Interview with Oderus Urungus/David Brockie of GWAR by: double M
According to the website set up for them by manager Sleazy P Martini, GWAR’s history and purpose read a little something like this:
The Legend of GWAR began millions of years ago when the aliens rampaged across the galaxy with a gang of space pirates called the Scumdogs of the Universe. Falling out of favor with their Master, GWAR was imprisoned on the most remote mudball planet in the galaxy...Earth. After killing off the dinosaurs and inadvertently creating the human species by raping prehistoric apes, GWAR began to significantly influence the development of the planet, until that wild gig in Atlantis, when it was decided that GWAR should be entombed in Antarctica. Thus, preventing them from screwing up Earth any further.
Several thousand years later GWAR were stumbled upon and awakened by, Sleazy P. Martini, a known pimp, pusher, pornographer, and record executive for Capitalist Records, accidentally stumbled into GWAR's Antarctic tomb and woke them. He took them to New York, gave them electric guitars, and began to market them as his latest Rock-n-Roll sensation. Some of GWAR's adventures are chronicled in their albums, comics, and videos, but there are still plenty of GWAR stories waiting to be told.
Now the only way to truly validate your life before death is to join the masses of "lowly zit-ridden scum of outcast prepubescence" when GWAR comes to ravish and bloody your mutant town.
Ever in the band’s employ is the Head Slave – a creative gent named David Brockie. Some say that the entire GWAR empire – the CDs, the comics and DVDs, even the famed Slave Pit Inc – are all prolific creations of Mr. Brockie and were labored over hard and long by GWAR’s already massive legion of human slaves, all overseen by the HSIC.
In modern times, the entity known as GWAR is now out to take over the world. Again. And what better time than near the 2004 Presidential Elections? On the heels of their newest release, War Party, GWAR has embarked on their biggest tour ever to cement their dominance once and for all.
To get to the bottom of this (namely to see how badly we needed to be warned), I bravely took it upon myself to make contact with the Slave Pit and secure an audience with Golden-Throated Crooner Oderus Urungus. After much pleading and begging for my own life, Urungus agreed on the condition that his Head Slave, David Brockie, be present as well.
What follows is the interview with both men in its entirety on the past and future of GWAR, as well as how the War Party plans on enslaving improving our planet, starting with the Elections and moving on to the rest of the planet. Woe to us, O Earth.
[Telephone rings]
Michael Melchor: Hello?
David Brockie: MICHAEL MELCHOR!
MM: Hey, what’s going on?
DB: Not much, it’s Brockie with GWAR. How you doin’ man?
MM: Pretty good, how about you?
DB: Not much, just wondering what the fuck I’m doing interviews for on a Sunday, man! I should be in my fat-ass La-Z-Boy, watching NFL!
MM: [Laughs]
DB: We’re set to hit the road in a couple days; I won’t have a chance to hang around my crib and eat barbecue all day for much longer. It’s very sad.
MM: Well, hopefully we won’t take up too much time so you can get back to that.
DB: Awright, I suppose I can deal with another interview. And I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound like an asshole, but I can’t help it. What we usually do here is, you can talk to [GWAR lead singer] Oderus [Urungus] and get yelled at, or you can talk to me and get all the behind-the-scenes stuff, or you can talk to both of us at once and we’ll just roll with it.
MM: Both at once sounds like it ought to be fun.
DB: Awright....
[Muffled sounds on the other end of the line]
Oderus Urungus: This is ODERUS you’re talking to! If you have anything more specific, I’ve got Brockie now wired to this torture rack over here and if you ever need to ask him anything, I’ll fuckin’ bitchslap him into sub-consciousness and then we can make fun of him at your leisure.
MM: [Laughs]
DB: Because I am quite schizophrenic and certifiably multiple personality-disorderly insane.
MM: Nice. Very nice.
DB: Plus I’ve been drinking already. Heavily.
MM: Oh, even better.
DB: Let’s get on with this shit! I don’t even have a reason to watch football today; the Redskins have a bye week. Where the hell’re you from, anyway.
MM: Daytona Beach, FL.
DB: Florida! Aw, fuckin’-a, we can’t wait to come down to Florida and fuck shit up. The penis of the nation.
MM: Yep. Yeah, that would be us.
DB: Awright, on with this fucking interview! Now that we’ve broken the ice and tried to converse in a conversational and friendly manner.
MM: Right, then. So, how did the band initially come about, then?
DB: Aw fuck, I dunno...they were lost in outer space or something...war, army, doomsday, trump card...moldy War Harness was purloined from little bits of different people from across the galaxy...We were somehow banished or cursed. The details are a little hazy from all this heavy metal or crack cocaine, I don’t know...
OU: We were banished to earth, banished to Antarctica. There was a hole in the ozone layer that melted our temple and then our manager, Sleazy P Martini discovered us. He got us hooked on crack and turned us into a rock and roll band and the rest, my friend, is fucking heavy metal history.
MM: Yeah it is. So what’s the band up to now, then?
OU: We just released our new album, War Party on our brand new fucking label, DRT Entertainment. We’re embarking on the most extensive tour of the world that we’ve done yet. And besides that, we’re trying to combat and battle and triumph over the various forces that have tried to stop us in our never-ending quest to dominate all humans to utter slavery.
MM: Utter slavery.
OU: UTTER AND ABJECT SLAVERY!
MM: Awright. Between you and me, Brockie, I’m hoping I can avoid that fate, but we’ll see what happens.
OU: YOU’VE ALREADY BEEN ENSLAVED! THE MERE FACT THAT YOU’RE DOING THIS INTERVIEW IS PROOF!
MM: Awright, yeah. Yep, I—, Okay, I can see that line of thinking. You’re right.
DB: You don’t have to have chains on your ankle or a cruel overlord with a bullwhip to be a slave, you know? We all serve in one way or another.
MM: See, I can handle serving this way.
DB: Servitude is slavery – what’s the difference?
MM: Yeah, very true. Anyway, so the last album was about 3 years ago, Violence Has Arrived.
OU: Yeah, and violence arrived with such impact that it took 3 years for us to arise.
MM: That’s what I was going to ask is why it took so long. Just getting everything ready?
DB: Kinda. First of all, we toured the fuck out of Violence Has Arrived. We went out there because violence did arise with this idiotic “War On Terror”, which I absolutely love. I mean, the whole idea of fighting against a feeling, especially when you employ terror to beat terror; I mean, it’s just a no-win situation. I think this is a war that could last forever.
MM: Right up there with the “War On Drugs”.
OU: Yeah, I’m very excited. I’m looking forward to the next war, the “War On Terrible Drugs”.
MM: [Laughs]
DB: Right, so we toured and then we got into a bunch of shit with our label, Metal Blade. We were on Metal Blade for a long time and it’s not that we didn’t love ‘em. They were just like, “Sign the contract”, and we were like, “no”. Then they’d wait a year and then be like, “okay, you wanna sign it now?” And we’d be like, “Um, no”. Three years gone by and there were like, “okay, you gonna sign it?” And we’d be like, “Um, NO”. But guess what? We found these other people, these DRT guys and you know what? We DID sign that one. We had a little legal maneuvering to do and we had to re-align our Power Pyramid and prepare for the next campaign of insatiable lust. It’s worked out quite well.
OU: We’re not like a lot of bands that get out there and the label just wants them to churn out records and tours needlessly and get whatever they can out of a band and leave them a broken, shambling wreck. No, GWAR operates on one schedule and that is OUR schedule. You should be GLAD it took us 3 years to make this album – it could have easily taken 300 million!
MM: Yeah, dealing with lawyers tends to really drag things out.
OU: Lawyers are really good sorcerers. Their “Slow” spells are absolutely amazing. I mean, English is a second language to many of them.
MM: Oh yeah. So the new album is called War Party—
OU: RAAAAAAAAGGHH!!
MM: ...okay...and is sure to cause a great deal of controversy, from what I hear. Mind you, I’d expect no less. With everything here in the US being this close to Election Day, is there any sort of message to be found in the album title?
OU: We look at your “War On Terror”, we look at your idiotic electoral process and we look at the sad, SAD human beings that you’re going to pick to lead your country and we decided that you guys have had enough. So we’ve declared ourselves, once again, Masters Of The World. The War Party dominates ALL! I am the leader of the War Party and therefore Overlord Of This Planet.
I’m out to outlaw ALL political processes on this planet. I am also in the process of impaling and crucifying all the politicians I can get my hands on. A new constitution will be etched in human poo on the flayed butt skin of the Congressmen.
This is only one of the many political moves that the War Party is supporting. Of course, we’re supporting the same-sex animal marriage bill. We’re pro-abortion, so long as you can do it yourself. Let’s see what else we have here...the “guns for crack” program is a huge success (that was Sleazy’s idea). We’re not gonna solve the world’s unemployment; we’ll just make it so that no one has to work and make everything free. I think that would solve that problem.
MM: Right on!
OU: As far as the problems with the Middle East, well it’s simple – nuke Mecca. There ya go. Problem over.
MM: Umm, on a side note...kinda off the record...if you need me to track down any politicians for...you know...just lemme know. I’ll see what I can do.
OU: Sure, yeah, supply us with names. Our Goon Squads will come in the night.
MM: Okay – Jeb Bush.
OU: Yeah, Jeb Bush. Don’t worry, he’ll die; we’ve got his big brother on the list anyway.
MM: Excellent. Yeah, take ‘em all. That’d be fine with me. So what can we expect on the tour that you’re embarking on, then?
OU: It’s amazing. We have tons of new victims; a lot of people that will amply deserve a hideous death are slated for murder by GWAR. Of course, we’ll be taking over the entire planet throughout the course of the tour with the shows celebrating the War Party and its goals and desires. But I’ve heard that the boys at the Pentagon have cooked up a little surprise for us and we will actually be challenged in our mastery of this planet. I’m looking for a knock-down, drag-out fucking conflict – WAR! BATTLE! OUR CLAIM TO THE MASTERY OF THIS PLANET WILL NOT BE DENIED! SO I WOULD LOOK FOR WHATEVER WE’RE PLAYING ON THIS TOUR TO BE A BLOODY BATTLE ARENA! LOCKED IN A COMBAT THAT ONLY GWAR CAN WIN!
MM: Awesome. And if I read right, that’ll also happen here in Orlando on December 17.
DB: The House Of Blues!
MM: Yep.
DB: Ah, that’s going to be wonderful for us. Every year we play there, every year we burn it down, every year they rebuild it. It’s wonderful to have Walt Disney signing the check, even if he is cryogenically preserved.
MM: I’ll be at the December 17 show this year and I’ll be looking to get a ringside seat for this one.
DB: It’s gonna be fucking amazing. The album’s heavy as shit and one of our finest. The music is focused and hateful and these shows are going to be the shit! We’ve been working our little piddly asses off for months! There’s tons of new shit and anyone who came and saw us on the “Blood Drive” [tour] or the original “War Party” tour will be absolutely blown away with all the amazing shit that we’ve got. So yeah, this year should be a fucking amazing run. It’s a good time to be GWAR. It’s ALWAYS a good time to be GWAR.
MM: Excellent. What kind of legacy would you want GWAR top leave behind?
OU: A bloodsoaked one. Blood-drenched in the annals of carnage.
DB: I’d like GWAR to be remembered, basically, for exactly what it is – the most fucked-up thing that was ever created. .
MM: Nice. I’m looking forward to that show.
DB: It’ll be the most outrageous show of the fucking year. It’s what we do – a bunch of rubber swords and paper mache monsters.
MM: [Laughs] All right!
DB: Just keepin’ it real!
MM: Awright, it was good talking to you.
DB: You too, buddy.
Special Thanks to Mark at Chipster PR and to Mark Prindle’s interview with Oderus Urungus for their help with this story.
ALL INTERVIEWS FOR: GWAR
ALL REVIEWS FOR: GWAR
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