W.A.S.P.: Barcelona Footage Available

Fan-filmed video footage of W.A.S.P.'s December 9, 2009 concert at Sala Razzmatazz 2 in Barcelona, Spain can be viewed below (courtesy of citysgonnaburn).

W.A.S.P.'s new album, "Babylon", entered the U.K. "Rock Albums" chart at position No. 15. The CD was released in Europe on October 12 through Global Music (via Demolition Records) and was issued in the U.S. on November 17.

Regarding how he came up with the album's concept, frontman Blackie Lawless recently told AOL's Noisecreep, "I'll tell you basically where it started. It was about a year ago when all this global financial crisis — supposed crisis — was going on. In the news, everybody was talking about this global meltdown. I heard different politicians in different places — especially over here in the E.U. [where Blackie was at the time of the interview] — these guys are saying, 'Maybe it's time that we should start thinking about a one-world government.' Then I heard another guy say, 'Well, speaking of a one-world government, maybe we should have a one-world currency.'"

He added, "What really got me was there was a guy who spoke up in Brussels and said by 2017 they're going to have all the E.U. microchipped. When he said that, I stood there with my mouth hanging open. When I heard that — this is potential 666 that kind of thing — I went online and I started doing a detailed research of microchipping.

"It's actually more widespread than even I thought it was. At home, there's a school — I can't remember if it's a high school — they already had some of the students microchipped there for school lunches and stuff like that. It's an experimental thing. All the kids do for lunch is they wave their hand in front of the thing that reads the computer bar. It's all done and they go eat.

"There's a doctor over here that I saw in Finland. He's the biggest [general practitioner] nutrition specialist. He said he believed this will be the first generation of babies to be microchipped in the E.U. I'm listening to all this, [thinking], 'These guys understand what they're saying? This is direct, direct prophecy coming out of the Bible.' When I heard all this coming out a year ago, the first thing you think when you hear a politician use the word 'crisis,' is it's usually code for trying to figure out some way to take some more freedom away from you, or certainly to tax you one way or another."

According to Lawless, the Bible's book of Revelation and the book of Daniel was "astonishingly accurate in the description of what these guys were talking about. These guys are talking 2017. That's eight years from now. That's not a long time from now. Twenty years ago, I wrote a record called 'Headless Children' and there's a line in there, it says, 'Four horsemen sit high up in this saddle in waiting and ride the ride the bloody trail of no return.' I heard these guys talking, are we closer to that potential Armageddon scenario than we are then?

"What I am trying to do is with any kind of art, you're trying to make people think. All art is designed to provoke thought — whether it's movies, or music, or sculpture or painting. It's all designed to get you to think, to also understand in a particular scenario like this: Elections have consequences. Don't just think your voice doesn't matter. I used to think it's me and my one voice doesn't matter. We do know that groups of people coming together really can make a huge difference, whether it is or it isn't.

"In democratic society, elections have consequences. Don't just look at some guy because he's speaking well, or you think he's going to be OK or something like that. Go dig into the guy's background. Look at what this guy is really standing for and try to make a decision from there. I understand we all get busy lives. But in democratic societies, you have a responsibility to really make your votes be heard and not just go along with the status quo."

W.A.S.P. will hit the road in the U.S. in February 2010. Exact cities and dates will be announced soon.