As everybody knows, GWAR are a group of space monsters who descended to Earth to fertilize the human race and play music, and anybody who tries to tell you differently (including the “people” supposedly in the band) is a fucking liar. Please don’t read this interview we did with some guy who claims he’s Oderus Urugnus. Just move on and pretend you didn’t even see it.

Vice: So what happened, did you just decide one day that dressing as a monster and splashing fake blood and sperm around was your mission in life?
Dave Brockie: Ha, well, we’ve been doing this for 25 years now and the whole thing started as a joke. One of our friends was working on a movie called Scumdogs of the Universe and had the costumes for that, some of us were playing in punk rock bands and stuff, so we just combined the two things. Since then we built up a whole story around GWAR, how we were banished from space to live on earth, where we fucked the apes and created the human race, coming to our new record, Lust in Space, where GWAR flies back to outer space to kick ass. Our creative band meetings work in a pretty simple way: we take those ideas which make us crack up the most.

Who makes you guys’ costumes?
Every member of the band has constantly refined their own character and costumes again and again. We have to make them ourselves. No one else can make them the way we want them to be. Take a costume for a movie, for example: they only have to last a few times on set. Whereas our costumes have to work night, after night, after night—and our show is pretty brutal.

Right, but how do you actually make those costumes?
They are mainly made out of sports pads and liquid rubber. We make the shapes out of clay and then mold them, put them together, make them look all pretty and then go on stage and kick ass.

I imagine that kind of costume is pretty heavy, then there’s the stage lights and packed locations—it all seems pretty hard to handle.
Well, my costume weighs around 40-60 pounds. And it gets heavier during the show, when it starts to suck up all the sweat—it is fucking hot under these things. It is like gearing up for a football match.

As well as the insane costumes in your shows, you pretend to kill, stab, and torture people.
My dad thinks it is stupid, but everyone else loves it. I mean, my dad is very old.

Would you rather live up to your costume and character every day?
No way. Out of costume we call ourselves RAWG. This is when we are playing music which is more mainstream and not that heavy. In real life we are all pretty normal and boring people. I mean, life with the band is insane enough, so it happens automatically that you mellow down when you have the chance. Some people still don’t get that I’m only the cruel Oderus Urugnus onstage. Even Fox News wanted to have an interview with Oderus on television.

You guys love fake blood.
It washes out pretty easily with clothes—it is just food coloring—but hair is more difficult. After the tour we are all pink.

STEFANIE SCHELLWIES