Well, I'm starting this story some time in the '70s. No, the band didn't form in that decade. However, that's the decade that a Washington D.C. suburbianite named Dave Murray Brockie began his life of crime. It's no joke either, he was a bad kid growing up. One time, him and his friend Scot (not Scot Krahl) invited the neighbor retarded girl to his house so the two of them could lick her genitalia. Even worse, he put his friend's garden hose through the attic window and just left it running. The attic collapsed. He never got caught which provoked him to steal more and commit more crimes. He was the kid who spit in the food at the fast food restaurant. He was caught by police for the first time when he was 12. That, however didn't stop his ridiculous behavior. Other than that, he was a normal high school teen who enjoyed beer, sex, and other great pleasures in life. His brother, older than him by four years, was gay and fully flaunted it. (just thought butt pirates would like to know that) He went through high school, going to all the hard core shows in the D.C. scene and getting beaten up by dumb straight edgers at Minor Threat and similar shows. He just couldn't fit in their way of life. By the end of high school, it was decided that Dave wanted to be some sort of artist type or something to do with art, plus he knew how to play a bass guitar. By the end of highschool, he decided not to be bad anymore. Also, he decided to move to Richmond Virginia to attend their art college.
The year was 1982. Brockie was introduced to a whole new punk scene that was more laid back and where people seemed to have fun more. After being in several crappy go-nowhere bands like Automic Dog Shit, Yam on Wheels, Rock n Roll Priests, and the Suburbans, Brockie, for the first time, met a chap his own age named Russ Bahorsky. Well, the eightees where a time of a severe shift to right wing politics, more conservative views and an all out crumbling way of life. With the world in such a heap of trouble, what better than to make a band that was crazy for the crazy world. Dave Brockie, the bassist and Russ Bahorsky, the guitarist were joined by Russ' friend Sean Sumner on drums and they began playing as a three piece band. They were one day hanging out in one of their dorms when they saw several things spray painted everywhere. On the fridge, the words "death piggy" were painted. Well, that could be a Charles Manson reference, but who cares, Death Piggy was born then somewhere in the middle of 1982. The three piece band played some sort of weird nonsensical music that didn't exactly fit in with what was considered "punk." But, it couldn't be considered anything else and could best be fit in with a group of weird bands including Butthole Surfers (who Death Piggy would teach everything to). Death Piggy played several local shows on a local lever garnering some sort of following creating music using the limited abilities that they had. Soon after the band began having ideas of crazy stage shows. They started putting stuff together that didn't make sense. One time they performed an entire show with their backs to the audience, one time Dave played from within a box, and most importantly, Dave had a real love for squirting things at the audience and especially down his pants. He loved mooning the audience and all this was backed by songs like "Fat Man," "Boner," "Splatter Flick," songs that didn't have to make sense. At the end of the day, if they were the only ones who got the joke, then that was all that mattered. 1984 was a big turning point for Death Piggy. For one, Dead Kennedys' singer, Jello Biafra named Death Piggy the best band out of Virginia, and more importantly, Death Piggy, under their own label, recorded their debut e.p. Done in traditional indie, D.I.Y. style, self produced and everything, Love War e.p. hit stores in 1984. The 7" collection of 8 ridiculous tunes obviously didn't go down in history but at least the band had a recording under their belts. With that, the band played shows with the more popular bands in the underground scene including Minor Threat, Butthole Surfers, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys and several others. The band's second release, Death Rules the Fairway e.p. was released in early 1985 and continued the trilogy with a ten song double 7" that rocked. More ridiculous shows were played, including the famous living room gig. This gig had the band invite the audience to pretend to be friends watching the band rehearse in a living room setting. They brought all their furniture from their dorms and set it up and even ended up ordering a pizza. It was a silly night.
The next turn of events in this story is when Death Piggy moved their rehearsal space to a new studio/warehouse. They happened to be sharing a rehearsal space with two starving artists working on a movie. The movie in works was called The Scumdogs of the Universe. The fellows they met were Hunter Jackson and Chuck Varga. These two guys were professional special effects artists, make up artists, set designers, and costume fabricators, everything needed to make their b movie. The members of Death Piggy quickly befriended the two movie makers. Jackson and Varga even designed the very first fake penis that Dave Brockie used out of a ketchup bottle. Death Piggy began borrowing Jackson's and Varga's costumes for their shows...
One night, Death Piggy was performing a show in their new costumes when someone, out of drunkenness yelled, "You should call your band GGGGGWWWWWAAAARRRRGGGHH!!!" No one knew what it meant but it was funny. So, Death Piggy planned to perform a skit/concert under the name GGGGWWWWAAAARRRGGGGHH!! as a joke. Bahorsky wrote several short heavy metal songs for the skit and the band rehearsed it. The skit didn't go over too well but the inclination was there nonetheless. The name GWAR has been known to stand for "God, what an awful racket" or something like that. The original three-piece formation of GWAR came together officially in 1985. It consisted of Russ Bahorsky as Stephen Sphincter, Sean Sumner as Hans Sphincter (known as the Sphincter Brothers) and Dave Brockie from the start, was known as Oderus Urungus. GWAR performed several shows alongside Death Piggy but soon tragedy struck. Sean Sumner, who was somewhat unstable, caught his girlfriend cheating on him with some other guy. Sean stabbed the guy several times (luckily nowhere fatal) and was sentenced to a year in jail. He was replaced by a drummer who even the members of GWAR can't remember his name. At the same time, Bahorsky decided to take a break from Death Piggy. He quit as well, leaving Brockie the only original member of the band. He hired up new guitarist, Steve Douglas to the band and they were rolling again. With the new lineup, Death Piggy released their final recording. R45 e.p. was released before the end of 1985. After which, GWAR was in affect. They started pillaging and raping their way across the east coast. Death Piggy, however, still existed and Death Piggy shows were still performed but in the meantime, there was GWAR.
Between the years of 1986-1987, GWAR would go through a series of lots of member overturns. Starting with hiring Ben Eubanks, calling himself Johny Slutman in 1986 to be GWAR's singer as Oderus remained on bass. He sang for a few shows. Then, one crazy night, he got an extreme case of stage fright and ran down the street screaming, never to be GWAR's singer again. He was quickly replaced by Joe Anorama a.k.a. Joey Slutman. He sang in a gutural type death metal voice and was GWAR's singer for a long time. Now, charting the guitarists and bassists of this period is a seriously messy task that leads to mistakes but here goes nothing. After a year in jail, Sean Sumner returned as Hans Orifice this time. Steve Douglas quit and in came back original guy Russ Bahorsky who actually went by the name Mr. Magico. It lasted like so for a long time, until the beginning of 1987 when, the they coined the term "The Slave Pit" and extra artists, dancers, and such began coming in to the group. With the departure of Joey Slutman, Oderus left his roll as a bass player and went directly to being lead vocalist, thus, they needed a bass player. Chris Bopst a.k.a. Balsac the Jaws of Death (the original one) filled the slot. In the meantime, Sean Sumner was in many local bands at the time while laying low from authorities, proving too much without a whole lot of Death Piggy shows being performed anymore, Sean decided GWAR was one too many bands to be in and quit. Russ soon followed. Thus, ending Death Piggy. Though, they would reunite in 1994. Now, GWAR was in full swing. Chirs Bopst left after a few shows and coming back in was Steven Douglas as Balsac the Jaws of Death for the first time. He played bass at first until he was bumped to guitar. In the meantime, Ron Curry came in to be Steven Sphincter on guitar at first before moving back to bass with the return of Steven Douglas. Adding a fifth member, Greg Ottinger a.k.a. Cornelius Carnage became a lead guitar player to Balsac's rythm. Ron Curry would be replaced by Chris Oranger who would be another Stephen Sphincter who played guitar than bass (I think). During this messy period, Jim Thompson a.k.a. Hans Sphincter played drums the whole time. Before long, this all fell apart and members started leaving and being replaced by members who would be on the first GWAR album. Stephen Sphincter was replaced by a long lasting member named Mike Bishop. He played as the first ever Beefcake the Mighty. This was the new bass player. With the departure of one sphincter, Hans returned to using Hans Orifice. Cornelius Carnage was next. He left and was replaced by Dewey Rowell. Dewey Rowell played the stone age throw back, monster cave man, Flattus Maximus. After that, Hans quit as well. He was replaced by Ron Mosby who was Nippleus Erectus, GWAR's new drummer. Actors to play character include Heather Broom who only lasted in 1987 and played the original GWAR woman a character who didn't really play an instrument but played the roll of an actor/dancer, like Alice Cooper would have. Only, she was officially part of The Slave Pit. She would be replaced by Lisa Harrelson who played the same roll. They had an early version of The Sexicutioner played by Mike Delaney. They also had a different manager named Sluggo P. Martini played by Tim Herman. Hunter played the character, Techno Destructo, GWAR's onstage arch enemy and there was even an early scumdog named Blowhole, but I don't know what came of him. With a full lineup in effect, consisting of Dave Brockie a.k.a. Oderus Urungus on vocals the two guitarists, Balsac a.k.a. Steve Douglas and Flattus a.k.a. Dewey Rowell, bassist Beefcake a.k.a. Mike Bishop and Ron Mosby playing Nippleus Erectus on drums, GWAR formed their own record label, Shimmy Disc Records. They had about 20 songs at that point and went into the studio before the end of 1987. Rest is history...
GWAR's debut album Hell-O! was released in the beginning of 1988. It was a low budget produced punk metal tribute to disgusting things. Unfortunately, the 17 original tunes on the album weren't the multi-platinum carreer making album they thought it was. However they kicked off a tour with all the perverse stuff to expect at a GWAR show. For those who don't already know, expect decapitations, perverted sex acts, spraying of fake body fluids like blood, piss and cum, and killing of stuff. In the wake of the tour, both Lisa Harrelson, Tim Herman, and Mike Delaney resigned from The Slave Pit. In their places came permanent members Danielle Stampe who became GWAR Woman and later Slymenstra Hymen, Don Drukalich who became the better on stage manager, Sleazy P. Martini and Chuck Varga himself got into the game and became The Sexicutioner. The tour that ensued gave GWAR a small but loyal cult following of sick teens who wanted to escape the boredom of mainstream rock. Hell-O! pulled in about the low 5 digit range so about 20-30,000 copies were sold. Costumes at these early shows were also kind of cheap looking. Given that they didn't have all the cash to make it exactly what they wanted. (just check the early band photos for the Hell-O! album, you can see Steve Douglas' face within the Jaws). In late 1988, however, Steve Douglas got sick of being Balsac the Jaws of Death. He left the band and currently plays in a band called Log. Meanwhile, GWAR hired up new guitarist, Mike Derks to be Balsac. He came from an admittedly crappy band called Dent and is now one of the longest lasting GWAR members. It's also not that important to note that Oderus Urungus became the only member left from the original lineup. Mike Derks proved to be a better guitarist with better riffs he would write and more muscular rythm playing. GWAR spent 1989 touring and sending MTV and cable television programs their videos like RAWGWAR and The Next Mutation for promotion. Then, during the tour, Ron Mosby got sick of being Nippleus Erectus. He quit the band while on tour and was followed by three drummers within that very year. Jim Thompson a.k.a. Hans Orifice returned to the band for a few shows. Then came Pete (lastname unkown) came in as Laeo Baeto. After a few shows with him, GWAR found permanent drummer Brad Roberts. He came from a band called Rosebud and became GWAR's new drummer. His new character became Jizmak the Gusher and later Jismak Da Gusha. Once again, a better drummer than before.
1990 was a huge year for GWAR. They were signed to the semi big underground heavy metal label, Metal Blade Records. Becoming label mates with bands like Cannibal Corpse and stuff like that. They were also labelmates with the great Haunted Garage. Metal Blade supplied GWAR with more cash to improve their costumes and make them look better and give them better production in the studio for their second album. With producer Ron Goudie, GWAR recorded and released their second album, Scumdogs of the Universe in 1990. The 13 songs on the album improved on arrangements, songwriting and playing and featured a stronger band musically. The cover itself featured much better looking costumes that look really cool. The album gave them a bigger audience with sales of about 50,000 or so copies, a bigger audience, appearences on MTV in the wee hours of the morning, ect. The much improved production and nastier stage acts were featured in GWAR's metal blade video Live from Antarctica also released in 1990. Other high points include an appearance on both the Morton Downey Jr. and Joan Rivers shows, and an appearance in a television sitcom. However, big success has its problems too. Oderus' infamous run in with the law. The band was performing a home town show in late 1990 when Oderus was arrested on obscenity charges that his cuttlefish was simulating a penis (which it was). Since then, GWAR hasn't been able to perform in a decent size club in their hometown. Low points aside, GWAR toured well into 1991 as well when they even started debuting songs that would be on their third album.
Early 1992: Right before GWAR was scheduled to go into the studio to cut album number three, Dewey Rowell a.k.a. Flattus Maximus decided to quit. The band, with little time, went into the studio as a four piece band consisting of Oderus, Balsac, Beefcake and Jizmak. They cut the band's third album with Balsac playing all guitar parts except two lead parts played by two session players (it's in the album review section). In addition, GWAR spent a few weeks filming and editing their first movie. The album America Must Be Destroyed was released in the early months of 1992. Coinciding with its release was GWAR's first movie, Phallus in Wonderland. The 12 songs on the album were harder sounding than that of their previous two albums and played the soundtrack for the movie, which loosely is a violent parody of when Oderus was arrested. They battle the Morality Squad much they like they do in their tour. Other important mentions include the beginnings of a band called RAWG which is what three fifths of GWAR call themselves playing in clubs too small to handle their stage show. That's when Brockie on bass and vox, Mike Derks (balsac) on guitar and Brad Roberts (jizmak) play in clubs. They also recorded two original tunes for the Canadian version of America Must Be Destroyed: "Bad Bad Men (of the Wild Wild West)" and "Krakdown." Before GWAR hit the road again, they hired up new Flattus Maximus, Pete Lee. Hailing from Texas thrash metal band, Rigormortis is the goofy guy Pete Lee, who is also a better lead guitarist than Dewey. With a new Flattus, GWAR hit the road. As the band toured, the controvercy surrounding the band's acts of violence and perverseness helped sell over 100,000 copies of GWAR's third album. Once again, GWAR had a run in with the law. A show in May of 1992 in Athens County Georgia was shut down by police. GWAR wouldn't put up with that and with the Georgia branch of American Civil Liberties Union took Athens County to court and won. They gave all their winnings to charity. While GWAR's shit was hitting the fan, Mike Bishop a.k.a. Beefcake the Mighty started a three piece garage band called Kepone (an outlawd pesticide made in Virginia) with two time GWAR session lead guitarist Tim Hariss and unrelated drummer Seth Haris in summer of 1992. They jammed together but Bishop's commitment was currently with GWAR. GWAR released The Road Behind e.p. in late 1992. It was basically a single for GWAR's most popular song at the time, "The Road Behind" with extra crap like the new song "Krakdown" and added live material. Another live video called Tour de Scum was also issued in 1992 and band toured up through the end of 1993. That's also when Kepone recorded a debut album but wouldn't release it until Mike Bishop left GWAR.
GWAR recorded their fourth album in the end of '93- early '94. The fourth record This Toilet Earth was released in early 1994. GWAR's second movie Skulheadface was released around the same time. The album became one of GWAR's most popular albums as GWAR was getting into their 15 minutes of fame (despite pulling "B.D.F." or "Baby Dick Fuck" off the album). With sales around the same, maybe a little more than the previous album, GWAR's album was helped out by the advent of the MTV cartoon show Beavis and Butthead. The two terrible teens reviewed GWAR's video for "Jack the World" with nothing but praise and helped make them more popular to the mainstream (it also helped White Zombie become multi-platinum stars when "Thunderkiss '65" was shown on B & B). GWAR even agreed to be shown in the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Beavis and Butthead video games. The object of the game is to hunt down through Beavis and Butthead's world looking for missing pieces of GWAR tickets that were torn up by a lawnmower and spread all over the place. Beefcake appears on the T.V. set Sleazy is the ticket vender for the show and when you win, Beavis and Butthead dress up in slave gear and dance on stage with Oderus (minus cuttlefish) and Balsac as a computerised version of "Jack the World" plays. Plus, GWAR composed some of the background generic heavy metal music that plays during the game. GWAR's popularity rose enough to get them an offer to play on a movie soundtrack. GWAR appeared on the S.F.W. Original Motion Picture Soundtrack in 1994 with an original tune called "S.F.W." or "So Fucking What." It was the only original song they made for a movie. In the fall of 1994, Mike Bishop decided to leave GWAR to play with his band Kepone. He was in the band for a total of seven years. GWAR found new bassist to play Beefcake the Mighty in Casey Orr. Orr had played in Rigormortis with Pete Lee, a band called Blohole and roadied for Minestry during their 1992 Lallopalooza jaunt. Casey Orr was perfect for the part in that he was big and fat. With his joining as the new Beefcake, Oderus was the only musician member left from the lineup that did GWAR's first album. Either way, GWAR further toured for Toilet into early 1995.
Having nothing better to do and no other commitments, GWAR jumped right back into the studio to do a fifth album. For the first time ever, GWAR released an album only a year after the one befor it. The new album RagNaRok was released in early 1995. Featuring new bassist Casey Orr, the album continued GWAR's trilogy. Although they sold slightyly less copies than the previous album, GWAR was still in their short faze of popularity. And to prove this, they appeared in the teen dramedy, Empire Records. During a scene when the character Mark is watching the video for "Sadam A Go Go" and Oderus starts talking to him. To paraphraze: "Maaaaark! You like GWAR so much! You sure play a mean guitar! Why don't you join the band? Too bad you have to die!" Three things amiss here: 1. It's not Oderus' voice, it's dubbed over. 2. For no reason the music for "Sadam..." stops playing in the video and 3. Oderus' cuttlefish is blurred out. But, that's okay, for ever more, teens who don't know better refer to GWAR as "that band on empire records." The first leg of the tour ended somewhere in 1995. After which GWAR started working on their alter egos...
If you noticed a band dressed completely in police uniforms playing GWAR type music onstage before GWAR came on, you were just seeing yet another formation of GWAR called X-Cops. With nothing better to do, GWAR decided to play under the name X-Cops in the fall of 1995. The members were Casey Orr a.k.a. X-Sheriff Tub Tucker on vocals (not bass), Mike Derks as X-Luitenant Lou Scrapinneti on guitar accompanied by Pete Lee as X-Seargent Al Depantsia on guitar, Dave Brockie as X-Patrol Man Cob Knobbler on bass (not vocals) and Mike Dunn (not Brad Roberts) as X-Cadet Billy Club on drums. Bob Gorman (a slave pit member and stage slave) plays X-Sergeant Zypigski, Brad Roberts is X-Mountain Bike Officer Biff Buff on some vocals and keyboardist Musel (pronounced Muscle) as X-Detective Phillip McReevis. X-Cops quickly recorded an album called You Have the Right to Remain Silent and released it on Metal Blade at the end of 1995. It contains Toilet Earth sounding music with lyrical focus on hard street life, police brutality and white trash. Plus it includes a cover of Deep Purple's "Highway Star." Brad Roberts played on the "Beat you Down" b/w "Junkie" single on the mansruin label. GWAR/X-Cops spent most of 1996 on the road as usual. GWAR also made an appearance on The Jerry Springer show. There, just like on the previous talk shows they were on, they strutted their stuff trying to sell a bigger audience on GWAR. Playing the role perfectly, Oderus told the audience how he wanted to sodomize they're 15 year old daughters. In fact, one mother, with her son there, asked the band "Why does it have to be so violent?" Oderus' replie was "Woman, what's worse, the violence we see on the 6 o' clock news created by our governments or us making fun of it?" The audience replied with a huge chear. By the end of 1996, GWAR was back in the studio...
Carnival of Chaos was released in early 1997. The 18 song album marked the first time ever in GWAR's carreer that they released two albums in a row with the exact same line up. Unfortunately album sails were reduced to about 50,000 copies, but what can you do? Other things to note, the tour did not have Sexy or Sleazy this time. By 1997, Sleazy and Sexy decided not to be touring members and to work on the slave pit exclusively. Fans also felt sort of distressed with GWAR. The Carnival album just wasn't nasty enough for them. The leg of the Carnival tour lasted '97-'98. Unfortunately plans for a second X-Cops album were scrapped because two of the band's most important members left. Pete Lee had to leave GWAR for some sort of surgery. Casey Orr, much like Mike Bishop, took a leave of absense to work on another band called The Hellions. GWAR went back to their past and asked Mike Bishop and Tim Hariss to join. Mike Bishop reclaimed his old spot as Beefcake the Mighty and Tim Hariss became the third Flattus Maximus. With the new/old guys in GWAR, GWAR finnished up the tour for Carnival and jumped right back into a new album.
With the intent of going back to the past, writing more about GWAR lore rather than not-GWAR subjects, making nastier than ever before songs and so on, GWAR released their latest album, We Kill Everything in early 1999. The album was fully self produced. The album introduced a new scumdog named Scroda Moon who sort of replaces The Sexicutioner. The band once again kicked off a killer tour for the album. This time around, the new album sold more copies than they had sold in previous years. They also made an appearance on VH1's show Where are They Now? To which Oderus replied: "Where were we ever?" Halfway through the tour, Dave Brockie decided to also rerelease old Death Piggy material. Taking time off to do so, Dave compile the three Death Piggy e.p.'s and all extra unreleased tracks onto a kickass Slave Pit only released Death Piggy disc called Smile or Die in 1999. Thus, bridging the past to the present. After which, GWAR continued their tour. For the first time ever, GWAR toured with The Misfits during October through December. After which, the band's split. In late 1999, Mike Bishop and Tim Hariss went back to Kepone and Casey Orr returned as Beefcake the Mighty. Pete Lee however, did not return and his spot is being filled by the new Flattus Maximus, Zach Blair. With impending apocalypse, GWAR toured through the end of 1999. The 1999/2000 new years eve show featured the last live performances by Sleazy and Sexy. After which, Chuck Varga left the slave pit and started his own production company. GWAR toured the first few months of 2000 in Europe before coming back home in spring to work on a new movie.
After GWAR filmed the movie It's Sleazy, the editing process became really slow. For now, GWAR is saying it will come out when they get done with it and that's that. In the mean time, as GWAR took a break, Casey Orr went to work on The Hellions and Dave Brockie started a new band. Calling the band The Dave Brockie Experience and abbreviating it DBX, they consist once agian of three fifths of GWAR. The band's most stable members: Mike Derks on guitar, Dave Brockie on bass and vocals and Brad Roberts on drums began playing in the spring of 2000 and have currently performed lots of shows playing original tunes and GWAR tunes. At the end of summer, DBX began recording its debut and have already finnished it. With the album planning on release in the beginning of 2001, GWAR is once again kicking off a new tour for the Halloween month scheduled to go on until the new year when the band will begin recording a new album. In addition to that, through much persistence, both Sleazy P. Martini and The Sexicutioner will be returning to GWAR's stage for the tour. What the future holds for GWAR? Well, a new album, more killing, raping, spreading disease and rock and roll decadance, maybe one day, GWAR will have a mainstream hit. To conclude, GWAR have released seven albums and an e.p. as GWAR one as X-Cops, 12 home videos, 8 comic books drawn by The Slave Pit and GWAR (7 annual issues of The Slave Pit Funnies and a comic addaptation of the movie Skulhedface), and even a roll playing boardgame. After 15 years of GWAR (18 counting Death Piggy) there's no telling where the group will go from there, in the mean time, long live the scumdogs!