Alex Distefano of OC Weekly recently conducted an interview with GWAR frontman Oderus Urungus. An excerpt from the chat follows below.
OC Weekly: With the U.S. presidential election just under a week away now, tell me your opinions on the candidates, or the election in general. Does GWAR support either candidate? Are you allowed to vote, considering the fact you are non-human. Also, will GWAR‘s live show have a political theme this time around, in honor of the election?
Oderus Urungus: I don’t know if I want to vote. But I will vote, with my bronze sword. I can tell you that both candidates will be put to death at our show, and we will sew them into one that has the worst policies of both. Where we come from, there is no voting. We settle all of our differences with gladiatorial combat. I am not really backing this whole political process. The only reason we have politicians on our planet, is so they can be crucified. Everything is solved through wars. No debates, no campaigns, no stickers no ballot boxes, and no White House. And the only poll is a huge long pole made of scalding hot red iron.
OC Weekly: Has GWAR ever been in any legal trouble, or been visited by the Secret Service for these “executions” on stage?’
Oderus Urungus: Absolutely not. They are way too concerned with overseas wars to worry about us. They have the policy to let GWAR do its business. Plus it’s not a big deal to them, since we use only medieval weapons. I think they think if they just ignore us we will go away, but we are not going anywhere.
With Halloween coming up on this year’s ever-darkening horizon, Fuse decided to ring in the holiday (or howliday, if you will) by forcing GWAR to go trick-or-treating for the first time ever. But when you’re dealing with creatures of this monstrous caliber, you have to take them to the most frightening, horrific place imaginable: New Jersey.
Dressed in a variety of ever-changing costumes — including cowboy, “pretty princess,” even President Obama — the metal band meet everyone from a woman handing out cheese to a rich fellow they incorrectly assume is a “vagina-cologist.” More importantly, the metal monsters learn the true meaning of the holiday: candy. And stomach pain.
It was a little less than a year ago that the world was rocked by the passing of Flattus Maximus, back to the cosmos from whence he came. And since that day fans of GWAR have wondered how the mighty overlords of GWAR would deal with the void it left within the band. GWAR responded the only way they knew how — by soldiering on-and continued to play as a four-piece. But from the very beginning of that phase, the quest began to find the new Scumdog that was in every way as magnificent as his predecessor. Today the members of GWAR are pleased to inform their legions of followers, and even more so their many enemies, that once again the band is whole, with the proclamation that long-lost cousin of Flattus, Pustulus Maximus, has officially joined the band in the position of lead guitarist, and will join with the group on their upcoming “Fate Or Chaos” tour.
Pustulus offered his first words to the press with the following, “At this point I have nothing to say to the press, even though I am talking to you. I will let my guitar speak for itself. But let me add that I am blood-sworn to honor the legacy of the great Flattus and indeed the whole Maximus tribe. I didn’t come here to fuck around. HAIL FLATTUS!”
But how did all of this come to pass? It was easy to get a quote from GWAR lead singer, Oderus Urungus.
“Naturally, we were devastated by the passing of Flattus,” he said. “But we turned that grief into rage and set about the task of finding a new guitar player. The first thing we did was sound the mighty Horn of Hate, and alert all Scumdogs, scattered across the galaxy as they are, as to what had occurred. What people didn’t know about Flattus was that was is part of a huge tribe of brutish warriors, The Maximus Clan. They are at the core of any Scumdog Legion worth its blood! Planet Maximus is just crawling with them!”
Oderus farted, blowing a hole in the wall, and continued. “Many of the tribe had fought and even played in bands with Flattus, and we began to get messages from across the stars. The Scumdogs were coming! Coming to Earth to lay tracks on our new album, and pay tribute to the mighty Flattus. Soon the War-Barges of Maximus tribe members began to appear in Earth’s orbit…and land outside our great temple! Bubonis, Infectitcus, Fartacus, and many more-all have participated in the creation of the songs that shall be on our new album, which will be out sometime next year. But it was not until the hulking form of Pustulus appeared at the studio door, bloody guitar in hand, that we knew we had our new member. Here was a being that was supposedly born with a guitar in his fist, which of course resulted in the death of his beloved mother, whose body he immediately devoured. If anyone can replace our beloved comrade, it is this foul creature. Because he can fucking shred.”
Little else is known about this being, other than that he has a skin condition where his face and feet are covered in painful pustules that can only be soothed by the application of savage metal, spoiled elephant semen or oral sex. Pustulus is also rumored to be half-deaf, which leads him to yell at everyone, which he does often, because he is convinced everyone in the band is ignoring him when actually he just can’t hear what they are saying. It is not known whether he crashed his Scumship into Antarctica or wandered up from the depths of GWAR‘s Antarctic fortress — all that is known is that he is here, now, and is ready to ROCK.
But GWAR fans wont have to wait until the tour to witness the ax-mastery of Pustulus. Make sure to visit The A.V. Club tomorrow to see Pustulus as he shreds for the first time with his Scumdog Brothers in GWAR on a very special song that no other band would play, because it is so fucking hard. Unless, of course, you are GWAR.
GWAR frontman Oderus Urungus has slammed MEGADETH‘s Dave Mustaine for implying during a concert that Barack Obama was somehow responsible for recent mass shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin.
While performing with MEGADETH on August 7 in Singapore, Mustaine told the crowd, “Back in my country, my president is trying to pass a gun ban. So he’s staging all of these murders, like the Fast And Furious thing down at the border and Aurora, Colorado, all the people that were killed there. And now the beautiful people at the Sikh temple.”
He continued: “I don’t know where I’m gonna live if America keeps going the way it’s going because it looks like it’s turning into Nazi America.”
Earlier today (Thursday, August 16), Oderus took to his Twitter account to say, “I don’t need to berate Dave Mustaine to make him look like an asshole. He does fine just by opening his mouth. To say something as ignorant and insensitive as Obama ‘staged’ the recent U.S. mass shootings you would have to be… ME! I just can’t think of anything more ignorant or insensitive right of the top of my head…”
This is not the first time Oderus has had hash words for Mustaine. During a March 28, 2012 interview with Turbo from RSU Radio and the Metal Meltdown, the GWAR frontman noted that both he and Mustaine have been in the press a lot lately. “Yeah, but see, the difference between Dave Mustaine and Oderus is that Dave Mustaine, every time he opens his mouth, he makes a fucking idiot out of himself,” Oderus said. “You know what?! Keep your mouth fucking shut, Dave Mustaine. Play your fucking guitar, all right?! Maybe keep it to the lyrics of ‘Peace Sells’. Anything else… We don’t wanna fucking hear about how Obama was born in Africa and how Rick Santorum is your man; he hates fucking heavy metal. Shut the fuck up, Dave Mustaine. Shut the fuck up, you God, cock-s***ing f****t.”
Mustaine in March made headlines when he told Canadian television and radio personality George Stroumboulopoulos that he is certain that President Obama “was born somewhere else than America.”
“I have a lot of questions about [Obama], but certainly not where he was born,” Mustaine said. “I know he was born somewhere else than America.”
When Stroumboulopoulos pointed out that this school of thought made the musician part of the so-called “birther” movement, Mustaine countered, “I’m not calling a question to it, I just, you know, it’s a point. How come he was invisible until he became whatever he was in Illinois?”
Stroumboulopoulos tried to further challenge Mustaine on his claims, causing the MEGADETH frontman to attempt to change the subject.
“I don’t want to talk about my president,” Mustaine said, before going on to admit that he was going to “have to do some more homework on where Obama came from.”
Fuse TV recently asked some relationship-challenged individuals to send in a video describing their troubles, and the members of GWAR graciously agreed to solve their problems. The second part of the “Love Advice From Gwar” clip can be seen below.
DISTURBED‘s David Draiman and GWAR‘s Oderus Urungus are continuing to speak out in defense of LAMB OF GOD vocalist Randy Blythe, who has been jailed in Prague, the Czech Republic, where he is accused of causing the death of a fan at one of the band’s shows in 2010. Blythe was arrested last week at the Prague airport and charged with manslaughter in connection with a 2010 Prague concert at which he allegedly shoved a local fan off the stage. The man, who is said to have stormed the stage three times during the show, reportedly suffered a brain hemorrhage that resulted in his death 14 days later.
David Drainman
Blythe faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted. Although he posted the Czech equivalent of $200,000 in bail, the decision to release the singer is still subject to appeal and so it will take some time for the state prosecutor’s office to give approval.
Draiman: “The only thing [Randy] is guilty of [is being involved in] a horrible accident. Someone comes up on stage, they get thrown back into the pit. [I’ve] done it a hundred times myself. The fault should be in the hands of the venue security who were supposed to ensure that no one got up there. It’s a dangerous thing to try.”
Oderus: “I LOVE Europe and its many pleasures and fully support Euro metalheads. What I am concerned about is the lack of outrage. There should be shows, protests, and continual harassment of the authorities until Randy is free. There should be a mob of metalheads outside the jail where he is being held, 24-7, so when he gets out he can see with his own eyes that he has not been abandoned. All of the video of the incident shows it for what it truly was… a tragic accident. Fucking let him out already!”
A number of other rockers have come to Randy‘s defense, with many of them citing the 2004 shooting death onstage of PANTERA guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott as the reason why musicians are so defensive nowadays about fans invading the stage.
Draiman‘s bandmate and drummer Mike Wengren told The Pulse Of Radio not along after Dimebag was shot that his death had cast a shadow over live performing. “I think one of the most scariest things is, you go up onstage, and there’s this energy transfer between the band and the crowd, and you almost feel invincible. You feel very empowered. Never in a million years would anyone ever think something like that was even possible, and I think it just caught everyone off guard. It’s pretty scary.”
Oderus
FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH bassist Chris Kael simply tweeted, “Everything changed on December 8, 2004. #stayoffthestage #FreeRandyBlythe,” while ANTHRAX guitarist Scott Ian wrote, “It’s complete and utter bullshit for him to be treated like a criminal for something he didn’t do. Now fans can see firsthand why there’s no stage diving anymore. Especially in the post-Darrell world we live in . . . Of course it’s sad that this person died, it’s a tragedy, but it’s not Randy‘s fault.”
LAMB OF GOD had been touring Europe in support of its latest album, “Resolution”, when Blythe was arrested. The band canceled the rest of its shows and returned home to Richmond, Virginia on Sunday (July 1) — all, of course, except Blythe.
LAMB OF GOD‘s publicist, Adrenaline PR, issued a statement on June 30 stressing that “under no circumstances was there a fight of any kind involved [during LAMB OF GOD‘s 2010 concert]. This incident deals with a fan that three times during the concert jumped the barricade and rushed Randy during the performance. It is alleged that the third time, security was not able to reach him and that Randy pushed him back into the audience where supposedly he fell and hit his head.”
Kimmo Kuusniemi’s ASA unveil the long-overdue release of "Collective Failure" + first music video for title-track! Check it out and stay tuned for more news! Click image to watch the video
Kimmo Kuusniemi’s SARCOFAGUS return with a Historic 2010 Concert Video Premiere on YouTube! Click image to watch the video
Ads
Visionary artist KIMMO KUUSNIEMI's ANCIENT STREAMING ASSEMBLY (ASA) have released “Aurora Nuclearis”, a powerful 12-minute audiovisual experience, dedicated to the Late Keyboardist Esa Kotilainen. - Click image to watch the video