W.A.S.P. frontman Blackie Lawless recently addressed the band’s history with the PMRC, sharing his perspective in a new statement. Lawless reflected on how the experience actually affected him and the band, more than four decades after the controversy first erupted.
The discussion centered on the motives behind the Parents’ Music Resource Center’s campaign against W.A.S.P. and other acts. Lawless suggested the effort was less about censorship and more about a broader political agenda.
“Well, honestly, after it was all said and done, more was said than done,” Lawless said. “It really didn’t change things for us one way or the other. They wanted attention, and what better way to get attention than to go after an attention-getter? So they chose us, and they chose the bands that were in that list that they came up with.”
Lawless went on to connect the PMRC’s campaign to the political ambitions of one of its co-founders’ husbands.
“They were trying to put a man [Al Gore, U.S. senator and later vice president and then-husband of PMRC co-founder Tipper Gore] in the White House, and it didn’t work,” he continued. “You got a guy that had a personality that was like watching paint dry. And he wonders why he couldn’t get elected. So, they became… What’s the word I’m looking for? Victims. And I wouldn’t say of their own success — of their own diabolical plots of the things that they tried to put together. ‘Cause after it was all said and done, and the truth came out, it was all about them trying to put a man in the White House.”
He also downplayed the lasting impact of the controversy on the band’s relationship with its audience.
“It was not about censoring records. They could have cared less. They made us a household word, I’ll admit that. But when you make somebody a household word, somebody’s grandmother in Wyoming — I don’t mean to pick on Wyoming this evening; could be anywhere, Iowa, you name it — they don’t buy the records anyway, so what difference does it make whether they know who you are or not?”
“So it really didn’t make any difference,” Lawless said. “Like I said, it makes you a household word, but so what? It really doesn’t change anything as far as what the relationship with the fans are.”
Lawless’s comments touch on a chapter of rock history that still resonates with fans decades later. The full scope of that clash offers useful context for understanding just how central W.A.S.P. became to the PMRC’s crusade.
The PMRC’s targeting of W.A.S.P. was no small footnote. The organization’s infamous “Filthy Fifteen” list, published in the mid-1980s, singled out the top fifteen songs the group wanted flagged or banned for lyrics deemed to promote violence, sex, drugs, alcohol or occult themes. W.A.S.P.’s track “Animal (F**k Like a Beast)” landed on that list, cementing the band’s status as one of the PMRC’s primary targets alongside acts like Twisted Sister and Prince.
The pressure campaign had real consequences for the band’s music. Capitol Records pulled “Animal (F**k Like a Beast)” from W.A.S.P.’s debut album at the last minute after facing pushback tied to the PMRC’s growing influence. That move underscored just how far-reaching the organization’s campaign had become even before formal hearings took place.
The PMRC itself was co-founded and led by Tipper Gore, who was married to then-Senator Al Gore of Tennessee at the time. That connection is central to Lawless’s argument that the organization’s push for warning labels on recorded music was tangled up with political ambition rather than purely a concern over lyrical content.
W.A.S.P. never let the feud fade quietly. The band memorialized its clash with the PMRC in the song “Harder, Faster,” featured on their 1987 live album “Live… In the Raw.” That song turned the controversy into part of the group’s own legacy rather than a chapter it tried to bury.
Lawless has echoed similar sentiments in past interviews, once explaining that the PMRC’s motives had less to do with the band’s lyrics than with its popularity among young listeners. “We found out the reason the PMRC went after us is because kids knew who we were,” he said. “That’s how they work.”
Source: Rock at Night Magazine
