Originally published in ‘zine issue #4, 1992

Imagine you were backstage at a GWAR show one time, after the band played in support of the new album, America Must Be Destroyed. A mound of sticky, dripping, torn flesh was at the bottom of the stairs: a child’s corpse with a broken skull, decapitated heads, dismembered limbs, organs, brains, torsos, et cetera. GWAR was deeper inside, looking exhausted, with skin freshly rubbed clean with towels. The floor was literally packed with helmets, swords, armor plating, and tons and tons more bits and pieces of shed GWAR equipment. Now that you’re in the mood, here is an interview I did with the intimidating—and impatient—Beefcake the Mighty and Oderus Urungus.

Question number one: how often do you guys get banned from places when you’re on tour?

Beefcake: Well, we never get banned. Frequently we get lost and can’t find the place that we’re supposed to play. But, uh, it’s impossible to ban us. If we want to play somewhere, obviously [laughs] we’ll play there.

Oderus: All those lies they made up about banning us from here, there, Charlotte, Beijing, it’s all a bunch of bullshit. The human race is lying about GWAR’s existence. It’s a total crock of shit! They try to explain us away as vampires and werewolves, but it’s not true! They try to say it’s the Bermuda Triangle. It’s not the goddamn Bermuda Triangle! It’s GWAR, goddamn it, it’s GWAR!

Was there anything about the first album, Hell-O!, that you like better than Scumdogs of the Universe?

Oderus: It’s louder!

Beefcake: Well, that’s right. Hell-O! was, uh, recorded over the telephone, so it has a certain amount of gain that you just can’t get when you record in complete nuclear isolation, thousands of miles away from the tape machine that you’re using, like we did.

Oderus: Yeah, Hell-O! was recorded over the phone and all.

You know those parental advisory stickers they put on the albums? What are your feelings on those?

Oderus: We could care less. As long as they sell more or less albums. We don’t really know what they mean, ‘cause, uh, to tell you the truth, I can’t read it.

Beefcake: We just wanna get our pockets lined with cash.

Oderus: And crack and pussy.

How did you get the one on Scumdogs to look different?

Oderus: The what?

The sticker that they put on the cover.

Oderus: Did they put a sticker on our album? I didn’t know that. I’m outraged! Whadaya mean some [pause] a sticker? I’m, I’m, frankly, I’m shocked.

Beefcake: I wanna know what in the hell sticker—what sticker is it?

It says, “parental advisory explicit lyrics.”

Oderus: Oh, you’re mistaken. It doesn’t say that. I’m sure it said, “This album is really good.”

Beefcake: Number one, we can’t read. Number two, we don’t have anything to do with our graphics. We never make decisions for ourselves. Someone else handles that department, someone who makes more money than we do. We only get paid in pot.

“Heavy muddle is what we like to call ourselves. The desperate sounds of people flailing madly.”

Are there any rap bands that you take influences from in your music?

Beefcake [scratching his head thoughtfully]: Rap bands. Are there any rap bands that we take an influence from, Oderus?

Oderus: Well, we respect N.W.A and Geto Boys and some of those bands that really encourage human beings to murder each other, kinda help us along the way, you know?

Nick Teta Jr., who was also there, asked: What happened to your dick?

Oderus: Well, it’s true Granbo managed to cut it off with a laser saw. But I managed to grow a new one back, and it’s even bigger. Goddamn it, and it’s got a swirling head cheese mount and it’s, uh, inflammatory purple detergent. Get on with it!

D.U.: Do you guys get compared to KISS and Alice Cooper and people like that often?

Beefcake: Shut up!

Oderus: Only by idiots! Only by imbeciles! It’s true the vague and pathetic emulations of the human race to, uh, kind of imitate GWAR cause us some small amusement, but I would rather fillet, um, let’s say Burl Ives’ genitals than pop a blood pimple in my mouth.

Beefcake: I’m definitely more influenced by Ernest Borgnine than Alice Cooper.

Oderus: McHale’s Navy I thought was a slice of television genius. KISS! Why, KISS, they wore costumes!

What brands of instruments does everybody play?

Oderus: Whatever we manage to steal from local music stores right before the show. We don’t actually play the guitars, though. It’s all telepathic. It’s not Milli Vanilli. It’s more than that.

Beefcake: See, look at your hands. What do you have on your hands? You have stupid little fingers. We don’t need stupid little fingers.

Oderus: We only have fingers for appearance’s sake. We don’t really need them.

Beefcake: We’ve evolved past the functional use of fingers.

Do you figure that all the stuff that happens to you guys on stage takes away from the music?

Beefcake:What does “stuff” mean?

All the killings.

Beefcake: What kind of schools do you humans go to, anyway?

Oderus: Look, if we had our way, we’d be up there playing our music quite merrily, without all this bullshit. But instead, people like Techno-fuckin’-Destructo, who’s dead now, thank fuckin’ pazoozoo of the dimpled nut, and goddamn Granbo, and all these other fuckin’ nuclear-powered scumbags who’re always coming up there and trying to fillet my fuckin’ expanding scrotum, goddamn it, I could be in opera! I could be something big! But no, I’m stuck in this shit band!

Beefcake: And you think he hasn’t had offers?

Oderus: I’ve had offers up the ass!

Like from who?

Oderus: Wayne Newton. Ernest Borgnine. Fuckin’ Rock fuckin’ hard Hudson.

Beefcake: Lawrence Welk. Walt Disney. Disney wants us.

Oderus: His mouth is still alive.

Beefcake: His mouth is cryogenically sustained.

What kind of music category would you put yourselves in?

Oderus: Heavy muddle is what we like to call ourselves. The desperate sounds of people flailing madly.

Will Al Jourgensen have any future role in—

Oderus: Well, unfortunately, we put a hook through his head, but we did reanimate him. But I think he’s lost a little bit of his spunk.

Beefcake: Yes, we hung out with Al and spilled fugazi and crack on a mirror and snorted it.

Will you ever use what’s left of him on another song?

Oderus: No, I’m gonna take it and shove it up my ass! What do you think I’m gonna do?

Do you have any wrap-up comments?

Beefcake: America Must Be Destroyed is a one-track recording.

Oderus: I’ve got a one-track mind. It’s all sex, sex, sex. And you’ll know you’re a fool for buying [the new album] because there’s no music on it, just three hours of whale songs.

Anything else?

Oderus: I shit my chain mail panties. Get the hell outta here! ■