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Scum as you are

Speed-metal act Gwar celebrates 25 years of depravity

By: Rob Williams

3/12/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

They came from outer space, created humans and became the sickest band in the universe.

They are Gwar, the Scumdogs of the Universe, and they've been terrorizing music fans for 25 years with a combination of speed metal, gigantic monster costumes and a stage show that features more blood and guts than a teenage slasher flick.

They are sick, repulsive, vile and one of the best live bands you're likely to see. They return to Winnipeg with a new human-loving attitude.

(To briefly sun up the Gwar mythos, the band members claim they were banished to Earth after a falling out with the leader of the universe and their creator, The Master. After lying dormant in Antarctica for millions of years, the hole in the ozone layer melted their tomb and they were once again unleashed on the planet with the ultimate goal of destroying the human race.)

Recently, the quintet -- Oderus Urungus, Balsac the Jaws of Death, Flattus Maximus, Jizmak Da Gusha and Beefcake the Mighty -- returned to space, where they discovered their enemy, Cardinal Sin, had taken over and was destroying all the depravity Gwar was looking for. Now Gwar is looking for help from the human race to defeat their enemy, while touring in support of their latest slab of filth, Lust in Space.

Frontman Oderus Urungus, who dresses as Dave Brockie when disguised as a human, recently talked about what the band has been up to and their 25th anniversary tour, which stops at the Garrick Centre Saturday with Job for a Cowboy and Red Chord. Tickets are $33.75 at Ticketmaster.

Parental advisory is strongly suggested.

You have been calling for the death of humans for 25 years, yet here we still are. What's the problem?

Well, our problem is part of our great and grand tradition, the tradition of never-ending failure. It's kind of something that's built in with Gwar. It's part of what gives us our charm. People love the underdogs.

For underdogs, Lust in Space is doing pretty well. You finally made the Billboard charts.

Well, whoop-dee-doo. It doesn't really mean we've sold that many records, it's more an indication of how pathetically few records you can sell nowadays and still get on the Billboard charts... Bands are selling less and less records as more and more people are getting their (music) online.

In past shows, I've seen you "kill" the likes of Paris Hilton and George Bush. On this tour, who does Gwar hate enough to make their newest victim?

There's a lot of interstellar mayhem going on this time... the whole album Lust in Space is about our latest adventure in outer space. We got our hands on a captured Scumdog warship, returned to outer space and tried to find all of our old favourite bars and found out Cardinal Sin, an intergalactic (butthole), had conquered the entire (freaking) universe and was trying to turn it into a giant (freaking) Branson with huge strip malls, and turned all of our favourite planets into huge, fuzzy Disney-esque theme parks. Not only are there no strip clubs in outer space anymore, there used to be entire planets of strip clubs...

Earth is the last place left to be attacked by Cardinal Sin, so that's why I'm being a little nicer to the humans, because we need you to join with us to repel this intergalactic menace.

So Cardinal Sin is your main enemy?

He is, but we do manage to kill lots of celebrities. I don't want to blow it, but I will say the most legendary performer in the history of music who recently died but still is in a new film will be making a brief appearance. He faked his own death, but he will be joining us to teach Oderus how to moonwalk, but I'm not going to blow it by telling you who it is.

I couldn't even guess.

I know, it's a murky clue, almost as murky as the circumstances surrounding his death, which was faked.

Why would this unnamed celebrity fake his own death?

Whatever Michael Jackson was -- whoa, I blew it. He's still alive, or he will be until the end of the show tonight. He will die and after the show we will zombify him and resurrect him so he can still moonwalk and molest children and appear with Gwar nightly, and when we're done with him we'll probably hang him on our wall. Just know that his grave is empty. I've got him on my tour bus right now. You're getting Michael Jackson and Gwar at one show; it's great.

I see you are a correspondent on Fox News. How did that happen?

They recognize the fact my superhuman abilities, when coupled with my decisive wit and heavily tranquillized with elephant-knockout stun balls, make me quite an asset to any news agency. My ability to withstand any kind of weather, lava -- you can shoot me in the head -- I can go basically into any kind of environment and get the story. Whether it's the surface of the sun or the pope's bathroom, I can be there, so they let me run amuck. Geraldo is very jealous...

On the new album you have a song called Make a Child Cry. Why would you want to make a child cry?

Two things: the sound of a child crying is just a delightful sound for me, the sweetest sound; second of all, I'm trying to fill a Jacuzzi with child's tears.

Does Gwar still offend people?

If we can't offend people, it's time for us to stop doing what we do. That's pretty much the whole reason for us to exist, to make people hate us, yet still they love us for some reason.

When you started Gwar, did you have any clue it might last 25 years?

Of course I didn't. If I can speak as Dave Brockie, (heck) no. We had no idea it was going to be anything other than anything we did as a funny thing for ourselves for kicks because we were bored and we were a bunch of crazy artists and we wanted to do something we had never seen before.

No band had come along since Kiss that was doing anything crazy with theatre... It was a joke and it was fun, but people starting coming to the shows and it started getting its own momentum...It wasn't until we hit 20 that we realized this thing was a colossus. Now here we are at 25, it's like, whoa.

rob.williams@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 3, 2009 E10

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