Blackie Lawless

Blackie Lawless born Steven Edward Duren September 4 1956 is an American songwriter and musician best known as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist formerly bassist for the heavy metal band WASP He began his music career playing with bands such as Black Rabbit and Orfax Rainbow In 1975 after Johnny Thunders left the glam rock band New York Dolls in the middle of a tour of Florida the band started auditioning for guitarists He was hired but only stayed for the remainder of the tour After the tour he went to California with bassist Arthur Kane and helped found Killer Kane At that time his stage name was Blackie Goozeman as stated on the back of Killer Kanes only EP About a year later Kane returned to New York City but Lawless decided to stay in West Los Angeles In 1976 he formed Sister which also featured future WASP guitarist Randy Piper Around 1978 a new lineup was assembled which included Nikki Sixx as bassist and Lizzie Grey on guitar Later Chris Holmes joined Sister evolved into Circus Circus in 1979 with Piper again appearing in the lineup In 1981 following Circus Circus failure Lawless joined Lizzie Grey and Nikki Sixxs band London with whom he played a few gigs and recorded two songs as demos though by this time Sixx had already departed to form Mötley Crüe In 1982 he switched to bass after firing original member bassist Rik Fox later of Steeler fame who had joined the band only 4 months prior and had named WASP over personal issues The lineup also included Randy Piper and was soon completed with Chris Holmes on lead guitar and Tony Richards on drums WASP underwent numerous lineup changes with Lawless being the last remaining original member and chief songwriter Many of his songs tended to deal with religious or apocalyptic themes due to his Christian upbringing The band achieved their greatest success from 1985 to 1988 with several hit singles including LOVE Machine I Wanna Be Somebody and Wild Child