In 1992, WASP released The Crimson Idol. It was a band album in name alone, as they split soon after The Headless Children in 1989. Founding member and main songwriter Blackie Lawless (AKA Steven Duren) enlisted the help of largely unsung guitar hero Bob Kulick and session drummers Frankie Banali, late of Quiet Riot, and Stet Howland to complete what I consider his masterwork.
In many ways The Crimson Idol is a consolidation of what Lawless and his bandmates achieved on The Headless Children. Having stepped away from the shock rock and Grand Guignol theatrics that made them the logical successors to Alice Cooper and KISS and so outraged Tipper Gore's Parents' Music Resource Centre, they set out to prove there was more to WASP than being L.O.V.E. machines or wild children who go blind in Texas while welcoming people to electric circuses and inciting them to scream until they liked it.
While The Headless Children concerned itself with then current world issues, The Crimson Idol's focus turns inward. Lawless draws on the influence of 'my mentor' Pete Townshend to weave the tale of Jonathan Steel. Constructed around simple yet effective musical and lyrical themes, Jonathan's story is not a happy one. Abused, neglected and ultimately disowned by his parents William and Elizabeth, he channels his rage and constant hunger for acceptance into music and hitch hikes to the big bad city to chase his dream of becoming the titular 'Crimson Idol of a million eyes.' He signs a deal with record label president 'Chainsaw Charlie' and is guided towards fame and fortune by manager Alex Rodman.
As Jonathan's star rises, a gypsy woman tells his fortune. Her tarot cards reveal a fallen hero in the tradition of Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and she warns him to be careful what he wishes for because it might come true. Rather than reassure Jonathan that he's on the right path, the woman's prediction leaves him with 'a haunting that would follow me (for) the rest of my life.'
Jonathan finds 'success agreed with me, with amazing ease. The more records I sold the more excess I had of everything', but none of these material trappings and sexual or chemical indulgences can bring him what he really wants. In several songs and interludes between them he asks 'where's the love, to shelter me? Only love, love set me free.'
His search leads him to the very place he left as an angry teenager. He phones his parents before a concert and attempts to reconcile with them but 'less than fifty words were spoken' and the last four were 'we have no son.' This prompts Jonathan to contemplate suicide and, during what turns out to be his final performance, he makes a noose from his guitar strings and hangs himself before his adoring audience.
Blackie Lawless has always had a flair for the dramatic. This is a man who thought nothing of drinking stage blood from a skull or wearing a chainsaw shaped codpiece that shot sparks into the crowd, but The Crimson Idol was the first time he incorporated such theatrical elements into his music rather than its performance. It was a labour of love that took years to realise and, like most stories that endure, it can be interpreted in many ways.
What appeals to me most about it is the juxtaposition between Jonathan's messianic, larger than life public persona and his true self. There are elements of Lawless' personal history throughout, which he would explore further on the next WASP album Still Not Black Enough while no longer 'hiding behind Jonathan.'
At the risk of sounding like the pseudy academic I once was and will be again, one of The Crimson Idol's most fascinating aspects is the construction and deconstruction of selves. The self I am in the process of building appeals to me much more than the person I see in the mirror or, as Jonathan called it 'the four doors of doom', but I must take care not to lose sight of who he is or where he came from. Unlike Jonathan, I have had a lifetime worth of 'love to shelter me', and that should provide enough rocket fuel for whatever lies ahead.
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