GWAR
// Dave Brockie, bassist and vocalistGWAR are a shock-rock and thrash-metal band from Richmond, Virginia. “Hell-O” (1988), “Scumdogs Of The Universe” (1990), “The Road Behind [EP]” (1992), “America Must Be Destroyed” (1992), “This Toilet Earth” (1994), “Ragnarök” (1995), “Carnival Of Chaos” (1997), “We Kill Everything” (1999), and “Violence Has Arrived” (2001) are all available from Metal Blade Records, “Slaves Going Single” (2000), and “Let There Be Gwar” (2004) are both available from Slave Pit Records, “War Party” (2004), and “Beyond Hell” (2006) are both available from DRT Entertainment, “Lust In Space” (2009), and “Bloody Pit Of Horror” (2010) are both available from Metal Blade Records. GWAR are a two-time Grammy Award-nominated band best known for their elaborate sci-fi and horror-film inspired costumes, and graphic stage performances of political parodies and taboo themes.
Website: www.gwar.net
Photo: GWAR / GWAR.net
Interview:
Music and spirituality are closely interwoven. Spirituality is defined as “spiritual character, quality, or nature”. So to possess spirituality is to believe in the spirit – the spirit of life, will, consciousness, and to regard it as being separate from matter. It’s the idea that there is a force within our body that drives music and spirit.
To me this is indisputable. There is something that makes us get up every morning, venture forth into the world, and strive to make the seething mass of creation that surrounds us somehow bend to our will. For some people this means working a job they can’t stand and living a life that sucks. But somehow they manage to suffer through, living for the few moments of joy that life can offer. But for some of us, life is a sweeter struggle, for those of us that are lucky enough to do what we love for a living.
For the artist nothing is more important than spirituality. It is what makes us strive for expression, its what makes us pile into smelly vans and suffer endless privations for the sake of our music. And it is the strength of your spirit that decides the worth of the music we make. There is never so peaceful, never so satisfying, never so spiritual amoment than the completion of a successful performance. Dripping with sweat, ears still echoing with the roar of the crowd, utterly spent, this is the moment of profound spirituality. My body hums with the pulse of an ecstatic soul. Some claim to find this in church, or their family, or through the trial of athletics. But for me, my hallowed ground is the stages of the halls and clubs where I have spent my life making music. And a good show, whether I am in the crowd or on the stage, will satisfy my spirit.
One day this body will “give up the ghost”, and the spirit that drove it will depart this fleshy case. What happens then is any body’s guess. Personally I don’t believe that I will join God and his angels, nor do I cotton to the notion of eternal torment. I don’t know how the universe works and I don’t believe any man who says he does. But before my essence slips into the ether, throw on Thin Lizzy’s “Cowboy Song”, crank it up, and ask the fates that my soul joins with all that have come before me, in the spirit of Rock and Roll.
“Music and spirituality are closely interwoven… There is never so peaceful, never so satisfying, never so spiritual a moment than the completion of a successful performance.”
– Dave Brockie, bassist and vocalist in GWAR
