GWAR's ODERUS URUNGUS: 'We'll Continue To Put Out Great Albums For Thousands Of Years'

Brendan Crabb of Australia's Loud magazine recently conducted an interview with GWAR frontman Oderus Urungus (a.k.a. Dave Brockie). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Loud: How does GWAR even select a setlist?

Oderus Urungus: Well, we've actually figured out how to do it fairly traditionally now. Because 13 albums over a 28-year career, unlike most bands who put out their best work early in their career and then just consistently got shittier and shittier and shittier, I think GWAR's just fucking got better and better and better. A lot of that is because when we first started making music on Earth, we'd been frozen solid for 50 million years, and it took us a little while to thaw out, you know? We didn't know what all these knobs and buttons and flashing lights and all this stuff was. We just stood up there with guitars and just kind of banged on them. But over the years we have learned finesse, to the point where the last album, "Battle Maximus", was actually recorded in our own studio. So I think the band, considering the fact that we are immortal, will last forever and will always dominate this puny world, I think we'll just continue to put out great fucking albums for thousands of years. So I feel sorry for these humans, you know? They get old, they get fat, they get gross, and the music starts to really suck. And that's never going to happen to GWAR; we're gross, old and fat already. Our music sucked once and it doesn't now, it's getting better. So fuck it.

Loud: Has the studio environment or etiquette changed much throughout the years, or not at all?

Oderus Urungus: Oh yeah, that's definitely pretty much the same as it's always been. A lot of violence, a lot of drinking, a lot of smashed equipment and a lot of fighting and yelling; lots of hot chicks getting torn up, severed limbs. Pumping vile and blood, ruined equipment, going way over budget, producers humiliated, catering strewn all over the room. It's a fucking disaster. So yeah, that's the same; we've just got better at doing it.

Loud: So would you go so far as to say "Battle Maximus" is the best record of GWAR's career thus far?

Oderus Urungus: Yes, I would, because when we lost [guitarist] Flattus, we prepared ourselves for the greatest task that we had ever faced in our lives. Somehow continue his legacy, honor him, and continue the progression of GWAR as the greatest band in rock 'n' roll fucking history. And just as sure as "West Side Story" is playing on Broadway tonight, we'll still be around a hundred fucking years from now, at least. So we set out to make the greatest record that we had ever made. And you know, that's really for others to say, that's for others to judge. I'm not going to sit here and blow my own horn and talk about how fucking great I am. I do that all the time anyway. But the reaction that we're getting for this new album and the fun we're having playing songs from it, I would have to say, yeah, it's got to be up there in the top three GWAR albums, and a lot of people are telling me it's their favorite one. And if we did that, we honored Flattus and we were able to achieve that, that's a fucking hell of an achievement, and I'm very, very proud of these dudes.

Loud: What's your favourite memory of Flattus?

Oderus Urungus: The way he could like turn his back on the audience and fart, and basically melt about the first 20 rows. There would just be like this toxic cloud of green goo, with like turds floating in mid-air. One whiff of it and your entire face melts. I miss the smell of his farts. But I miss his guitar too; he was an amazing fucking guitar player. He was a great guy. But like all Scumdogs, even though we are immortal, we are occasionally called back to the stars to go to a world that it known as "Metal Metal Land." And here we carry out our cosmic destiny. That's where he is, and hopefully he's looking down upon us and our efforts, and hopefully he's proud of us. But we miss the motherfucker every day.

Read the entire interview at Loud magazine.