W.A.S.P. leader Blackie Lawless said the band’s fans were responsible for making their upcoming U.S. tour happen when promoters didn’t believe it could work.

The group hasn’t undertaken a North American road trip in 10 years. When Lawless decided to stage a 40th-anniversary celebration with suitably large stage production, he discovered there was widespread doubt over its sales prospects.

“Promoters didn’t think this band could sell tickets anymore,” he told Appetite for Distortion. “We were being offered stuff that wasn’t very good, and we didn't want to do that because the production that we wanted to do was way bigger. And so I just started telling the truth. I said, ‘Hey, it’s down to promoters.’”

He said he advised his fans to “let your local guy know” that there was a demand for a W.A.S.P. show in a decent-sized venue in their area. “It was almost like a passing thought,” he added. “You know, ‘This will never happen in a million years.’ Well, a couple of hundred of them literally got together and started petitioning, and then that grew into thousands of people, and they started literally rallying to petition their local promoters. And it brings us to where we are now.”

You can hear the interview below.

Lawless reflected that he’s “never heard of anything before or since that was like that.” “I guess it goes back to the old adage: Don’t let people tell you that you just being one person won’t make a difference, because it did. That’s the absolute truth.”

W.A.S.P.’s new tour begins on Oct. 28 in Las Vegas and ends on Dec. 11 in Los Angeles. A run of U.K. and Europe dates follow in 2023.

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