The post GWAR Roar Back Against MAGA Outrage: “GWAR Normalizing Violence Is Patently Absurd” appeared first on Consequence.
As we reported earlier this week, MAGA is fairly miffed at GWAR. The legendary shock rock band’s recent on-stage antics, which includes staged disembowelments and decapitations of effigies of public figures like Donald Trump and Elon Musk, is the latest source of faux outrage by conservatives. But since we still technically have free speech in this country, GWAR have roared back regarding the “controversy,” and its more on-brand than their giant, people-eating worm.
In a new interview with Billboard, singer Michael “Blöthar the Berserker” Bishop responded in kind to the blitz of media coverage stemming from the band’s set at Chicago’s Riot Fest last week. That includes items like this mostly asinine celebrity.land headline, “Heavy Metal Band Stage Phony Beheading of Elon Musk, Murder Trump in Shocking Festival Performance.” (I can practically hear the pearls being clutched.)
“The idea that GWAR is normalizing violence is patently absurd,” Bishop said. He went on to add, “Yeah, it pissed me off! We’re a group of artists that makes art, and it’s really the idea that what we have done is normalizing violence…there’s nothing normal about the violence that goes on at a GWAR show. It’s a cartoon, it’s Looney Tunes.”
Bishop also struck back at a series of tweets (including those from a supposedly fake X/Twitter account, @HotTakeKaren) that said their performance wasn’t “edgy, it’s grotesque and reckless.” To which Bishop replied, “We’re not millionaires that are afraid of what people are going to say when they see what we do.”
Heads Up: GWAR’s Bud of Gods collection is currently BOGO at the Consequence Shop.
As so many have pointed out again and again across social media, GWAR have staged these so-called spectacles for years, even disemboweling a Hillary Clinton effigy in the past. As Riot Fest tweeted out after the surge of reactionary press, a claim like “GWAR crossed a major line” is “one of the funniest f**king things I’ve ever heard.”
As for the addition of a fake Elon Musk (wearing a DOGE shirt, of course) to their stage show, Bishop said the band often focuses its rage on the most relevant public figures of the time. But whoever is on the chopping block at a given show, it’s all done in the name of silly-but-transcendent art.
“It’s a parody of violence,” Bishop said. “It’s trying to make violence into a spectacle and show humanity’s absolute absurdity. That’s what GWAR is, it’s absurdism. To say it’s normalizing violence is really reaching.”
After doing this kind of thing for four-plus decades, GWAR have learned to roll with the punches. Reflecting on the band’s 40-year run, Bishop told Heavy Consequence in a recent interview, “[It’s been] bumpy, to say the least — like a log flume or something. Just constantly plunging and rising, waiting for the next drop. It’s been a blast.”
If you want to see GWAR’s spectacle in your town, their North American fall tour picks back up on October 5th at Aftershock festival in Sacramento, and runs through a November 22nd show in Norfolk, Virginia. Grab your tickets here.
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