The most revered guitarists are often heralded not only for their sublime chops, but also for their on-stage eccentricities. Angus Young’s duck walk and striptease, for example, or Pete Townshend's electric guitar smashing antics immediately spring to mind.
A far more grotesque example of crowd participation, though, can be found in the case of W.A.S.P.’s Blackie Lawless, who – among many other things – became partial to chucking chunks of raw meat out into the audience.
As a guitar player, if the thought of having a rogue piece of raw meat collide with your prized instrument makes you shudder, you’re most definitely not alone. Having said that, most of us will never be in a position whereby such a grim confetti substitute comes remotely close to our gear.
For former W.A.S.P. guitarist Chris Holmes, though, it was a different story – for him, the fear of the flying flank steak was very real, having shared the stage with Lawless for a number of years over the course of two stints in the band.
Fortunately, Holmes' guitars went entirely unscathed from Lawless’s regular raw meat antics. The same, however, can’t be said for his guitar amp.
Speaking in the latest issue of Guitar World, Holmes dicussed Lawless’s outrageous stage show and recalled how, though his guitars avoided getting caught in the raw meat crossfire, his amp wasn’t so lucky.
What effect did it have on his guitar amp, you ask? Well, it certainly didn’t give him a meatier tone, that’s for sure.
“One time some of it ended up in the back of one of my amps,” Holmes said. “We went to rehearse about three weeks later. We pulled the amp out of a garage where we stored it, and when we looked in the back of it we saw all of these maggots in the meat.”
We didn’t need Holmes’ word to know that the whole thing was “pretty gross” – though “pretty” seemingly undersells it somewhat – and that the three-week old meat lodged into the back of the amp had “gotten all rotten and stuff."
Who’d have thought throwing raw meat around a sweaty stage could have such grim outcomes?
As it turns out, Holmes’ guitar amp wasn’t the only thing on the stage to fall foul of the flying meat – Holmes himself was struck by Lawless’s grim confetti substitute, though with a far more painful outcome.
“One time during a gig, Blackie took the big meat box and threw it to the side of the stage,” he went on. “It bounced off a wall and hit me in the temple – knocked me out cold.”
The audience, unsurprisingly, came off worst from Lawless's meat shower. “There was nothing [the crowd] could do,” he said. “The places were packed, so you basically took your chances.
“It was intense. I used to tell Blackie, 'People can tell which way you're gonna throw it. You have to point one way and then throw the meat the other way. You'll be able to nail people.' He tried it and said, 'This is way better. People aren't expecting it.'”
Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Guitar World, which features the full interview with Chris Holmes.
