5th August 2014
GWAR drummer Brad Roberts has recently spoken about the bands future after the passing of front man Dave Brockie. Check out the full interview at this location. Snippets of that interview can be found below:
“…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.”
“…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. Of course we’re in very much support of Battle Maximus record, which we’re all proud of and still need to bring that show to a lot of towns in the country, but I would say you will see some new stuff from Gwar coming up. Absolutely, especially because it’s the 30 year anniversary, we’re gonna blow that thing out. What other bands are out there and not old men drooling and pooping in their pants that can say they have been around for 30 years.”