GWAR's MIKE 'BLÖTHAR THE BERSERKER' BISHOP: 'People Don't Really Realize How Talented DAVE BROCKIE Was'

In a new interview with the Go With Elmo Lovano podcast, GWAR's Mike "Blöthar The Berserker" Bishop, who previously played bass for GWAR during various stints in the 1980s and '90s, spoke about how he ended up rejoining the band in 2014 following the death of GWAR's founding vocalist Dave "Oderus Urungus" Brockie. Reflecting on Brockie's passing, Bishop said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):  "Well, it was horrible. And we had been talking, off and on, about me coming back here and there, and that didn't work, while Dave was alive, to play bass. For whatever reason, it didn't happen. And I would talk to Dave occasionally on the phone. I talked to him probably just a few months before he died. And one day I'm sitting there and I get a phone call, and you know what those phone calls are like. At some point in your life, when you get to a certain age. I knew as soon as I picked it up. [Longtime GWAR member and artist] Bob Gorman called me, and I'm, like, 'Why would he be calling?' except that something like that had happened. And so I was very upset. And I cried. I eulogized Dave, along with several other people. It is just a huge loss, because people don't really realize how talented Dave was. I think they do, but maybe not the full scope of it. He was like Buster Keaton. He was a comedic... He could've been a stand-up comedian. He could've been an actor. He could've done all of that stuff. But he wanted to clown around with mayonnaise in his pants on stage with GWAR, or his other punk rock bands. And [he had] just ridiculous, so much creative energy. So, yeah, it sucked when Dave died. And everybody came, and we had a Viking funeral for him, which was fun. We put [his costume] on a boat. And of course, in typical GWAR fashion, they didn't get a wooden boat. They got a fiberglass boat. So it didn't burn. It just kind of melted and smelled really bad, with a plume of black smoke going up in the air… And it was the last costume that he wore. And they put it out there and then pushed the boat off on this... It was at a sort of outdoor lake, like a recreational lake. And there was hundreds of people there, maybe even a thousand people. But the boat goes out and it starts burning. And because it's not tied, so it just starts swinging close to the crowd and everybody's running away from the six-foot-high flames. And the fire department comes 'cause they just see it, like, from the highway. But that was fun."

On the topic of how he was approached to rejoin GWAR, Mike said: "Yeah, I was working, I was teaching. And I was in a place where my contract wasn't gonna renew. So I was thinking about what I was gonna do anyway. I was applying to jobs. I was gonna work at William & Mary, which is a college in Virginia, and I just kind of... I was walking through the grocery store, and I got a call from Matt Maguire, who's the art director of GWAR, and he said, 'Do you think you could do this GWAR-B-Q?', which is a festival that we put on. And I imagined that I would just sing the songs that I sang, 'cause I had sung a lot, and maybe one or two classics. But they were, like, 'No, we wanna do this material.' And so we did it. And it worked. And we just kind of kept doing it… I do remember feeling like, when I was walking through the aisles of that grocery store, I kind of looked up, and I was, like, 'You son of a bitch. Now I have to do this.' [Laughs] Like, 'You sucked me back in.' [Laughs]"

Brockie was found dead in his home in Richmond, Virginia in March 2014. According to Virginia's State Medical Examiner's Office, he died from acute heroin toxicity by accidental means.

Brockie was last remaining original member of GWAR, which was founded 42 years ago. He was 50 years old.

The satirical metal band earned a following for its macabre, over-the-top costumes, offensive lyrics and graphic, gore-soaked shows, in which the bandmembers performed as the descendants of alien warriors who arrived on Earth to enslave and slaughter the human race.