GWAR

When this interview was confirmed, my good friend Jörg Müller from The-Pit.de and I didn´t know what to expect. We didn´t know which member would do the interview. We didn´t know if they already wore their costumes, and we didn´t know if we could do a serious interview with them at all! Could they give “normal” answers? Or would they be captured in their roles? Would we be “killed” with their rubber weapons afterwards, like in most of their TV interviews? I felt I wasn´t well-prepared this time. When we entered the backstage room, many normal-looking guys sat around on the sofas, and we didn´t know who was in the band and who was not, haha! But singer Blothar and original rhythm guitarist BalSac, the Jaws of Death were really cool and funny guys. The balance between humor and serious answers was perfect in my opinion! Even if you don´t like their music, you will surely have fun by reading this!

-Daniel: HELL-ö! Nice to see you live in Germany again finally, after 9 years!

Blothar: Yeah, finally!

-Daniel: Do you still have problems with censorship, by the way? Or has humanity finally understood the message of Gwar? 

Blothar: Yeah, our problem is to keep it up with humanity in general. Everything is stupid, violent and confusing. But yes, I think that humans have understood all too well what Gwar is trying to do. Concerning censorship: No, there´s not as much censorship anymore, at least not as much censorship and issues as we had in the early days when we started. I think that´s because the standards have lowered a little bit, so that Gwar finally make sense! I mean, in times when Donald Trump is president of the USA, Gwar are still polite and relaxed; even more than ever before, haha! 

-Daniel: You always refer to current topics of the world in your live shows when you judge and kill prominent people on stage.  

Blothar: Yeah, sometimes, haha!

-Daniel: Who will be executed tonight? Can you already tell us?    

Blothar: Well, Donald Trump will be with us on the road across Europe, on the whole tour. He´s always there, at every single show! He won´t leave Gwar alone. We always try to convince him to join the band because he´s stupid enough for that! No question about that! Yes, I think we will probably kill him. We kill him every night, haha! But he always keeps coming back, again and again… Yes, that´s how it is. On our US tour we had several other victims, like for example the gender family, Kylie and we also had formerly Bruce on stage as well.   

-Jörg: Last time you also killed Hitler and the pope.

Blothar: We killed Hitler and the Pope 9 years ago? Didn´t Hitler die under the bunker of Berlin with his wife? Was she his wife at all? Or only his girlfriend? I thought he dies as single. I will get divorced right now, haha!   

-Jörg: He didn´t fuck Eva anyway, I guess…

Blothar: I think Hitler had never fucked anyone!

BalSac: Didn´t he have a fucked up penis? Then it wouldn´t have worked anyway…

Blothar: Hitler had a fucked up penis! We should write a song about that, haha!

-Daniel: An interesting fact is that you killed all US presidents since Ronald Reagan (who reigned from 1981 to 1989) on stage. That means that you killed all presidents since the foundation of Gwar in 1988; even since the foundation of Death Piggy (pre-Gwar band) in 1984!   

Blothar: Yes, that´s right!

-Daniel: This can´t be an accident! Does this have to do with your original punk attitude? I mean, Death Piggy originally started as a punk band.  

Blothar: Hmm, I think that Gwar are a little more political than Death Piggy, and Gwar are more based on fantasy and science fiction generally. Death Piggy were different. I´m just thinking about how to refer to other bands. Death Piggy were a funny band full of parodies. Gwar are funny as well, but Death Piggy were funny in a different way; much more abstract than Gwar. Death Piggy were 100 % Dave Brockie´s brain child (Oderus Urungus, ex-Gwar singer); his baby, you can say. But Gwar wasn´t 100 % his brain child. I think that´s the difference. But yes: Death Piggy were a punk band. And obviously Gwar started as a punk band as well. That´s how we always thought about ourselves. We played in all those clubs where the Dead Kennedys, the Circle Jerks, Black Flag and so on had played before; all those hardcore bands who toured through the USA back then.  

-Daniel: Yes, but with his punk attitude I meant you always stood against government. Has the judging of all those presidents something to do with this?   

Blothar: Oh yes, of course! Sure! I mean, an interesting fact is that we never had any problems with killing all presidents bevor Trump came up! Donald Trump is the only president people became upset that he had to die on stage. The liberals never came up to our shows and blamed us for racism because we had killed Barack Obama. He died as a martyr. But the fans of Donald Trump are crybabies! They blamed us for doing this!   

-Daniel: Another funny fact is that you, Blothar, were the original Beefcake the Mighty who played bass on the first 4 Gwar albums!

Blothar: The original one; yes, that´s right!

-Daniel: How did this strange return happen at all? And have you always stayed in contact with Gwar in between?  

Blothar: Yes, that´s a confusing story line in the history of the band for sure, haha! Actually, this doesn´t make sense at all… But who cares? When I first came back in 1998/´99, somehow Beefcake gave birth to himself, at some point. That´s very confusing, haha! But, you know, Blothar is different than Beefcake. Blothar is more the Nordic while Beefcake has his origins in the Greek and Roman culture. Blothar is more spiritual and a little bit mystic almost, like the Vikings and the Berserker warriors were. In general, he just puts off his costume and consumes psychedelic drugs. That´s what Blothar actually wants to do. Beefcake was more about… „reading“, haha!   

-Daniel: After you left the band in 1993, the experimental era of the Gwar began when they also had strange jazz- and country influences as well and took distance from their metal and punk roots. Was that the reason why you left? Did you foresee the chaos already?      

Blothar: You just asked if I still had contact with the band. Yes, we always did! A thing you have to know about Gwar is that – compared to all other bands in the world – we were always a group of artists who saw the band as a form of art. It´s not like in Kiss or Slipknot where nobody knows who made their costumes. But in Gwar everybody always made his own costumes. Gwar did always do-it-yourself. People can come and go. That´s no problem at all. We always had contact and never had any problems within the band. For example, Beefcake already joined and left the band several times. It´s a little bit different, compared to other bands.    

-Daniel: The Gwar line-up of the 4th album “This Toilet Earth“ also had a side project at the same time called X-Cops who wore police uniforms instead of monster costumes, but judged and killed criminals as well, haha! In 1995, there even was an album entitled “You Have The Right To Remain Silent”. Will there maybe be a reunion of X-Cops as well? Or will you only concentrate on Gwar at the moment?   

Blothar: Yes, possibly! We already discussed about this lately. I was never in X-Cops back then. I left Gwar shortly before and played in a band called Kepone. But we will reunite with this band. And it seems like I will probably play bass. The previous bass player, Casey Orr, won´t take part in it as it seems.   

-Daniel: After the Millennium Gwar improved heavily as musicians and always released great albums after that. While many people in the 90´s said, ´The show is great, but their music sucks!´, they had to admit that Gwar finally became a serious band from ”Violence Has Arrived“ on! What were the reason why Gwar became more progressive and thrashy back then?  

Blothar: Haha, the progressive thrash era! Awesome! Yes, people finally recognized that Gwar were able to play their instruments. It´s weird because Gwar always played several styles, and people always see that as a kind of process. Gwar looked like a metal band, but they also always played different styles, like punk and all this other stuff. But when they followed the metal rules, people recognized that are a metal band. Maybe it was easier for them to understand what he band did. Finally it made sense! I think that´s what happened. Nobody likes “We Kill Everything“ from 1999, except of me! I love it, haha! “Violence Has Arrived“ then was that album when people said that Gwar finally found back to their metal roots. 

-Daniel: Did this progress also influence your record sales? How many albums do Gwar sell nowadays, in the era of modern downloads and streamings? Do you know?   

Blothar: Yes! I have to disagree with you a little bit. It was more about following the rules of a certain genre. But I think that people are just stupid. You know, with “Violence Has Arrived“ Gwar just followed the rules of a certain genre again. Concerning record sales: I think the most successful album was “Scumdogs Of The Universe“. But I don´t know how many copies have been sold. But the new album, “The Blood Of Gods“, has sold very well. People are always confused when it comes to Gwar. They don´t understand the band at all! All people thought that the band could not exist without Oderus Urungus (ex-singer Dave Brockie). But it works because Gwar are a project with a lot of people involved. And when Oderus died, we were able to show this to the people. I think people were very surprised that we put out a record that sounded like Gwar, even without him. We just did it. The album still sounds like Gwar.   

-Daniel: I think the music is more hard rock than on your previous albums.

Blothar: Yeah, I would agree!

-Daniel: During the last years you played some cool classic rock cover songs: Alice Cooper´s “School´s Out”, Kansas´ ”Carry On Wayward Son” and AC/DC´s “If You Want Blood You´ve Got It” on the new album. Did those cover songs have an influence during the song writing for the new album? I mean, because it sounds more like hard rock than your previous albums…

Blothar: Oh no! You know, Gwar actually wrote all these songs, haha! They all ripped us off. We just had fun doing them. Those songs were written for a competition of a magazine, “The Onion”, a satirical magazine. We played those songs to lose this competition. But somehow, we never lost, but won those competitions, haha! We thought what would be worse than Kansas? Maybe The Who? Ah, come on, let´s go for Kansas! They are much worse than The Who! But no matter what we do: Even if we covered Cindy Lauper, we would win, haha!     

-Daniel: In 2014, Gwar singer and founder Oderus Urungus died. Have you ever thought of splitting up the band?  

Blothar: I think only for a brief time we thought about how to continue. But we knew that we could also continue without him. And we had to prove it to ourselves. And then we just did it.     

-Daniel: Was it difficult for you, by the way, to write new Gwar songs? Did you sit at the table and thought, ´How would Oderus say this?´, or something like that?   

Blothar: No, we did the exact opposite of that! If we had tried to copy him, it wouldn´t have worked. We just continued what Oderus would do, but our version of it. It had seemed like a rip-off, so that´s why we did it differently. That will also be the reason why the new album sounds slightly different. We wanted to do it the other way.     

-Daniel: Let us also talk about the setlist of your last US tour: There was even one song of the “weak era” (I mean their 3 non-metal albums “Ragnarök”, “Carnival Of Chaos” and “We Kill Everything” which were release between 1995 and 1999) included: “If I Could Be That” from the 1997 album ”Carnival Of Chaos”. How did it happen that this track survived, for all senses?

Blothar: „The Weak Era“? „The Weak Era“! Awesome, I have to keep that in mind! “The Weak Era Of Gwar“, haha! You know, we do a lot of songs from all albums of the band. I don´t understand the question, haha! Why not? Why should we not play those songs?  

-Daniel: You also played “Hail, Genocide!” from the 2010 album ”Bloody Pit Of Horror”. This song even appeared in the horror movie “Hatchet III”. I´m a hugh fan of this movie! Have you ever seen it?   

Blothar: I can´t remember how it happened that we were put on the soundtrack, but of course I know the movie! I saw it! Did you see it too, BalSac?  

BalSac: I haven´t seen it, but I know how it happened. A good friend of ours, Adam Green, made this movie. He´s a hugh fan of Gwar and wanted us to contribute on the soundtrack. So this was the connection.   

-Daniel: You also covered “If You Want Blood You´ve Got It” by AC/DC as last encore. What´s the sense of playing a cover song after having released 14 albums? For fans it would have been much cooler to hear some old Gwar classics, like “The Salaminizer”, ”Ham On The Bone” or ”Gorgor”, for example!

BalSac: We will even play those songs tonight again! Except of “Gorgor"… We can´t play it because his costume is way too big to bring it over to Europe…   

Blothar: Yes, but every band is doing this. It´s always fun to play cover songs! Of course, it´s a good question to ask for the sense of this because we have released so many albums. Probably this was because we are tired of playing our own songs, haha! That will be the reason for most of the bands why they do this. It´s fun to play cover songs that belong to other people.    

-Daniel: Isn´t it hard to play shows in those costumes for such a long time? I couldn´t imagine to play drums in them for one and a half hours, for example!   

Blothar: Yes, it´s hard! Every night it´s the same! It´s a very different experience if you carry 60 pounds with you! You can believe me!