Chris Holmes states Frankie Banali always treated him like a roadie including their time in W.A.S.P.

Chris Holmes states Frankie Banali always treated him like a roadie including their time in W.A.S.P.

Former W.A.S.P. guitarist Chris Holmes was recently interviewed by UK’s eonmusic and spoke about his time in W.A.S.P. during the revered The Headless Children album (1989).

In terms of Holmes‘ memories of working with Quiet Riot‘s Frankie Banali and Uriah Heep‘s Ken Hensley on The Headless Children, the guitarist advised: “Ken was an icon at the time, and a real great person. He looked at me not [any worse than, or] no better than him, straight. I loved that. A lot of other musicians don’t. Frankie Banali always treated me like a roadie because I roadied for a band when I was 16 that he played drums for. His guitar player was a guy that gave me Blackie’s number to join Sister when I was 17, so he always treated me like a roadie.”

With respect to how he parted ways with W.A.S.P. the first time, Holmes stated: “There was some really bad conflicts on the road, and I was lied to, and I almost left on the road, because it’s not about the money to me. I got lied to from somebody, so I was going to leave in the tour, but the tour manager Dickie Bell – who does Iron Maiden, he was doing W.A.S.P. at the time because Maiden wasn’t out – he said; “Chris, if you leave now, you’ll get sued for all the money”. He goes; “You’ll be working at McDonalds in ten years still trying to pay off the debt to Sanctuary [management]”. So I go; “What’ll I do?” And he goes; “Finish the tour, and leave then”. So I finished the whole tour, and once I was done, I was gone. I didn’t want to play anymore. I didn’t really care what Blackie did after that. When you live with people, you want to be treated as equal; that’s it. I don’t want to be treated any less, or any more, and when they treat you down, I don’t like being around people like that.”

Holmes was asked what was the golden era for W.A.S.P. to which he replied: “The golden line-up would be ‘The Headless Children’. Frankie’s probably one of the best drummers I’ve ever played with. Even though we personally had a few beefs here and there, we’re still friends. The guy’s one of the best rock drummers there’s ever been. He’s played on a lot of famous albums. He’s a monster player, what he plays, and he’s probably one of the most professional guys I’ve ever played with.”

You can read the rest of the interview with Chris Holmes at eonmusic.