This interview first published in 2006. I've recently found the original file and am posting it here. AU: What do you remember about your first time meeting the ‘Dayglo Abortions’ and Jesus Bonehead? DB: I think we were drunk backstage somewhere. We played a show together before then, but I didn't remember it at all because I'm so fuckin' high all the time. They claimed that we know 'em really well, but I only know Bonehead.
AU: What was the original genesis of Gwar? What were some of the very first shows like? Who had the idea? DB: It came from an obscure thrash / punk / comedy / metal outfit known as “Death Piggy” and a bunch of weird artists who were working on a movie called “Scumdogs of the Universe”. I was in Death Piggy and sometimes helped with the costumes they were making for their movie, but mostly just drank their beer. We came up with this kooky idea for this band called Gwardrrrjjr. It wasn't Gwar even in the beginning. Literally, the name of the band was Gwardrrrjjr. We would just write. There's not even any proof of that at all, but it is true. We would just write Gwardrrrjjr. It always started with G-W-A-R though. We started doing it kind of as a warm-up skit for Death Piggy. We'd do three really awful songs, but mostly we'd just stand there with our instruments feeding back. It was completely different. You'd have to go to 'Blood, Bath and Beyond' to see what Gwar looked like back in those days. It was pretty funny. We're not fully grotesque, we're not wearing any masks, we're not wearing any make-up, we're just a bunch of eighteen, nineteen year old kids dressed up as monsters from outer space. Just skateboard helmets spray painted black with horns stickin' out of 'em. It was stupid as shit. We started doing it as a warm-up for Death Piggy until that fell away and we noticed the kids were freaking out every time. One day after a show a guy handed me a stack of money and we immediately went out and bought pot. We realized we really had something going so Death Piggy ended up breaking up and Gwar just took off from there and the rest is history.
AU: Is this all on the new DVD, 'Blood Bath and Beyond'?
DB: It has a lot of really early Gwar footage. The costumes weren't as durable as they are now, but they looked super cool. They were all paper-mache; we didn't know what latex-rubber was. A lot of effort was put in and a lot of documentation was made that was never used. We had to do the DVD 'cause it was getting to the point where the original copies were deteriorating to the point they weren't gonna play anymore. We went through all the material and put it all in an additional format to release the best of it. They tell us it will last forever, probably won't though.
AU: What about the characters?
DB: They change continually. Every performer we have brings something new, even if they're playing a role that’s been done before. The characters are more important than anything else.
AU: What were some of the inspirations?
DB: We were certainly influenced by Alice Cooper and Kiss. We did it for the fun of emulating our heroes. We’re as surprised as anyone else that we've created a 21 year old juggernaut of entertainment destruction.
AU: What about other bands that have copyied you guys?
DB: I wouldn't say they copied us any more than we copied Cooper or Kiss. We see our influence in other bands, but we're still the kings! Nobody's doing what we do. I'm surprised a band hasn’t come along to take it to the next level yet.
AU: You have the most blood.
DB: Bands are still locked into the idea that it has to be a band playing rock and roll music. You really are free to do anything you want up there. There's so much cool technology that can be utilised. I'm surprised that a major effort hasn't been put into something like that.
MD: One band that has done something different is 'The Guerillaz'. They’ve created a totally fabricated band that doesn't exist in reality where they become the rockstars. I’m really impressed by them. I would say they’ve taken that step in a way, but not gross.
AU: Have you guys kept all of the original members from the very begginning?
MD: I wasn't on the first album. I joined just after it was recorded. There were actually two Balsacs before me.
AU: When you’re writing, does it start with the music, or does it come from the characters first?
MD: Musically we can do whatever we want, which is our downfall at times 'cause we're so unlimited. We forget what big monsters from outer space would sound like. It’s a silly idea, and we've gotten silly with it. It's gotta be brutal dude!
DB: Brutality goes with the image. We finally realized that the most powerful incarnation of Gwar was when the music was brutal, heavy, and hard consistently. That’s what we'd do live. We're happy that Gwar has gone through so many different song writing styles, it's really cool and our band's really come full circle. There was a period of about 5 years where we weren't allowed in Canada. We just got back in 3 years ago, and the shows have been great up here.
AU: Thanks to Mr. Plow? Did he help you guys get across the border?
DB: No! MD: Actually DBX came up to Canada before Gwar...
DB: That's true, he did. Mr. Plow is behind any vestige of Slave Pit making an appearance north of the border in years. It got so hard for Gwar to get across that we stopped booking shows up here. We can't afford cancellations. Sometimes the finances are so and we can’t afford a few days of the tour to be a role of the dice. So, yeah, Plow got DBX into Vancouver, but the big picture, getting Gwar across was a question of our manager. We finally got one who got a handle on the situation, got in touch with the right people, paid the right fines and fees. Since then it's been totally smooth.
AU: What pisses you off and makes you want to kill and maim stupid celebrities?
DB: How fucking rich and completely untalented they are. Why are they so deserving of such richness and respect when they are these absolutely manufactured, personalityless, completely one-dimensional, banal, idiotic, stooges! Puppets! Yakking manequins! ugh! Just posing and preening, pimping their corporate sponsor like the good little whores they are. If anyone deserves to be rich off showbiz it's fucking us 'cause this band has kicked ass for years! We’ve never gotten the kind of financial success that you would expect a band as important as Gwar to have. These other complete A-holes, they're so loaded. I can't get health insurance for my employees or myself. We all have terrible credit. It's ridiculous. The government should just give us a cheque and say, “Thank you Gwar”, but instead, ugh... Justin Timberlake! Pop used to good! There should be bands like The Beatles around. I don't want to sound too old, but it's just horrible now. Absolutely, completely horrible.
AU: You mentioned some new monsters. What aspects of your stage show have changed since you were last here for Sounds of the Underground?
DB: Completely new and different. It's showcasing the new album, 'Beyond Hell'. It’s the story of Gwar's descent to Hell. Driven from our fortress by combined armies of man and nuclear carpet bombing, we’re unable to defend ourselves and have to retreat to the lowest levels of the lair where we find unexplored tunnels. Through there, we find the gates of Hell. We meet different demons, monsters, and creatures as we go down further, finally meeting Satan himself. The show reflects the story of Gwar's descent and return from Hell. The songs are like chapters in a book. For the last few years, we’ve just been chopping off heads and maiming celebrities at the end. This year we’re challenging ourselves and our audience to take a step up, get a story across and damn if it hasn't worked. Even if you haven't heard the album, I think if you pay attention to the set, even a small amount, you're gonna get the gist of what's going on. We used to try to do the concept album thing but it would be such a muddled mess you could’nt understand what's happening. We thought that everyone was hanging on every plot detail, and a lot of the ultimate bohabs were, but generally our show was going right over everyone's head. There was no plot.
AU: How many story lines have you had over the years?
DB: Generally, every album has got a theme or a story behind it. The only ones that really stand out are Beyond Hell and ‘Ragnarok’, which told the story of a comet hitting the earth. Beyond Hell is the first real concept album where we really try to tell a story all the way through from beginning to end.
AU: What about that weed rally you went to at the Playboy mansion?
DB: That was such a lie! Like so many other lies they tell us. They're like, do 'School's Out', Alice Cooper will be in your video. Wrong! We're gonna give you this big award, you're gonna party at the Playboy mansion. Wrong! It's gotten to the point where we don't believe any of that shit anymore. If we don't see it in front of us, with our own eyes, and exactly what they said is happening is happening, it aint true.
AU: Did Hugh fuck you?
DB: Whoever put together this thing, they obviously thought they were a lot more important than they were. They made all these fuckin' fat-ass promises and then the shit started to hit the fan. Suddenly it's time to talk money, contracts, scheduling, plane tickets, production, all the things we need to make this happen. That’s when we knew we were dealing with rookies. All of a sudden the party wasn't at the Playboy mansion, it was at some other place, then it wasn't at all. It was so retarded.
AU: Just a bunch of potheads?
DB: Not even potheads, those dumbass, dress up like vampire people that run around the woods and play live-action role playing games.
AU: Have you guys ever produced any prosthetics and effects for any movies other than the Gwar releases?
MD: Not really, we did a few pieces for a Broadway show.
DB: John Cusack, the actor, had a stage version of Hunter S. Thompson's 'Fear and Loathing'. We provided a dead dog. He wouldn't send the dog back, so I called him up in the Oderus voice and left a very threatening message on his answering machine. We had the dog back in three days. I'll never talk to John Cusack again though.
AU: Is it true there's an 'Evil Dead' Broadway play.
DB: Yes there is. There will be a Gwar on Broadway one day. We'll have a haunted casino in Vegas too. That's my other insane dream.
AU: Can you tell me about he opening bands, 'Municipal Waste', and 'The Red Chord'?
DB: Municipal Waste is from Virginia, they're a really cool, hyperthrash band. A lot of people say they sound like DRI. Definitely that old school thrash style. They're hilarious! They do beer bongs, and take boogie boards and surf around on the crowd. They're really awesome musicians. I've been watching them the whole tour and haven't heard one wrong note. That pisses me off.
MD: The Red Chord is from Boston. They're kind of death metal without the death-y attitude. Insane musicians, super fast, super technical. I can't even comprehend the way they play it.
DB: They must have an incredibly intuitive grasp of music. The really great players don't have to work hard to play great, it just comes easy to 'em. They hear the noise they need to make before it occurs, or as it occurs. Those guys, when I first saw them play, it blew me away. Their level of musicianship is so high.
AU: Do you guys hand pick who's on then?
DB: We make our own suggestions for support, also the label and management will give suggestions, then we have the final say as to who. That's our process.
MD: The Red Chord, we played with them on Sounds of The Underground two years ago, and Municipal Waste are from our hometown, they're just really good.
AU: Are you guys kind of the driving force behind Sounds of the Underground?
DB: No. Our booking agent, his company actually books the shows and it's an amalgamation of all kinds of other labels and management companies that make the whole thing run. We just played the halftime slot two years in a row. We're not really sure what the status of next years is, if they're really doing it, and if so, if we're gonna be involved. So, let's see if they even inform us of that! We'd love to do Sounds of the Underground again, we just don't want to play in the daytime anymore, we deserve a better slot.
MD: Gwar needs to be experienced in the dark. Definitely where we can control of our environment.
AU: Was it a forty-five minute set?
MD: No, we also got a thirty-five minute set, which I also hated. I don't want to get myself in trouble by bitching about it. Sounds of the Underground was awesome, it was great to play for that many people and for a lot of people that wouldn't normally see us, so it brought us a lot of new fans.
DB: Definitely, it's been nothing but good stuff for us, but it's also made us hungry for more. If we're hungry for more then we must go get it.
AU: Are you guys thinking about a new album already after Beyond Hell?
DB: No. I'd have to think about it.
AU: How long was this in the works?
DB: Before I start thinking about a new album, I really wanna, we need to have this... like, our Slave Pit, we have the shop in one place, the musicians on the other side of town, the office on the other side of town. Before we even start our next project, I wanna have our organization in a facility where all the elements can be joined as one. I think that's gonna help whatever we do. The musicians can start moving forward and start writing riffs and shit, we already know what the new album's gonna sound like already, definitely. It's gonna be hard, heavy and full of killer metal licks.
DB: We've been progressing in one direction since “Violence Has Arrived”, and we're gonna keep going.
AU: Yeah, that was sort of a switch over to the harder shit again?
DB: Yeah, so look for more of the same. Definitely.
MD: But more so.
AU: Do you think people come to the Gwar show for the music or for the spectacle?
DB: They come to the Gwar show for the spectacle, and that includes the blood, the music, the cuttlefish upside the head. The getting drunk with your friends at the bar. It's the whole experience of the Gwar show, but I think the music is the backbone of it. It's the single biggest reason that people are there; 'cause those P.A.'s are blaring out fuckin' metal. So, I think the music is the most important element of Gwar. It's the backbone of the show.
AU: How long was the process of writing?
DB: They probably wrote the music in less than a year, and I wrote the lyrics in less than a month. With the lyrics I can't progress as fast as these guys with out the music because we have to kind of let the idea of what the album's gonna be about coalesce with everybody 'cause everyone...
MD: Everyone in the art department...
DB: Yeah, the art department. It has to be totally tied in to what the costumes are gonna be like, and what the sets gonna be like. So I kinda gotta suck up as much information as I can from everyone as possible, and then kinda write in a blur. I always feel like I never have as much time to really write as much as I want, but, then when you lay out all the lyrics, I'd see that I've written a fuckin' mini-novel. There were so many lyrics on this new album it became a real problem with the packaging.
AU: You’ve had comic books, now action figures? Are they gonna be anatomically correct?
DB: Yes. The comic books I hope to come back to one day, maybe with the action figures. We just got the Beefcake one out, you can buy painted or unpainted.Beefcake should be fatter. He's a trimmed down, svelter Beefcake. Oderus is next. The level of detail is amazing, even down to the actual tattoos the musicians have. They’re very acurate as far as the costumes look. They look like they do on stage for this tour. We’ve wanted this for a long time. It's totally awesome! Besides, I can't see a world without a Gwar video or computer game. We really gotta figure out how to do that 'cause that would be the coolest, sickest game ever.
AU: What kind of game are you thinking of?
DB: It's kind of a module-istic, first-person shooter, but more developed. The idea we've been kicking around is you start out as a fucked up, disgusting fan stumbling around some horrible city. There’s a show that night and you gotta steal and rob to get enough money to get a ticket. You go to the show, fight your way through the crowd, then get kidnapped by Gwar and taken back to Antarctica where they throw you in the very darkest level of their dungeons. As this hideous bohab fan, you have to work your way up through all the different levels until you actually get into the Gwar fortress. The first one's called, “The Keep of Balsac”. You sneak into his keep and get to his final chamber and Balsac is sitting on his bed, at that point he's actually got his jaws off and they're sitting on this altar and if you can get to the jaws before Balsac, you become Balsac. The game playing totally changes at that point. You become Balsac and the Gwar fortress is under attack from Techno Destructo or something, and you gotta marshal all the other Gwar guys and assemble them for the final battle. It'll have that sick sense of humour, and we would totally go for the sickest game ever. The most disgustingly violent, over the top, blood and gore that's ever been in a video game. Just retarded amounts of blood everywhere; death scenes that are just horrible. Just completely overdo it. I've never seen a game like that where it's just bodies piling up to the point where it's just, 'Oh my God!'
AU: Did you hear they found Michael Dunahee? There was a rumour that Gwar abducted him.
DB: Where'd they find him?
AU: Living with some other family.
DB: Oh, good for him, I hope he has a great Christmas.
MD: There was this one 'have you seen him' kid, with pictures of him on milk cartons. He'd put on different costumes, sometimes he'd dress up as a girl.
DB: We got all the missing kids at home back at Antarctica working on our giant, bubbling, seething, war-cauldrons. That's where the missing children of the world have ended up.
MD: They're slave labour, of course.
AU: What do you think about B.C. weed?
DB: It's the best in the world; so much so that I can't smoke it for maybe four hours before a show because I'll be so fuckin' high I'll be useless. A high Oderus is not the way Oderus is. It's the best pot in the world, period.
AU: Final words?
DB: Rock on!