WASHINGTON – If you’ve never been to a GWAR concert or even heard of the Richmond-based shock rock band, think of blood, guts and aliens. The quintet resembles intergalactic goblins when decked out in their full regalia.
According to legend, frontman Oderus Urungus (who also goes by the human name Dave Brockie) was born about 43 billion years ago on a planet called Scumdogia. He and his cohorts, members of the fierce warrior class Scumdogs of the Universe, were banished to earth after a series of “cosmic crimes.”
Eventually they gave birth to the human race, an act so foul that their master trapped them in a frozen cell somewhere in Antarctica for many millennia. They escaped in the 1980s when the widespread use of hairspray burned a hole in the ozone, thus allowing them to taste freedom for the first time in millions of years.
The galactic warriors will bring their satirical heavy metal to the Merriweather Post Pavilion Monday evening, where they will be playing with shock rock godfather Alice Cooper and goth poster child Marilyn Manson.
WTOP had the opportunity to chat with Oderus about a variety of topics, from Steven Spielberg to RG3. Here are excerpts from the interview:
On the Redskins
“I love the team, hate the name. I hate what they did to RG last year. It was very, very ugly. I am convinced Mr. Shanahan is just a raving idiot – completely narcissistic, self-involved: ‘Gotta win, gotta protect the legacy, gotta give my kid a job.’ But thank God his kid seems to have some smarts, and we’ve gotten Bruce Allen back in there who’s created a really strong team. I think that when RG comes back this year, he’s going to be wiser, I think he’s going to be stronger, I think they’re going to play him a lot smarter. I think a Kirk Cousins-RG3 change-up could really mess some people up.”
On the Super Bowl
“We’re gonna win the top, we’re gonna win the division again. The Redskins are going to go to the Super Bowl this year.”
But “they’re not going to win. And you know why they’re not going to win? Because they’re not going to change that stupid name of theirs. I don’t care how many millions of dollars Dan Snyder is making off the word ‘Redskins,’ but you have to accept the fact that a lot of people are offended by that name.”
“I would keep all the imagery the same. I would call the team Washington Warriors.”
On Spielberg
“I’d like to see ‘Jaws 8’ even if there isn’t a seven or a six. I’d like just to go to eight and make it 8-D except make Jaws a crocodile and make it in New Orleans during Katrina.”
“We’ll have an old lady fighting a giant crocodile. The old lady will win.”
On “War Horse”
“It was a really bad movie. It was really sappy.”
“Once you make ‘Shindler’s List,’ ‘Jaws,’ you’re pretty much immortal. We’ll forgive him an indulging snoozefest like that.”
On the NSA scandal
“You think if that guy had access to that kind of information he would be staying in a hotel room in Hong Kong? I think he’s over-blowing what he thinks he knows a hell of a lot. I think he’s probably insane. He dropped out of high school, he couldn’t finish community college, he had a low-level position and then all of a sudden here we are? I think something really, really weird is going on.”
“I think it’s a lot different than the trial of that dude, Bradley Manning, and Julian Assange. All those guys are going into new places as far as how the international judiciary system operates.”
On music
“Just this morning I was listening to battle songs of the Soviet Union, especially from the World War II period.”
“Let me tell you something, Washington, D.C., their national anthem is better. It’s a lot better.”
“It’s very stirring and it’s also in Russian, so you can’t understand a word of it, so you’re like, ‘Excellent, I’m not getting brainwashed by some idiotic lyric.'”
On books
“I’m reading about pirates right now. I’m getting ready to write a novel about Blackbeard, so I’m doing some deep research. Before that, I polished off ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.’ I had to do it at some point, all 15,000 pages of it.”
“I read voraciously and continually, and I have a Kindle to do it with. There’s no way I can carry around all the books I need with me. I travel constantly, as you can imagine. I can’t take my library with me.”
You can catch GWAR Monday at the Merriweather Post Pavilion. Tickets start at $40 and can be purchased here. GWAR is also hosting a GWAR-B-Q August 17 at Hadad’s Lake in Richmond. Purchase tickets here.
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