A brief chat with GWAR

Yellow Scene: You were previously known as Beefcake the Mighty in the original GWAR. What have you been doing between GWAR stints?

Blothar: I have been asleep for millions of years. The slave of Blothar (Michael Bishop) has been extremely busy, playing rock ‘n’ roll music, writing music, thinking about music, earning a PHD in music – oh yes, he’s quite a sharp fellow. As for Blothar, I’ve been watching GWAR as they rolled around the country, having lowly encounters with fans, doing drugs, and making literally hundreds of dollars playing rock music. I decided that it was time I got a piece of the action. In the absence of Oderus, I’ve come forward as a spiritual leader so to speak, to help the band try and find their way in this dark time.

YS: What’s been the reaction to you so far? It’s always tough replacing a beloved singer, especially one that passes away…

B: You have to understand that it’s impossible for me to actually care what a human thinks. But, what I’ve noticed, and I have noticed is that they’re rather enthusiastic about it. They’re lining up just as they did before, to be summarily executed at the hands of GWAR. There definitely seems to be a sense of relief that this does not suck. Of course it doesn’t suck. It’s GWAR, the greatest thing to ever grace the face of this piece of crap planet. So it’s an entertaining show – people come out, they get killed, things come on stage, we kill them, the enemies of GWAR die, there’s sex, there’s violence, and there’s is a healthy dose of – I think this is the key to why the tour is a success – respect and homage, and in fact the motivation of the tour is merely to honor the missing scumdog Oderus Urungus, who I honestly think was one of the greatest and certainly one of the most underrated rock ‘n’ roll singers to ever perform especially in the shock rock and metal genre. The tour honors Oderus and his slave Dave Brockie. That’s one of the reasons people should come out and see it. It gives them an opportunity to experience and pay respect, and witness what GWAR is going to become in the absence of this leader.

YS: Do you guys like playing in Colorado?

B: The problem with me coming out west with my antlers is that every time somebody sees me, they take a shot and try to mount me on the front of their pick-up truck. Now I know how women feel when they have a great rack – constantly harassed. I will say that Denver, Colorado, has always been a place where weird stuff has happened to us and I think everyone in the world that goes there. Certainly I’ve had some interesting experiences, not the least of which was when we were stopped in our intergalactic school bus that we were touring the nation in, and they believed that we were the skinheads who had killed Alan Berg the talk show host years ago. That was interesting. It was the most police I think I’ve ever seen in my life, and it was just GWAR at a stop light in Denver. We have many memories of that city, and of course we enjoy playing there. We enjoy playing anywhere.

YS: What are your plans for the show?

B: Here’s what happens very single night to us: I am sucked through a time portal. When we show up, Oderus is gone. Apparently, he’s disappeared and he’s been sucked through this time machine that’s on stage. I find myself in this time, sucked out of my world in the past, and I recognize GWAR. As far as I’m concerned, I had seemed them just yesterday but of course, thousands and thousands of years have passed. I come on stage, I perform songs with them. They are attacked by numerous enemies. There’s a vacuum in leadership, and they have been coming under attack from people who want to take over the band, who want to be the lead singer. There’s that struggle that goes on. Vulvatron, who is the female figure in GWAR now, she is sucked into this time from the future. If people want to learn the fate of GWAR and the fate of Oderus Urungus, they need to come see the tour.

YS: What’s next, after this tour? Are you going to be sticking around?

B: I think that I will probably stick around for as long as I can stand to be in this really horrible time period. Living in the middle-ages was a cake-walk compared to this ridiculous world. I’ll be here for as long as I can tolerate it. We expect to record an album and make some films. GWAR has this thirty-millionth anniversary coming up, so we’ll probably do some things for that. There’s more stuff coming from GWAR.