In a recent interview with Border City Rock Talk, W.A.S.P.’s Chris Holmes shared some of his personal highs and lows from his time with the band.
“What really killed me is during ‘The Headless Children,’ when we started sampling. It wasn’t real. I felt like I was ripping the crowd off,” the rocker revealed.
Holmes also admitted that he didn’t feel comfortable with this new direction, feeling that it was a way of cheating the audience. “I don’t care what people say, ‘It sounds better.’ Whatever. We were sampling. And I felt like I was ripping people off.”
This wasn’t the only issue Holmes had while being part of W.A.S.P. In another interview with The Metal Voice, the guitarist explained that he became frustrated with the expectations of playing exactly like the record. “So I started playing close to the song and once I did that it was like it was boring to me. It was like walking down the street. It’s boring, I like to feel [the solo] from my heart. I always love to go see a band and they don’t sound exactly like the record, they play their parts a lot differently, I just love that. One thing couldn’t stand about W.A.S.P. everything had to sound like the record.”
When asked if the band ever docked his pay for not playing like the record, the rocker confirmed it. “Oh yeah $500 bucks, they just just took out my pay,” he revealed. “It’ll straighten you up pretty fast.”
Even though the band asked him to play the songs exactly as they were recorded, Holmes said that he firmly believed that great guitarists should never play the same thing twice, as each performance should be unique.
