the last six, eight years, we find censorship again rearing its ugly, ugly head. Now, this time it’s on the Internet, and it’s affecting every single one of us.”
Referencing the fact that Trump was making his return to Madison Square Garden that same night, visiting the New York City landmark arena for an Ultimate Fighting Championship event, Blackie said: “Tonight, you may not be aware, but right next door to us over here in the Garden, there is a man who has undergone attempt after attempt, assassinations on his life, and this man has stood up for this country. He’s right next door right now at the Garden.
“Now, I got two things that I’m passionate about the most. One of them is that freedom of speech,” he added. “And the other one is about being a patriot. Because I’m here to tell you, I don’t care if you’re Republican, Democrat, Independent, you need to be a patriot of this country. I am willing to die for this country. I believe in it that much. And that man next door, he believes in it too.
“I only got one more thing to say before we go. ‘Cause I’m blind in Texas.”
W.A.S.P.‘s performance of “Blind In Texas” in New York City featured Trump banners flanking the stage while the image of the then-president-elect with his fist raised after July 2024’s assassination attempt near Butler, Pennsylvania was displayed behind the band.
Blackie was asked about his pro-Trump comments during a November 19, 2024 “VIP Experience” question-and-answer session before W.A.S.P.‘s concert in Cleveland, Ohio. He said: “When we did what we did Saturday night, it wasn’t just about him. It was about America. And we knew before we did it, ’cause we weighed the idea back and forth for a week before we did it, what would we do if there was gonna be fallout? And I said, well, it doesn’t matter if there’s fallout, because when you see Big Tech censorship, it’s the same thing we were going through 40 years ago; it’s just that it’s got a different name on it now — that’s all. So, the first thing any government does when they seize power is they seize the airwaves, because we know that if you can censor speech, you can control thought eventually. We see it time after time. Or even if you don’t control the thought to the degree you like, you cower people so they’re like little rabbits hiding in the corner. They’re afraid to speak out.”
He continued: “So, that was the big reason behind it. But looking at someone who’s willing to go through what the guy did, well, I mean… I heard somebody say yesterday, he said he’s got big brass wings. And I thought, yep, that’s very true, because Thomas Jefferson said, the tree of liberty must be replaced from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. And I see him as a patriot. And when I was saying what I was saying the other night — there’s two things I was interested in, which was censorship and patriotism. So, if somebody’s willing to die for what they believe in, I gotta stand there with them.”
Back in the mid-’80s, the PMRC published a list called “The Filthy Fifteen” which consisted of the top fifteen songs they wanted banned due to objectionable lyrics suggesting violence, sex, drugs, alcohol or the occult. They petitioned for lyrics to be printed on the album jackets and no one was safe — heavy metal acts were right there alongside the pop stars. AC/DC, Madonna, MÖTLEY CRÜE, JUDAS PRIEST, Prince, W.A.S.P., MERCYFUL FATE, Vanity, DEF LEPPARD, Cyndi Lauper and TWISTED SISTER all made “The Filthy Fifteen” list. In November 1985, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association Of America) agreed to put “Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics” labels on selected releases at their own discretion.
Lawless previously discussed the importance of free speech in an October 2023 interview with “Metalshop”. Speaking about how he was affected by his experience with the PMRC, he said: “We were too young to really understand what it was all about, but they quickly put us in the eye of the hurricane, and then all kinds of bad things started happening — death threats and getting shot at and all of that. We became educated very, very quickly.
“I think I was in Indiana — I think it was Indianapolis — this girl came in to interview me,” he continued. “And this was, like, ’87. And she had worked for the PMRC at one point. And she, at this time I was talking to her, was a journalist. And she goes, she brought in a cassette tape and she goes, ‘I’ve got something I need you to hear.’ And she played this cassette tape for me. And on it were Susan Baker [co-founder of the PMRC] and a few of the others talking about what their real motivation was. And their motivation was not to get stickers on records. Their motivation was to get Al Gore a platform to then run for president of the United States. So they were trying to create a political profile for him — because what better way to get attention, if you’re a political candidate, a southern caricature, which is what he was, what better way to get attention than to go after an attention getter? I mean, this is McCarthyism [political repression and persecution] — you know, it’s no different. Richard Nixon did it. All these witch hunts that went on in D.C. for years. But they come to a generation who’s not heard it. So this thing comes around once every 15 years. The generation hasn’t heard it. They haven’t heard the same old lies that come out of it. So it sounds pretty good to them because it sounds sincere and genuine.”
Lawless, who has repeatedly stated in interviews that he has returned to the Christian faith and considers himself a born-again Christian, added: “Let me tell you something about free speech. I’m part Jewish, I’m part Native American Indian. You can stand on a soapbox and you can talk about how wonderful Nazism is and how you’d like to kill all the Indians out there. I don’t care. Well, let me rephrase that. I do care, but I don’t want to limit your ability to speak, because if I do that, then we start going down a dark road because you start playing umpire, and then who plays umpire tomorrow?
“This country was built as a republic and a republic, contrary to what a lot of people don’t understand, is not a democracy. But what you have to do to create a republic, you have to have a certain amount of faith in the people. So, in other words, if you have a guy that’s spewing a bunch of hatred on a street corner or in a soapbox, you have to have faith in your fellow Americans that this guy is a lunatic and the vast majority of people are gonna find him out and not follow him. But what happens is when you start limiting that speech, then, like I said, you take away the ability of the people to decide for themselves, number one, who’s crazy and who isn’t. But even more dangerous than that, you start appointing these umpires that tell you what you can and cannot say. And it’s extremely dangerous. And you’ve heard it a million times but it bears repeating, our system is not set up for popular speech. It’s set up for unpopular speech.”
Lawless also discussed his experience with the PMRC during a “VIP Experience” question-and-answer session in November 2022 before W.A.S.P.‘s concert at The Paramount Theater in Huntington, New York. At the time, he said: “It changed my life, if that’s what you mean. It made me more of a recluse. Yeah, a couple of thousand death threats and bomb scares and getting shot at a couple of times usually has a tendency to alter your outlook on life a little. But also, we were exposed to extreme fame very early, and fame is kind of like this — if this table is a smorgasbord, it’s like an evil genie stands down at the end of the smorgasbord and [says], ‘You can take anything you want, but if you take one thing, you take it all. You do not get to pick and choose. So all the good stuff that you like in the smorgasbord, that’s wonderful, but you’ve gotta take the bad stuff too.’ So it ends up being a life-altering experience, one I don’t think you can ever really go back from — at least I haven’t been able to.”
In a 2004 interview with the Las Vegas Mercury, Lawless spoke about having his music slammed by the PMRC, saying: “As the story goes, [PMRC founding member] Tipper [Gore] was walking down the hall in her house and her 12-year-old son had [W.A.S.P.‘s] ‘Fuck Like A Beast’ playing on his stereo, and she lost her mind,” Lawless said. “I don’t know if that’s true, but that’s the story I’ve been told.
“You wanna talk about sensationalism?” Blackie continued. “This was an organization that was seeking a platform that would help serve its own political interests. They didn’t give a damn about censorship. I’ve spent the better part of my career trying to get people to understand that. This really is not what you think it is. They come to you like the wolf in sheep’s clothing and then use you to create a frenzy — not unlike what McCarthy did with the communists and Bob Dole did with rap. This is nothing new.
“You don’t have to be Nostradamus to see what’s going on with young people these days,” Lawless continued. “Parents just don’t get involved with their kids as much as they used to. Are you going to tell me that these parents at Columbine didn’t know that anything was going on with their kids? Hey, my mother knew what I was doing 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But parents now, they don’t want to take any responsibility for their children. They bring something into this world, and then when something goes wrong, they want to blame everybody else for it.”
It is not clear what Lawless thinks about Trump‘s supposed commitment to free expression, seeing as Trump champions freedom of speech for himself and his allies while attacking it when it protects his critics and political opponents. Trump has regularly attacked individual journalists and the press in general for unfavorable news coverage. He called journalists the “enemy of the people” and removed ones he did not like from press events and rallies.
Source: blabbermouth.net
