Chris Holmes - A Conversation With
November 7, 2022
A CONVERSATION WITH… CHRIS HOLMES : MEAN MAN
The year is 1986; Margaret Thatcher is the UK Prime Minister, everyone is watching the A-Team and Top Gun is the highest grossing movie of the year. For me, I’m 9 years old and just discovering music. My mum’s old rock n roll records are constantly spinning in my bedroom so it doesn’t take me long to head towards the 80s rock genre. One band sticks out, actually they didn’t “stick out” they jumped out, smashed me around the face and spat blood all over me. The band was W.A.S.P. I don’t remember how it happened but I do remember being at my mate Deans house, loading in the video to W.A.S.P Live at the Lyceum and the rest, as they say, is history.
I jumped at the chance to sit down and chat with Chris on the first night of his latest UK tour. As we were lead backstage it became evident that Chris was going to be great to chat to, there was no bravado or entitlement, in fact Chris and his band had just finished sharing a pizza with the young support act.
Chris is a humble guy that seems to understand his place in the world and has made his peace with where he’s at, when I spoke to him about going from shows like Long Beach Arena to playing smaller venues like tonight, he said “I know for a fact that me doing my thing, me singing - I know it’ll never be an arena unless I’m opening for someone. I like doing it now, I like being with my band… in this band, everyone is equal. In the old W.A.S.P days, it was not like that.” Chris mused about how it was in the old days and how they had to hit the stage without the fans seeing them. How he used to get in trouble for, in Chris’ words “being a human being to people” and wanting to be in the crowd to watch other bands.
Chris grew up in California, Newport Beach to be precise and back in the day that was evident with the flowing blonde hair and the beach bum skater attitude. Although older now, he still has the swagger, style and inflections of the “dude” he once was. Laughing about the early days of W.A.S.P and not being allowed (by management & for insurance purposes!) to skate or go on his grandma’s sailboat just incase he got injured he said - “I went and did it anyway… fuck you”.
Sitting chatting away with Chris it’s easy to forget that back in the day, he was a bonafide rock legend. He talks effortlessly but without bragging about being friends with the guys from Van Halen and how the last and newest record he had listened to was their 2012 release A Different Kind of Truth. Chris sites Eddie Van Halen as the best guitarist that ever lived saying “Jimi Hendrix electrified it, Van Halen rocked it. I met Van Halen playing at a party and we became close friends. I tried to play like him but you can’t. The guy played so effortlessly. It’s sad that he’s gone and that I’ll never talk to him again, but no one lives forever”.
Talking about his influences, Chris reminisces about his older brother taking him to see Johnny Winter and Deep Purple. Chris was only 12 years old when he started being influenced by the greats. It is evident that music is in Chris’ blood and has been the most significant part of his life. If you cut him open, Chris Holmes would bleed rock n roll. When I talked about what an influence Chris himself was to people he immediately changes posture and tact, it feels like he doesn’t like taking complements and doesn’t see himself as the legend he is “I don’t know too much about music theory and I’m not too schooled, I know what an A note is and an E. What I do compared to Van Halen… I’m not even in junior high school… I’m about first grade and he’s in college”.
Looking back on the extensive W.A.S.P back catalogue, I asked Chris what he was most proud of, he emphatically told us The Headless Children. Chris told us “It was right after we had played Donnington (Monsters of Rock) and we were gonna break the band up but he (Blackie Lawless) decided not to and wanted to do another album. I went, listen I’m gonna do the guitars the way I wanna fuckin’ do them or I don’t wanna play in the band anymore. I don’t want to sound like that first album, I want it to be heavier” with that Chris finally got acknowledged within the band and W.A.S.P thus delivered a gleaming record of classic rock n roll.
Chris is a recovering alcoholic and has been clean since 1996, his many drunken escapades have been well documented, including of course the now infamous pool interview from The Decline of Western Civilisation part 2: The Metal Years. Looking back now Chris’ advice is “Don’t drink, you’ll ruin your life. In the early W.A.S.P days I just cared about drinking and getting fucked up. The only friend I had was that bottle of booze”.
Going back to how much of a nice guy Chris is, you know that he has been taken advantage of for most of his career. Even recently he has signed W.A.S.P merch that rather than going into someone’s beloved collection has been sold on eBay for a profit. Chris is lucky that he now has an amazing team behind him, including his wife Cathy who makes sure that he isn’t taken advantage of and that he is well looked after. It’s obvious that Chris is still hurting from how things went down during the W.A.S.P era saying “My other advice is don’t trust anyone. When money comes into it and someone with ego, it gets disgusting”. It’s hard to hear that even Chris’ happy memories seem to be tainted with sadness. One of his happiest times of his career was when W.A.S.P supported Iron Maiden on the Power Slave tour - but that was because he didn’t have to travel on the W.A.S.P bus, he could travel with Steve and Bruce from Maiden, saying “Everybody on that tour, everyone I hung out with, treated me as an equal - it was great”. Another moment Chris looks back fondly on is the first tour with W.A.S.P where it was “all for one and one for all” continuing, Chris said ”we went out to kill people, take no prisoners”.
Over the past year Chris has battled with throat cancer. Posting updates to fans on his Facebook it was obvious how much the fans still love him. Chris is no longer singing in his band. Talking about his time having radiotherapy in hospital he said “I saw some people that weren’t going to make it out of there, I was one of the lucky ones - I knew my cancer was treatable”. Speaking about online fan support Chris jokes “Some of the stuff I looked at before I was sick, there were people saying Chris Holmes should never sing, they hated my voice and I’m surprised someone never said ‘Oh Chris has got throat cancer, at least we don’t have to worry about him singing’ but nobody did”.
Asking what the future holds for Chris… Chris didn’t really know, recording… probably… touring… definitely! But be assured, whatever Chris does will be authentic and real. Chris has been at the top and has been at the bottom, at one point Chris was homeless. He knows what it is to face adversity and how to rise above, smash through it and come out the other side, maybe even better for it.
Chris may be the ‘MEAN MAN’ but now I have spent some time with him I’ll know him as the nicest “rock star” I have ever met and interviewed, a truly warm guy who has time for the people around him, someone who genuinely cares about the fans and the people that have followed him. 9 year old me would never believe that one day I would meet this towering, tattooed mad man, the man that I once called the mean man but now I’ll just call him my friend, Chris Holmes.
