After the passing of GWAR frontman Oderus Urungus earlier this year it was not made clear whether the band would soldier on without Oderus. Metal Insider had an opportunity to speak with drummer Jizmak Da Gusha to give us some answers on the state of the intergalactic rockers.
It’s a lot to read so if you just want the TL;DR version, basically the band is carrying on without any particular lead vocalist. What they will be doing instead is have recurring characters and old ones we haven’t seen in a while handling vocal duties.
If you’re a diehard GWAR fan that wants all the details, here’s what Jizmak had to say:
“Yeah, I mean, we have Mike Bishop, the original Beefcake bass player of GWAR. He’s coming back to fold to do some singing duties, but Balsac, Pustulus, Beefcake, they’re all singing. Cyborg, Destructo, Bone Snapper, all the GWAR characters have songs to fill in, and we’ve kind of taken the idea back to the original, old school, Scumdogs idea. Where Oderus, he was just the anchor, there were so many characters and so many different people singing songs, and so much action and gore and death on the stage in the old days that it wasn’t like it was more recently, where we stripped away all of that and made Oderus the focal point. The old Scumdogs of GWAR, there’s chaos everywhere, and Oderus is just the anchor to it. So we’re kind of going back to the old format, embracing it. The stage shows will be wilder, and more chaos probably than you’ve seen in a lot of years. We kind of stripped it away into a pretty good heavy metal band that had some cool gore to it, and I think it’s gonna be more involved now. Certainly all of the plot development that we’ve done for the upcoming shows and the tours is leading it that way. It’s really exciting, it’s interesting. I think people are going to respond to it. No one would respect us if we just threw another guy in the costume and said ‘Oh here’s Oderus’ replacement.’ There is no way to replace Dave Brockie, not in a million years. We decided to go back to our roots and get back the old members and reconvene as a creative collective and put forth the GWAR that we think is going to be the incarnation of it for the 30th anniversary and beyond.”
He continued with information on an upcoming North American tour that will address the death of their frontman.
“Yeah, there will be a fall US/Canadian tour from GWAR this year, and it will address the mythos of what happened to Oderus Urungus and give the fans, the GWAR fans that we love so much, a way to come pay their last respects and see the band that they love. It’s an exciting time, and it’s also scary because it’s a daunting task, but GWAR is always up to the challenge. We gotta saw off a couple heads to get there, no problem.”
The biggest news though is that of a new record! Jizmak has mentioned that Mike Bishop, the original Beefcake The Mighty, will be the main frontman with other characters lending a hand.
“Well actually there is. We’re approaching 30 year anniversary, there’s talk of boxed products that will come from GWAR, and with Mike Bishop coming back in, we’re definitely writing some new songs and we’ll have something to show that GWAR is moving forward, and it’s not stopping.”