W.A.S.P. frontman Blackie Lawless is opening up about the dark side of Hollywood that his long-awaited autobiography will expose. He discussed the project’s status and the real reasons behind its lengthy delay in a new interview with IndiePower TV.
Lawless, whose book carries the working title “Tales From The Square Mile,” described his early struggles after arriving in California, recalling the cramped living conditions he endured just steps from where W.A.S.P. would later perform decades on.
“Well, the first year [after I moved to California], I slept on people’s floors. I did the floor tour,” Lawless said. “And then I moved into my deluxe accommodations, which was a closet that was three feet by 12 feet, and I was in there for a year and a half. And that was literally right across the street from the Hollywood Palladium, which is where [W.A.S.P.] played the last time [December 2024] we were [in Los Angeles]. Now, that’s about 50 feet away from where I was sleeping in that closet.”
The singer also addressed why the memoir, initially expected to take just a matter of months, has instead taken years to complete.
“I talked to [Iron Maiden’s] Bruce Dickinson and some other people that wrote books, and I said, ‘Well, how long did it take you to do it?’ And they said, ‘Oh, six months.’ And so I thought, ‘Okay, well, that’s probably what it’ll take.’ Well, six years later, I’m still working on it,” Lawless said.
He explained that the scope of the project expanded well beyond his personal story as he began researching Hollywood’s own history.
“And the reason that I’m still working on it is because when I first started, I thought it was my singular story, and that seemed reasonable at the time,” Lawless continued. “But the more I started working on it, the more I realized, no, it’s not my singular story. It’s equally about the town itself. And the research that I had to do on the town, because the town, it plows its history over. It’s not like Des Moines, Iowa, or someplace like that, where something really important happens, they put up a street marker for it. You know, such and such happened here on such and such a day.”
Lawless pointed to specific examples of how Hollywood’s industry landmarks have vanished over time, including the site of a legendary recording studio.
“Hollywood doesn’t do that. It just plows over its own history. Every one of the recording studios, every one of the management offices that we had, had all been something before that was industry-related,” he said. “And to give you an example, when I had the recording studio on Santa Monica and Vine, right next to me, literally, right there was an alleyway that separated us, but Gold Star recording studios had been there.”
“And, unfortunately, it’s a donut shop now, the last I saw. All those great records came out of there,” Lawless continued. “But when we were coming up, and we were first getting started, there was a laundromat that’s diagonally across that intersection there. We used to rehearse in that laundromat after nine o’clock at night. We would set up the equipment in between the washing machines, and that’s where we would rehearse. Fast forward nine years later, and I’m at the light waiting for it to change, and I look over and that laundromat is still there.”
Reflecting on his rise from rehearsing in a laundromat to running his own studio just a short distance away, Lawless described the experience as a lesson in how little truly changes despite outward success.
“And I’m thinking, ‘This is the longest 75 feet I ever walked in my life,’ to get from the laundromat to being the proprietor of this recording studio. How does this happen?” he said. “So you’re living in a better place. You’re driving a better car. You’re eating better food, all that stuff, and you think that success is gonna change everything.”
“I was naive enough to believe that I was gonna end up in Valhalla, but as much as everything changed, nothing changed,” Lawless continued. “I’m literally three blocks away from where I used to live. Like I said, the last show I just played [in Los Angeles] was right across the street from where I used to live. So I’m still working in that square mile, like it or not, that I’m still going back to these places, and I would do that for 20 years.”
Lawless concluded by noting that his book will differ from typical rock star memoirs.
“And what I discovered about the town is, like I said, when you see the book, it’s not your typical sex, drugs and rock and roll,” he said. “I mean, there’s a period of that, but by the time I moved to California, I had a lot of that… I wouldn’t say it was out of my system, but I was ready to go to work. And my story is pretty different than whatever you’ve been used to reading.”
The wait for “Tales From The Square Mile” has stretched far longer than Lawless originally anticipated. Recent updates from the singer only reinforce just how deep into the process he remains.
Earlier this year, Lawless revealed that the memoir had already consumed more than five years of his time, with the project still sitting at roughly the halfway mark. By August, he confirmed the book had grown into a six-year undertaking. He said he is “about halfway finished” and is now targeting a 2027 release rather than the shorter turnaround he once expected.
The scale of the project has clearly grown alongside Lawless’s own ambitions for it. What began as a straightforward personal memoir evolved into a sprawling account of Hollywood’s music industry history. That evolution required extensive research into recording studios, management offices and rehearsal spaces that have long since disappeared or been repurposed.
Despite the demands of finishing the book, Lawless has kept W.A.S.P. active on the road. The band’s “1984 To Headless” tour runs through North America in 2026, including a stop at Palladium Times Square on October 2. This underscores that Lawless continues to balance his writing with a full touring schedule.
That balancing act mirrors the very themes running through “Tales From The Square Mile” itself. Lawless continues to revisit the same Hollywood blocks, venues and streets that shaped his career decades ago, even as he works to finally put that story on the page.
