GWAR Interview 10.06.2007

From the Crowd had the opportunity to interview Oderus Urungus, lead singer of the sickest band in metal history, Earths only openly extra-terrestrial rock band, and the destined destroyers of not only the human race but also reality itself, GWAR, before their performance with the Viva La Band tour, that played at the Marquee theater on October 6.  Just incase you don’t know, GWAR is a band consisting of hulking, heaving, dribbling alien WAR-GODs who would like nothing better than putting hordes of their sniveling fans to the sword while playing the marauding mutant metal that they are famous for! Stars of stage and screen, carvers of stem and spleen!

From the Crowd: Hello, to get us started, please tell us who you are…

Oderus Urungus: I’m Oderus, Master of this planet and all of the filthy, miserable beings that crawl upon it, so you have an audience with a creature that pretty much knows all of the answer or will pretend that he does, very effectively.

FTC: Now for all of the slaves out there that are dumb and might not know too much about GWAR, can you please inform us what you do with this band?

Oderus:  I’m the singer of course, I had the loudest voice and the biggest sword, and I fancy myself the leader, even though everyone in this band is so free spirited and impossible to lead, even when you beat the shit out of them.  So, I don’t know, I the job of yelling into the mic and killing the giant monsters, that is pretty much what I do.

FTC: Since your rebirth here on Earth, has your opinion changed at all about this planet that you refer to as a mudball?

Oderus:  Well… no not really.  I still find it the same reprehensible, awful, boring…  Pretty much the Cleveland of outer space  It’s what Earth is referred to in outer space.  You know out there, they’re like, you deserve to go to Earth.  That is why we ended up here, because it was the most inaccessible, mudball, boring planet in all of the galaxy.  Now, when we got here, we did have sex with all of the animals and created the human race, and we’ve made it a lot more exciting since then.  I don’t really know what’s been going on in outer space… so, maybe Earth has become the, oh what a good place to go to on Earth?  Hmm… can’t think of a place… well the Monaco… of outer space.  I donno it can be pretty cool.  I know I badmouth Earth all of the time, but it is my home planet now.  All my followers are here and we do rock the house.  I don’t want to bite the hand that feeds too much… might tear it off completely.

FTC: The human race is described as being the most annoying race in the Universe, so why do perform us, or are we more performing for you from the crowd?

Oderus:  We’re not really performing for you, we’re just using the metal thing as a ruse to draw people close to us, so they can be destroyed and murdered and we can feed off of their soul.  We can’t help it that we’re also brilliant musicians, I mean, that just kind of comes with it naturally.  But yes, we use the metal as lure, because, even though you’re just human and inferior scum and all that shit, you still have this certain soul energy about you and every human can still be harvested for their Jizmogloben, and this is what we do.  We suck the Jizmogloben out of your soul and we use it to power not only ourselves, but also our war machines.  Even gnats have Jizmogloben, everything does.  Jizmogloben, is the stuff that makes the dead walk.  That is what we feed on.  The soul, if you will.  Flies, cats, dogs, cows, dogs.. did I already say dogs?

Yes…

Well cats, dogs, cats, human, you’re all the same on the food chain for us.

FTC:  What type of venue do you prefer to draw your victims or slaves into?  The more intimate club setting or the large arena?

Oderus: We really like the large ones, the more people that are there, the more for us… people always ask us how much blood to we go through in a night.  Well if you figure, 8 gallons of blood per person, 10,000-person venue, oh well, that’s where the math gets too complicated, but let’s just say it is up there!  The more the merrier, or should I say, the more the murderer, or something like that.

FTC:  So then, is it disappointing for you to play a venue, like the Marquee tonight that only has about 1,000 victims?

Oderus: Oh, well, we’re happy with it.  When everything is a disappointment to you, you learn to be happy with what you got and we’ve played the Marquee many times, and always had a great night.  I can’t help but notice there is a new building right next door.   That was not there last time, you industrious ant like humans, just building shit all of the time.

FTC:  That’s a new light rail system too.. (pointing to the other side)

Oderus, Wow and they caught the Baseline Killer as well, he was an evil motherfucker, a big GWAR fan though, I heard.

FTC:  Why did GWAR decide to contribute “War is all we know” to the Viva La Bands VOL 2 CD?

Oderus:  Oh, I don’t know, other people make these decisions for me.  I believe we had put out all of the other songs, on other things at that point.  I also think Bam actually liked that song, and he’s so deluded he actually thought there was a video with that song as well, but there isn’t.  It’s a great song and we’re just trying to get as much of out latest album out as much as possible.  I think that is why we did it. 

FTC:  Are there any pre show rituals that you or the band may do before going on stage to harvest the Jizmogloben?

Oderus:  Drink, drink a lot.  I know that might sound mundane, but all bands do that.  The pre show, Jägermeister and red bull, battle bombs, we call them.  Besides that, we stumble around all day, as humans, trying to pick up prostitutes and score crack.  After that, we stumble into the dressing room, hopefully 30 minutes before the show starts and transform back into our bestial selves and go out and put on the greatest show in Rock’n Roll.
 
FTC:  So, did you already hit Van Buren street today to get your whores and crack?
 
Oderus:  No!  Is that where we go?  How far away us that?
 
FTC:  About 5 miles?
 
Oderus:  Great! We’re there… after the show.
 
FTC:  Out of all the songs that you have released, do you feel that there has been one that may have been misinterpreted by your slaves?
 
Oderus:  I think, maybe the song, “Baby Dick Fuck”, was misinterpreted by someone as trying to have sex with babies, but that is completely wrong.  What it is really about is trying to have sex with a pregnant woman, using her baby as the rubber.  I thought I was misrepresented there.  It is very important that people get their head on straight about that, because that is a big difference.  The two must be differentiated.
 
FTC:  After being around for so many years and touring so much, what are you tricks of the trade?
 
Oderus:   People practice all of the time and sound check and we don’t practice anymore.  Don’t leave your best shot on the practice tee, is basically what I am saying.  Sometimes we’ll being doing sound check and it sounds magnificent and then the show will suck.  Therefore, I don’t go to sound check anymore.
 
FTC:  Those are all the questions I have, do want to leave us with some information about your current CD and upcoming projects?
 
Oderus:  Well, we’re at the end of this tour, still supporting the Beyond Hell CD, which has been out for over a year.  This is the final leg in support of that CD, so come out and expose yourself to that.  After this tour is over, we will be retreating back to our Antarctic stronghold and getting ready for, what is just around the corner, the greatest celebration in the history of this planet the 25th anniversary of GWAR, alive on this planet.  That’s just a year away.  So, we’re going to spend the whole next year in the studio just fucking off, making products that no one will ever listen to, except for fans, or course, because they love everything that we do.  That’s it!
 
FTC:  Great!  Thanks for taking the time out to meet with us today!
 
Oderus: Thank you!

O.A.R Interview 03.30.2007

From the Crowd Photographer, Stephanie Baldwin, was able to interview two members of O.A.R backstage at the Tempe Music Festival on March 30th.  Here is what From the Crowd learned from the two members of this Road Warrior band:

From The Crowd -   You are well known as a band that is always on the road.  Can you tell me the difference between audiences on the East coast and the West coast?

O.A.R – It is really hard to say, here is Arizona, we play at the Celebrity Theater often and it may be the venue itself, but it is definitely one of the loudest shows that we play.  It’s definitely hard to compare, it really depends on who is at the show.  You play a show like this around ASU and you don’t know where the people are from.  We have lots of friends that came out here for college, and vice versa, and you never know where people are from who we went to college with that came out here.  We have defiantly had great experiences all over.

FtC – When you are writing your music, do you write targeted towards a specific demographic or audience, or do you write what you want to or feel like at the time?

O.A.R -   We defiantly write what we want to write.  We don’t feel like we have any pressure to write a certain way.  No one tells us how to write, and that is what makes us really happy

FtC – What is like from going from venues that had 100 people in them to selling out Madison Square Garden twice in a year?

O.A.R – It’s pretty surreal.  The amazing thing is that there were a lot of people that were at those shows of a 100 people that are at the shows today.  We have grown up together. We’ve been together for a long time, and its great to still be together and experience this together  It’s a really great feeling.  I remember when we played Madison Square Garden, last January, the first time, there was a sense, a feeling that not only that we had arrived a certain point in our career, a momentous occasion,  but so had the audience, in a way, as well.  If it wasn’t for the audience, we wouldn’t be doing what we are doing.  The relationship goes interjoinedly .  It’s an amazing feeling to walk out on stage and play in front of 19,000 people.  I’m not going to lie, it’s amazing.  But we have also had amazing shows playing in front of 100 people too.  I’m not really sure it’s the amount that’s there, it’s really the audience and how they react.

FtC – The sax is not a typically band instrument, how did you join the band?  How long have you been

O.A.R – I’ve been playing for 18 years, I was 10.  The way it integrated into the band was, I joined over a very gradual process.  I would show up at sound checks and at a show, started a few shows, then a few pieces on the record.  It was very gradual.  I just kind of felt the way around.  On the last record, I realized that the saxophone wasn’t always necessary on all of the songs.  It’s a great experience, to know when to add it to a song.  It has been a lot of trail and error.  You’d add it in, and then it wasn’t the right time, then we would add it at an unexpected time, and it was just what we needed the missing piece.

FtC – Last question, Are you working on any new records at this point in time?

O.A.R – Yes, we have a live album and DVD that will be available of the latest performance at the Garden.  We are just finishing that right now.  It is probably the best that we have ever done and we are very excited about it!

FtC – Thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us and we look forward to the show this evening!

O.A.R – No, thank you!  Tempe and ASU have always been great supporters!

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