“This is out of character. This is Dave Brockie speaking and the whole thing has been a f*cking nightmare. But the band and the fans have dealt with it in absolutely the way that sets the standard for the way things like this should be handled.” – Dave Brockie of GWAR

Brockie is the man. Oderus Urungus is the Lord of the Scumdogs. They both share the same brutally comedic heart that’s been tested by the extremes of humanity (Several highpoints and one devastating tragedy) within the last year.

One week before he delivered his metal monsters to Vinyl Music Hall, Brockie (and Oderus) discussed the loss of guitarist Cory Smoot (Flattus Maximus), stardom in a mortal world, the Washington Redskins, Words With Friends and some of the craziest sh*t you’ll ever read from a creature this side of the universe.

Here is a link to my column in the Pensacola News Journal previewing the GWAR concert at Vinyl Music Hall and the full interview follows below. (Warning: Brockie’s Interview contains extremely vivid, foul and funny language. You’ve been warned)

*** Dave Brockie Interview ***

The GWAR frontman was caught off-guard by my call. Very quietly and quickly, he promised to call back in 45 minutes.

Oderus: Yes, yes it’s Oderus, I told you I’d call you back. It’s been awhile, I got lost and wandering around the street, next thing, some cops were shooting at me and they had to die! So you’re calling from lovely Pensacola, Florida…eh! That’s a beautiful place. Florida is such a great state; I love the giant insects and huge dragons living in the swamps.

MS: We have a ton of them.

Oderus: One of the few places that have dragons in the world anymore. They don’t even have wings anymore! Now get on with your questions!

MS: Yes. I will. I just have a couple…actually more than a couple, but a few for you.

Oderus: A few, a couple…I don’t give a flying fuck! (laughs) I’m sorry. I’m a big story now. I was doing The Dan Patrick show, man. Big celebrity over here is going to forget all about the little guy.

MS: With the touring, recording and the entire history, what gets you off the most about the GWAR experience?

Oderus: Well, I have to say honestly, yesterday was one of the greatest experiences in my GWAR career; being on the Dan Patrick show. That was one of the biggest things. I know a lot of people are like, “Oderus, why do you care about human sports?” But for some stupid reason, I am drawn to the idiotic activities of the race I have created. It’s like dad having a retarded child, pretending that he doesn’t love it, but still he’s proud that it learns how to wipe his own ass. That’s kind of what I feel about the human race. And Dan Patrick, he’s a true showbiz professional. They knew full well that they had an intergalactic marauder from outer space who at the bat of an eyelash could trash the entire studio, but no, they just played me like the showbiz professional that I am and it worked out. It saved their lives, we had a great show and it was wonderful. In fact, it does seem that the entire Hollywood community, not that I would say that I’d ever want to put Dan Patrick in with that group, you know, because those people are disgusting, and he is an east coast person and I think that’s very important…speaking of the east coast, it’s the better of the two coasts. Also, another wonderful thing is my new TV show “Holliston”, which is coming out in two weeks, will be debuting on FEAR.NET. Oderus is showing up on Dan Patrick, Oderus is in a supporting role on some ridiculous sitcom on some cable station. How long is it before our own miniature putt putt course or perhaps a television show?

MS: With so much going on with you, do you ever get overwhelmed?

Oderus: Oh hell no! I’m Oderus. When it all gets too much for me and it’ just hitting too hard, I just take a double large fucking jumbo hit and that picks me right up. And at the end of the day after a long day of murder, rape, savage debauchery, burning of public institutions, hospital fires, I curl up in my coffin and get a good night’s sleep. Not sleep so much as just kind of laying there with the lid closed, masturbating furiously, but I have certain ways that I relieve myself of the tension involved with being the uber being that is Oderus Urungas.

MS: You mentioned Dan Patrick; I’ve got to ask you this. One of my buddies is a diehard Redskins fan and I have to ask you-2012, Dan Snyder, Shanahan, maybe Robert Griffin III (the interview took place before the 2012 rookie draft), what’s going to happen with the Redskins this year?

Oderus: It’s Shanahan’s last chance to make this fucking team work. Though, because maybe they got Griffin, they can get a few more years out of this job. The sickening thing about the Shanahan thing is that it all feels like a setup to get his kid a job as the head coach. He’s really phoning it in, he doesn’t give a fuck and he’s all about little Kyle. Sucked his own father’s dick to get a job on the fucking Washington Redskins. Sucked Dan Snyder’s dick too, as a matter of fact. In the parking lot of that bullshit stadium they built for their fans where you can buy season tickets and then get stuck in the section where you can only see half the field.

MS: The Pensacola show will be my first time seeing GWAR live and in the flesh. What should I and the rest of the diehard faithful expect on this tour?

Oderus: It is a tribute to our departed brother Flattus Maximus. But you can also expect some fucking heavy rock, there’s only one way that we can pay tribute to Flattus; the correct way, and that is extremely loud, serious, moltated, mutated…multated, I like that, that’s a new word. Multated! In fact, mutated and molten at once…moltated, I love it! Freakin’ I pretty much love everything I do though, so. I don’t know…what else was I talking about? Just pretty much prepare to die. We also have some great opening bands. We have Legacy of Disorder, all the way from New Zealand for some godforsaken reason. Then we’ve got Ghoul, graverobbers from the San Francisco Bay area, then we’ve got the mighty Kylesa, then of course, world ruling Gwar. You couldn’t have a fuckin’ better tour. Even if you guys are in for the Gwar show, you would have seen some really good bands that night. And I will also give you the advice of Susi D. Martini, “To survive a Gwar show, it’s simple. Just do what John McGinnley did in Platoon. Hide under the corpses of your dead friend.”

MS: Does Dave ever get jealous of Oderus and does Oderus ever get jealous of Dave?

Oderus: Oh, I beat the shit out of that…you know that guy, if only I could be in the same room as that guy for one fucking second, I would throttle the life out of him. This Dave Brockie character runs around saying that he’s somehow related to me, that’s he’s my personal butt boy. You know all he does for me… sometimes I let him pop my anal pimples. That is the only thing; he’s an anal pimple popper! That’s all he does. He’s not worth the mouthful of puss he sucked out of my pimple-popping. Fuck that Dave Brockie. Fuck him!

MS: What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at one of your concerts?

Oderus: I would have to say that’s easy. We played in East Berlin not long after they brought the wall down, joining East and West Germany into one country and they thought it would be a great idea to have a heavy metal festival in East Berlin, to bring the city together and GWAR played. And right in the middle of the set, they began to rebuild the wall. Yeah, they were like, we don’t want this in our country. We’d rather be under Soviet rule than have this. Eventually, the metal heads and the punks beat the shit out of those people. It was like a gang of communist brick workers tried to rebuild the Berlin Wall right there in the middle of one of our shows, but the punk rockers beat the shit out of them. Now GWAR is enjoyed in 46 tenths of the world.

MS: What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Oderus: Never negotiate from a position of weakness. And what that means is, when you have got something you want, you’re never going to get it by telling somebody how pathetic you are. And people do that shit all of the time. “I really need, blah, blah, blah, I’ve got this wart on my goiter or I need to miss work because my mom died or my pet got hit by a truck and when I was trying to save it, the ambulance crew raped me and yah. I don’t care! Nobody wants to hear your shit. We don’t. Even if it’s true. Especially if it’s true. If you’re going to complain about your suffering, at least do us the courtesy of making up something pretty spectacular. Never negotiate from a position of weakness; always from a position of strength. Even if you feel weak, pretend you are strong.

MS: What words of wisdom would you give to someone who wants to be where you are?

Oderus: Well, I would enter one advice is that, “It can’t be done.” Nobody else will ever come close to what we’ve accomplished and no one would really want to travel this road if they knew how perilous and dangerous it really was. If you want to be in a band, a successful band, make sure you get a good drummer and find people you don’t hate too much to work with. That would be my piece of advice. So many people, they get people in bands…it’s actually more important how well you get along with the people than it is, how well you play with them. That’ll come later! But if you’re in a band with people you hate…it might take you three or four years before you figure that out, then it will be too late for you. It’s really, really sad. Bands do not have a very long shelf life. They’re not like GWAR, we’re immortal, we can get old and fat and gross and covered in zits and people will still love us. You guys have about 20, 30 years to be in a band. If you waste all that time with an idiotic drummer, then you’re fucked. So find people you enjoy playing with and work your fucking ass off. And then maybe, just maybe you’ll catch a break at some point, though I sincerely doubt it.

MS: Do you prefer crunchy or creamy peanut butter?

DB: Oh crunchy, completely.

MS: Why so?

DB: I like crunchy things. I don’t eat a lot of peanut butter but if I did, I would want crunchy things in it like some iron and bones. I think it would remind more of biting into a human torso and throw in the ribcage, there is a lot of crunching going on. I like that. I like a lot of different textures in my food; everything from slimy to square. Is square a texture? I don’t think so. Anyway, I would like to mention that I’ve been getting my ass kicked at “Words with Friends” a lot lately and I really don’t like it.

MS: I didn’t know you played Words With Friends.

DB: And you’d think I, Lord of Earth, Master of Language, wordsmith unparalleled, fucking GWAR fans are beating me on “Words with Friends”. You know what? I let em’ do it. I do it on purpose. What is it to me to lose at “Words with Friends”? It’s a big thing for them to beat me. I do it on purpose. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

MS: But you would own Charlie Sheen and Alec Baldwin. They wouldn’t have a chance against you. You’d own them.

DB: They would not have one fucking chance and if they did, I would stab them in the eye.

MS: How can fans help out with the Smoot family fund? The fundraiser you’ve been working on.

DB: Go to the Facebook page of Smoot Family Fund and there’s a link there to the donation page and just keep up with the page. Cory Smoot was a cherished member of the GWAR family and we have pledged to support and do everything we can for his family in his passing. And actually the fans have stepped up in a way I’ve never seen with any band ever. And honestly, I’m not blowing my own horn here, but I’ve never seen a band deal with the loss of a member like that in such a fucking awesome way. We love him very much. He was our brother, he was our friend and he was Jaime’s husband and little Corie’s Dad. You know he was a member of our family and he gave everything to GWAR and we will never forget him and we will never forsake him and we’ll spend the rest of our lives doing everything we can for his family and I just have to say thank you to all the freaks out there in the GWAR nation that have made this whole effort such an amazing, fucking success. The only complaint that I have about the whole thing is apparently now, it has been revealed that GWAR has feelings! I know, it’s a big disappointment for many. And I know Flattus left Earth and everything, we’re supposed to do all these nice things for the Smoot family, but GWAR…and you know and, we’re like “Fuck you!” We do have feelings, goddammit, if only for our slum…alright I’m saying too much about it…all I’m saying is that you guys have been awesome, the fans…this is out of character. This is Dave Brockie speaking and the whole thing has been a fucking nightmare. But the band and the fans have dealt with it in absolutely the way that sets the standard for the way things like this should be handled. We have set the standard of how it should be done when you, unfortunately lose someone in a situation like that. I think that’s the way you handle it. I’ve seen a lot of bands lose guys and I know it’s the worst situation in the world and somehow you have to get through it and you just have to keep remembering the people out there that love you and they love your music and you have to draw on the strength of your fans to get you through it. And the fact that it happened during the middle of a tour, that made it just so much more horrible, then at the same time, I think it made it, in a way, easier for us to deal with, because we were right in the middle of a tour and we were able to communicate with the fans every single night. Every single show became a tribute to him and that’s what we’re doing with the rest of this tour. We’re still playing as a four piece. We’re not in any hurry to add any new guitar players, so we do appreciate all the audition tapes we’ve been getting. Or more like Youtube files we’ve been getting. We’re going to finish up this tour and we’ve already started working on new song for the new record and then we’re going to get back in the studio and we’re going to take just as long as it takes for us to do our new album. I don’t know how long that’ll be, but when we do get it done, it has to be…I mean Flattus took us to a whole new standard. He really, almost single-handedly at times saved GWAR from the musical scrapheap that we were kind of designating ourselves to. I’m a big fan of satirical, goofball comedy rock, but when Flattus realized that GWAR was kind of losing its metal balls, he led the charge to reclaim them and now that we have gotten them back, we will never lose them again, but we’ve got to do it without Flattus now. So that means we’re going to have to work a little bit harder. No worries! We’re GWAR. We never fail.

MS: Is there anything you want to add for the Pensacola GWAR fans that will be out there in April?

OU: I want to say that we are looking forward to getting to your stinking hot, miserably humid, filth-ridden, nubile alligator wenches and swamp juice or whatever the hell is going on down there. We love playing Florida. It’s got a great tradition for metal and we’re going to get down there and kick your fucking asses for you.

MS: Hell Yes!

– Michael L. Smith

Link to an additional photo gallery of the concert by the PNJ crew