ALLENTOWN, Pa. — When a band portrays itself as aliens, cast to Earth eons ago, who hope to eliminate the human race but can’t seem to escape, it's best to take their interview answers with a grain of salt.
So when Beefcake the Mighty, bassist for the heavily costumed theatrical shock/thrash metal band GWAR, is asked what it feels like to be on a 40th anniversary tour, expect he's talking tongue-in-cheek.
"Forty years — it feels like 42," said Beefcake — talking in character, but also known as Casey Orr.
"Of course, we were frozen in ice, and blah, blah, blah and we’re really, really old and blah, blah, blah," he said, referring to GWAR's supposed backstory.
“Gwar has outlived a lot of bands and we’ve done it without major label success and proper funding. And we’re probably the hardest-working live band in history.”GWAR bassist Beefcake the Mighty
“But yeah, 40 years of actually interacting with modern humans. And yeah, that’s pretty remarkable. I remember there was some little band called The Beatles and I think they only lasted 10. That’s why nobody’s ever heard of them.
“Gwar has outlived a lot of bands and we’ve done it without major label success and proper funding. And we’re probably the hardest-working live band in history.”
Gwar will give listeners another chance to hear — but more importantly see — its colorful characters perform in elaborate rubber-and-papier-mache costumes in a show that’s graphically gory and often sexually perverse but full of tongue-in-cheek and self-depreciating humor and satire.
The band plays Allentown's Archer Music Hall with co-headliner Static-X at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, June 12. General admission standing tickets, at $56.50 each, remain available on the Archer website.
Losing a leader, and momentum
GWAR formed in Richmond, Virginia, in 1984, and released its debut album, "Hell-O," in 1988.
It had perhaps its biggest success in the 1990s, when it was a favorite of TV cartoon characters Beavis and Butt-Head and was even nominated for two Grammy Awards.
It had a second run in the 2010s, when it placed two albums — "Lust in Space" and "Battle Maximus" — on Billboard's Top 200, and three in the Top 20 on the Indie Albums chart.
Beefcake said in the interview that he recalls the band playing Allentown's former Crocodile Rock Cafe — just four blocks down Hamilton Street from the Archer — several times.
It still "was an uphill battle for several years with a lot of the fans."GWAR bassist Beefcake the Mighty
But the group lost much of its momentum when, in 2014, founder/frontman Odorus Urungus (Dave Brockie) died of a heroin overdose. (The band had been set to play at Stroudsburg Sherman Theater.)
Gwar soldiered on, releasing two albums — 2017's "The Blood of Gods," which peaked at No. 12 on the Indie chart, and 2022's "The New Dark Ages," which failed to chart.
“You know, it’s been a bumpy road," Beefcake said. "Feels like it was yesterday and it feels like it was 100 years ago, you know?
"[Odorus/Brockie] was a great talent and he was our leader — so to speak, ‘cause he was the loudest. And there’s a big void where that guy existed that’s now gone."
But Beefcake said he thinks the band did the best thing possible by enlisting Blöthar the Berserker, portrayed by Michael Bishop, to return to the band as frontman.
"Getting an original to agree to come back," Beefcake said.
“I think if they’d gotten some new kid or unknown or somebody from another band, I just don’t think you would have had the weight to it, I don’t think it would have been accepted by the fans."
It still "was an uphill battle for several years with a lot of the fans," Beefcake said.
"Without Odorus, they couldn’t see it continuing, and a lot of them just closed their eyes to it," he said. "And there were a couple of brilliant albums that came after Dave [clears throat] after Odorus.
“And they were kind of dismissed because people just couldn’t … I think it was out of a sense of loyalty — misguided loyalty, because I think he would have wanted his legacy to go on and on and on."
A new EP, and multimedia project
Gwar expects to release a new EP, "The Return of Gor Gor" — its first new music in three years — on July 25. It actually is a multimedia project, with a companion graphic novel.
The disc will consist of three new songs and four live tracks.
Why include the live tracks?
"We just wanted to fill it out and make people spend more money on it," Beefcake said, with tongue again firmly in cheek.
“Originally it was going to be a couple of songs to go with the graphic novel," he said. "But then we couldn’t stop once we started, so we wrote three epic tracks. We just wanted to turn it into something bigger just single to sing along with the comic. So it just sort of grew.”GWAR bassist Beefcake the Mighty
“Originally it was going to be a couple of songs to go with the graphic novel," he said. "But then we couldn’t stop once we started, so we wrote three epic tracks.
"We just wanted to turn it into something bigger just single to sing along with the comic. So it just sort of grew.”
The first single, "Lot Lizard," tells the typically perverse story.
“Gor Gor, his mother basically was enslaved by a traveling circus, and unbeknownst to the circus she was pregnant and she gave birth to this egg and she got hit by this circus train and the egg hatched and it was a cute little baby Gor Gor," Beefcake said.
"And it was exploited by the ringmaster and the circus, and he was sort of pimped out and was forced into a life of teenage prostitution.
“And so ‘Lot Lizard’ is sort of a microcosm of his prostitution life. And so where else do you go? You go to the truck stop and you got all these guys in trucks that are … they’re moving goods all across America, God bless ‘em, but they get lonely and they need a little commercial company, as they call it.
“So he was pimped out and used and abused, and that led to his blood-mad rage. You’re a product of your environment and your upbringing. And you treat a young Tyrannosaurus Rex like that, and he’s gonna get pissed.”
'The show must go on'
Beefcake said many of the fans who stepped away from GWAR have returned.
"You can’t stop GWAR," he said. "It’s a group effort. We built this all together. It wasn’t just [Brockie's] band — like any band, it’s a group effort.
"And a lot of people from the outside don’t perceive it that way. And so there’s a lot of people that stepped away from GWAR. But most of them have come back."
"So here we are — we’re 40 years into this and no signs of slowing down, and definitely no signs of stopping.”GWAR bassist Beefcake the Mighty
He noted there were other characters in the GWAR lineup — Techno Destructo, Flattus Maximus and Sexecutioner — who have stepped away.
And band members, hidden behind the heavy costumes, have rotated in other roles For example, the current Blöthar had two runs playing Beefcake.
An online list shows two dozen people have played in the band, and Beefcake acknowledges he has been in and out of GWAR several times over 30 years.
“I am Beefcake number 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12," he said. "But the planet I come from, the planet Cholesterol, everybody on that planet is a Beefcake the Mighty — we’re all fairly identical.
"So most people don’t even notice when one replaces another one. Of course, I am the best looking and the most talented of all Beefcakes, so they keep calling me back.”
He acknowledges GWAR's success has spawned and influenced other costumed bands, but said GWAR also "cherry picked from Alice Cooper and KISS and pro wrestling and Monty Python and Looney Tunes and things like that."
"And so it makes sense that people come along behind us and take from what we do — and do that more successful than we.
"Call that The Ramones syndrome — bands like Green Day wouldn’t have anything without the influence of The Ramones, and The Ramones pretty much always toured in a van, and Green Day is huge.
“But that’s just the way it works. Without us, there probably wouldn’t be a Mushroomhead or a Slipknot, but without Alice Cooper and KISS, there probably wouldn’t be GWAR.”
And so GWAR will continue on, Beefcake said.
"As one of the songs from the new record says, ‘The show must go on,’ and that’s always been the ethic of this band," he said. "And we do it because the show must go on. And GWAR is the show.
"I think in some ways GWAR is stronger than ever. I mean, the presence of Odorus is missed, but so is the presence of other people who have just stepped away and are no longer active in the group.
"Their influence is still felt and is also missed, but the show must go on. So here we are — we’re 40 years into this and no signs of slowing down, and definitely no signs of stopping.”
