GWAR's Oderus Urungus: My Life Story

WHERE AND WHEN WERE YOU BORN? “I was assembled on the planet Scumdogia, in Syntho Womb Five. I was constructed by millions of parts that were floating around the galaxy. My father was a supercomputer and my mother was a petri dish. I was rolled off onto a giant penis, and raped at birth, which was kinda painful. Can you imagine what it feels like to be raped when you breathe for the first time? But I was bred for war by The Master! How old am I? 43 billiontry years.”

IS IT TRUE THAT ORIGINAL GWAR WARRIOR SLYMENSTRA HYMEN IS YOUR SISTER?

“What? Who has been spreading such vile muck about us? If that were the case, then I’d be guilty of fucking my sister all these years… Actually, that sort of thing is encouraged in outer space, so maybe I should own up. Yes, I have been fucking my sister – and it feels great. There, are you satisfied?”

WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR PARENTS?

“A sad story. They continued to vomit out members of GWAR, before being destroyed in a proto-plasmic explosion at the factory. I still miss them. It would be nice to get a little package from home every so often.”

HOW DID YOU END UP ON THIS MISERABLE PLANET?

“We were banished by The Master. We had done a lot of vile, despicable, depraved things in our existence. But the final straw was when we decimated the wrong planet, raping and pillaging our way across what remained of it. Hey, anybody can make a mistake. But The Master was so angry that he summoned his death squad to throw us in the death pod and shoot us out to the farthest corner of the galaxy, to this miserable, useless pile of cinder, which was then called Planet Shit… and some say still is! We were sent here, because it was believed that we could do no harm, and that we would waste away, cut off from the delights of bringing a holocaust to other worlds. Oh, how wrong he was.”

HOW DID YOU MEET THE REST OF THE MEMBERS OF GWAR?

“We met in the heat of battle, doing the most warped and depraved activities together. Over the billennia many have come and gone, but I do recall meeting BalSac The Jaws Of Death when we fought over the baby-raping machine. And we bonded, raping side by side. It was a magnificent moment. As for Beefcake The Mighty, he loves to eat, and eat, and eat. And I said to him, ‘Hey, you like eating’. To which he replied, ‘Fuck you!’. I warmed to him, and they’ve been my partners in battle and carnage ever since. There are now five core members of GWAR, with Flattus Maximus and Jizmak Da Gusha making up the current legion. It is an army to make the galaxy quake in fear.”

WHY DID YOU DECIDE MUSIC WAS YOUR MISSION?

“It wasn’t us, but our original manager Sleazy P Martini. It’s a long story, but I will try to condense it all down for you puny Hammer humans. The Master got very angry when we had sex with apes and gave birth to the human race. It went against all his rules. So he froze us for an eternity in Antarctica. But then the ozone layer began to peel away and we slowly awoke in our ice coffins. At that point, Sleazy’s helicopter was shot down by the Argentinian air force, and crashed into our temple. He stumbled on us as we were stirring, fed us crack, which stopped us from killing him, and assumed for some reason that we were actually a rock’n’roll band.”

WHAT DOES ‘GWAR’ MEAN?

“The name itself [often assumed to mean God What an Awful Racket] was given to us by Sleazy, because he couldn’t understand what we were saying. He just kept saying to us, ‘What’s your band’s name?’, and we replied, ‘Grrrrwwwaaaarrr’. He thought we were saying GWAR, and so he decided to call us that. Later on, he claimed on the Phallus In Wonderland video that we fixed up his helicopter to fly out of there. But I think he made this up to look good. However, he turned us into a drug-addicted heavy metal band, which we went along with. I still remember the first time he gave me a guitar. I didn’t know what to do with it, so I smashed this thing up, and it made a dreadful noise. But kids seemed to like it, and that’s what we’ve been doing ever since. As long as the crack doesn’t run out, then we’ll carry on.”

OVER THE YEARS YOU’VE EVOLVED THE WAY YOU LOOK. IS THAT NATURAL, OR THE RESULT OF HIDEOUS ANIMAL EXPERIMENTS?

“Oh, hideous animal experiments, what else? I love animal experiments. The thought of inflicting pain on any living creature makes my penis explode, in truth. I keep evolving my armour because I just get fatter and fatter – and the armour hides my incredible folds of fat. But the more animals that die in honour of my fat the better I like it!”

WHAT HAPPENS TO THOSE MEMBERS OF GWAR WHO DISAPPEAR?

“We feast on their burning carcasses, and then shit them out into a festering pool. In other words, we eat our own! That way we do honour to their memories. It’s better than just rotting away in a grave, right? “

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT FROM THE MORALITY SQUAD ONCE DETACHED AND CONFISCATED YOUR ‘CUTTLEFISH OF CTHULU’. HOW PAINFUL WAS THAT?

“Don’t mention that name to me, if you want to live, slime! What he did to me was appalling. He beat me up so badly, that I still feel the terrible pain to this day. I have never had my ass kicked so hard. And then he dared to cut off my cuttlefish – which you humans refer to as a penis. But it is a living creature, and the thought of what he dared to do stirs my loins. I hate Corporal Punishment, and took great pleasure in exacting my revenge when I was given the chance. But this isn’t over yet. The next time I meet him, there will be bloodshed on a scale unimagined. How painful was it to have my cuttlefish removed? It was beyond your comprehension. I survived, though, to become stronger, and the cuttlefish is more impressive than ever.”

IS YOUR CURRENT CUTTLEFISH THE ORIGINAL? OR A REPLACEMENT?

“My glorious cuttlefish grows back every time it’s removed – and, believe me, I’ve lost it so many times. It’s been hacked off and bitten off, but that never prevents it from returning, bigger and more pulsating than ever. Only recently, an Eskimo woman leapt up at me and bit out one of the cuttlefish’s eyes. I can still see inside her belly when I go to sleep. It’s a hideous thing. But my cuttlefish is stupendous.”

IS IT TRUE ATTILA THE HUN CAME TO YOU FOR LESSONS IN CARNAGE?

“Attila The Hun roamed the planet while we were still frozen in Antarctica, in our tomb. But yes, we taught him well. How, you may ask? We invaded human dreams. Death, pestilence, depravity, rape, carnage, holocausts… We are responsible for all of these. Whenever you humans turn to the dark side and perform unspeakable atrocities, then you are merely doing our bidding. You wake up in the morning and feel the desire to hurt and rape? That’s because we are in you – there is no escape. And it’s not only Attila whom we inspired. Other sad specimens like Adolf Hitler and Ronald Reagan have also been urged on by us. The bad people of history are our true sons and daughters.”

ARE YOU ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR GLOBAL WARMING?

“What do you think? Of course we are. And you know how we did it? By farting on a scale that’s unimaginable to you humans. It was an infinite cloudburst. Both myself and Flattus Maximus are proud of the vast quantities of gas that pour out of our butts in a constant flow, and into your atmosphere. It is a beautiful thing. In fact, it’s so potent that whenever we use what you would call ‘laptops’, the screens turn yellow under the enormity of the flatulent attack.”

WHAT ACHIEVEMENT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF?

“I am proud of two things. Firstly, that after so much torture, rape, devastation and other such appalling acts – the likes of which would turn your stomach – that I am still alive. Still roaming free to carry on my unholy tasks. But secondly, I am proud of my giant penis; my cuttlefish. My sexual prowess and appetites are unfathomable. They are the stuff of legend and myth. Like I said, every time my penis is cut off, it grows back even bigger, and offers more opportunities for worship. I love the goo it spews out at will. I love being onstage and spreading my cum juice over the eager youth of the world, who gather down at the front of our shows. And then I watch as the acid content in that goo slowly melts their unsuspecting skin… No, that is what I am most proud of; that I am a sex god. I have done so much to make me proud in my 43 billiontry years in existence. But that is top of the list.”

LORDI – FAKES OR DISCIPLES?

“Yes, I am aware of these humans who dare to try and copy us. They are pathetic and deserve to be treated like others such as Slipknot and Kiss, those who attempt to pay homage to the mighty GWAR, and yet fall so far short of the task. How can mere humans hope to match us? But I am benevolent and kind, and would give these Lordi creatures the honour to perform with us anywhere in the world. So, come on Lordi, meet us anywhere you want on the planet. We shall gorge our appetites for metal – and you will bow to GWAR, and have proof that your attempts to pay homage to us are weak and irrelevant! And then we will eat you – which is the ultimate accolade that GWAR can give to any band.”

**OK, WHO IS THIS DAVE BROCKIE CHARACTER WHO SAYS HE IS YOU? **

“Who? Where is this creature? He is an insect who claims to be my alter ego. How dare this pinprick on the universe make such bold statements? I wish I could find him and inflict joyous pain on his body. He would learn the meaning of crossing Oderus Urungus. He releases records which are inconsequential drivel, and he angers me greatly. He will learn what it is like to feel the wrath of GWAR. Does anyone know where he is? Do not withhold the information, or else you will suffer as well.”

This was published in Metal Hammer issue 173.

Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021