W.A.S.P. Cancels 2023 U.S. Tour Due To BLACKIE LAWLESS's 'Extensive Back Injuries'

Because of the extensive back injuries suffered by Blackie Lawless during the European leg of W.A.S.P.'s 40th-anniversary tour, the band's previously announced 2023 U.S. tour has been canceled and will be rescheduled for spring 2024. Tickets and VIP packages can be refunded at the point of purchase.

Lawless comments: "The extent of the trauma I endured on the 2023 European tour was far greater than originally diagnosed and surgery will now be needed to correct the problem. In addition to the original herniated disc, as that tour continued, a second disc became herniated. Upon returning home, a second MRI also revealed a broken vertebrae to my lower back.

"I've been fortunate to work with the best specialists in the U.S. and I've been in intensive rehab since we got home. It's going well but the damage was pretty extensive and all the doctors agree moving the tour a few months back will be the safest thing. It's all been as the result of an injury that happened several years ago. I'm working my butt off to get ready and I'll be up riding on [my mic stand nicknamed] Elvis... bigger and badder than ever. If the Torture Never Stops, then the 40th Never Stops!"

During a May 25 appearance on SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk", Lawless spoke about completing W.A.S.P.'s recent European tour while seated after suffering a herniated disc in his back. He said: "This past Monday was my 10-year anniversary from when I broke my right femur. And it's a long, complicated story, but what's been going on with my back is a direct reflection of what happened with that femur being broken. Because I wore a lift for nine years, and come to find out I did not need that lift. And that was only determined last summer, so the lift was taken out. But the spine had adjusted to me walking with that lift. And when we took it out, then that's when the problems started. And it actually started at the beginning of the U.S. tour. And I was able to get through the U.S. tour okay, and we thought it had settled into place, but when we got to Europe, we quickly discovered, about two weeks into the tour, that was not the case. And what was happening is that the vertebrae were compressing some of the disks. I ended up rupturing a disk, and then that starts leaking out a gelatin that then wraps itself around the nerves coming out of the spinal cord. And that then creates this thing called nerve pain. And I don't know if people understand what that is, because I had heard of it but I had never experienced it before. And it is pain that you cannot imagine. It is unlike anything you've ever experienced before."

The 66-year-old guitarist/vocalist, whose real name is Steven Duren, continued: "I had to go to Berlin four times to get treatment. I received eight epidurals throughout the tour. That was the only way I was getting through it, because the pain is literally off the charts. And the doctors there told me, they said, 'This thing can become so intense, people commit suicide from it.' And I can see why people would do that.

"The first time I had to go in, you have to go into a surgical center because it's not something that can be done in a regular doctor's office. So we were in a hospital in Berlin. So they take me into the surgical room, or the operating room. And he told me, he said, 'Now I'm gonna inject this needle or insert this needle into you and I'm gonna touch your spinal cord with it.' He said, 'I want you to get ready for this.' Now, I didn't know what that meant — until he did it. And when he did it — I really don't have accurate words to describe what that feels like. The closest way I can explain it is it felt like an explosion, like a bomb went off inside my legs. And he said, 'I'm gonna have to do this one more time.' And I swear to you, I grabbed the table with both hands.

"You see these movies about mafia and things like that, where they're pulling guys' fingernails off with pliers. You don't need that," Lawless added. "You just show somebody a needle — they'll give up their kids. I'm here to tell you — there's nothing like it. I mean, you cannot fathom it unless you've been through it.

"So, anyway, they were able to keep me running, but they were afraid that I was gonna do further damage. So the deal was halfway during the tour that I would pull back about 50 percent of the movement that I was doing. But it started getting worse and worse. And we got to Zurich about two and a half weeks ago, and something happened during the show, and I knew something wasn't right. And that's when we went to sitting after that.

"We got home this past Saturday, and I went straight to the doctor's office. And they looked at me, and we said, 'Okay, let's do new pictures.' So we did new pictures this past Monday.

"I have a thing, and they determined this in Berlin — it's called mechanical compression," Blackie revealed. "And what that means is you get vertebrae that start pushing against each other, but they grind against each other at the same time because they start to cramp. Well, when we were doing the show in Zurich, it was cramping really bad and I couldn't get it to stop. And I was literally, literally hanging on to [my mic stand] Elvis while I was trying to sing and play at the same time.

"So we did the new pictures on Monday, and I have a cracked vertebra now in my spine. But as bad as that sounds, it's not the first time it happened," Lawless said. "It happened the first time in '92 on 'The Crimson Idol' tour. I got a little too close to the edge of the stage one night and some of the fans pulled me off the stage into the audience, and I ended up upside down in the crowd and they fell on top of me, and I broke a vertebra then. So this is the second time I've been through this. So it'll heal on its own. I start therapy tomorrow — it's a swimming pool thing that I'm gonna have to do to start first. But they say they're gonna have me up to speed in eight weeks to start the tour. So I'll be ready to go."

Fan-filmed video of one of the first shows of Lawless performing while seated, from the May 15 concert at Sono Music Club in Brno, Czech Republic, can be seen below. Lawless's chair was built into his custom mic stand.

W.A.S.P.'s massive European leg of the 40th-anniversary world tour wrapped on May 18 in Sofia, Bulgaria at Universidada Sports Hall.

Produced by Live Nation, the North American leg of W.A.S.P.'s "The 40th Never Stops World Tour 2023" was scheduled to kick off on Friday, August 4 at the Fremont Theatre in San Luis Obispo, California, making stops across North America in Vancouver, British Columbia; Omaha, Nebraska; New York City; Memphis, Tennessee and more before wrapping up on Saturday, September 16 at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, California. Special guest ARMORED SAINT was supposed join the band across all 33 dates of the tour.

W.A.S.P. wrapped up its first U.S. tour in 10 years with a sold-out show on December 11, 2022 at The Wiltern in Los Angeles. This marked the 18th sold-out shows for the U.S. tour, which kicked off in late October 2022. W.A.S.P.'s performances included the return of the band's classic song "Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)", which hadn't been played live in over 15 years.

Lawless has led W.A.S.P. as its lead vocalist and primary songwriter since its beginning. His unique brand of visual, social and political comment took the group to worldwide heights and sold millions of records alongside a legacy of sold-out shows across the globe for four decades. He is joined by bassist Mike Duda and guitarist Doug Blair, whose tenures in the band span 28 and 17 years respectively, along with drummer extraordinaire Aquiles Priester.

W.A.S.P.'s latest release was "ReIdolized (The Soundtrack To The Crimson Idol)", which came out in February 2018. It was a new version of the band's classic 1992 album "The Crimson Idol", which was re-recorded to accompany the movie of the same name to mark the 25th anniversary of the original LP's release. The re-recorded version also features four songs missing from the original album.

W.A.S.P.'s most recent studio album of all-new original material was 2015's "Golgotha".

W.A.S.P.'s first live performance since December 2019 took place on July 23, 2022 at Skansen in Stockholm, Sweden.