GWAR

You go see GWAR, people die, it's as natural as rain on Sunday morning.

"It is I, ODERUS URUNGUS, lead singer of the sickest band in metal history, Earth’s only openly extra-terrestrial rock band, and the destined destroyers of not only the human race but also reality itself. GWAR! Hulking, heaving, dribbling WAR-GOD’s who like nothing better than putting hordes of our sniveling fans to the sword while playing the marauding mutant metal that we are famous for! Star’s of stage and screen, carvers of stem and spleen! GWAR LIVES!"

—Oderus Urungus, GWAR Mythos

What happens when you take the theatrical stage performances of Alice Cooper, the costumes and makeup of KISS, Audience Participation of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and throw it in a meat grinder? You get the self-proclaimed overlords of all existence known as GWAR.

Originally hailing from Antartica, then somewhere past Hell’s Eighth Lock, yet somehow having a mailing address in Richmond, Virginia all the while, GWAR is a shock rock/Heavy Metal band whose on-stage antics spray their audiences with blood, drugs, toxic waste, and other fluids.

GWAR provides examples of the following tropes:

• Action Girl: Sylmenstra Hymen. During her tenure with the band she dished out as much punishment as any of the men.
• Alien Invasion Many tours have at some point featured aliens. Especially the Ragnarok tour.
  • An reversal of the trope taks place in most tours where one of the aliens is anally Impaled with Extreme Prejudice. Sleazy P. Martini refers to this as "Anal Probing, GWAR style."
  • The fact that the band themselves are portrayed as space barbarians seeking to destroy the planet counts towards this as well.
• Animated Adaptation Parodied in Skulhedface.
• Anything That Moves: Oderus is far from picky.
• Anti-Love Song: "I hate love songs and I hate lovers/I hate everything that I can't have so I hate you"
• Badass Normal: Sleazy P. Martini.
• Biker Babe: One of Orderus' former girlfriends. You can guess how the relationship ended.
• Black Comedy
• Blasphemous Boast "I call out your God till before me he stands/But don't send me Jesus/He's only a man."
  • Later in the video he beats Jesus in basketball.
    • And then they barbecue and eat him. Roast Lamb of God, anyone?
• Blue and Orange Morality: Averted. If there's any moral system that exists where GWAR comes from, it's pretty clear that they're violating it.
• Cool Sword: Oderus' trademark broadsword, lovingly named Lick.
  • That's "Unt Lick."
• Creation Myth GWAR created the human race by having sex with apes. The Master was not happy about this, so He froze GWAR in antarctic ice.
  • In the beginning, The Master farted, thus creating the universe.
    • Actually "Approximately 40 billion years ago, the Master of all Reality took a shit, and thus the universe was born."
      • "But that was not enough. He had to wipe. And what better way to wipe than with war? So he created the Scumdogs of the Universe."
• Crowd Song: "Sick Of You". Also, when it's done live, the audience shouts out the answers to the questions in "Slaughterama".
• Dead Baby Comedy Quite literally.
  • The live version of "Have You Seen Me" off the Road Behind single epitomizes this:

This kid is eighteen years old! Besides, I happen to know the law here in Cananananada, and I happen to know that it's not rape if it's dead! *baby crying sound effect*

• Deadly Game: Slaughterama. Because when your life is shit, you haven't got much to lose.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu??: The entire premise of "Beyond Hell". GWAR is sent to Hell, and to escape they must defeat Jewcifer.
  • Before "Beyond Hell" was released, GWAR wrote Anti-Anti-Christ. "I choose to be a blasphemer/To bring your kind to heel/Bring forth the beast and cleave him with my steel"
    • Before that, from their "Scumdogs of the Universe" album, was the song "The Horror of Yig," about an elder from Cthulhu lore. They dismembered the creature on stage for a few tours.
• Double Standard Rape (Divine on Mortal): "My quest for sex consumes all my life/Being a God I do what I like"
• Evil Versus Evil: On their quest to destroy all existence, GWAR often faces off against and destroys other evil entities.
• Fictional Political Party: Their album War Party centers around a political party (named "The War Party") that supports policies dedicated especially to the eradication of the human race through global war and hatred. The party's symbol is said to be the "Krosstika," a combination of the Christian cross and the Nazi swastika, representing "two great hates that hate great together." According to GWAR lore, the political party has since disbanded.
• Gag Penis: Oderus's "Cuttlefish of Cthulhu"
• Godzilla Threshold: During the Beyond Hell tours, GWAR has been beaten down and sodomized by Jewcifer. There seems to be no hope, except for when Gor-Gor comes and eats Satan. Gor-Gor then tries to eat GWAR, but is killed by Oderus.
• A Good Name for a Rock Band: When in its infancy as a mere joke opening for Death Piggy, the original name was "GWAAARRRGGHHLLLGH." It was later shortened after they noticed people would come to see the joke band and leave before the headlining Death Piggy played.
  • Despite the bands mention of the above in fan club newsletters and interviews, some fans still vehemently proclaim the band name is an acronym.
    • One of the more popular ones accepted is God What A Racket.
• Heavy Meta Metal Metal Land.
• High-Pressure Blood: A staple of their live shows. Lampshaded by Sleazy P. Martini in "The Gwarnage Campaign". "Wow, look at all the PSI in his main aorta artery."
• Humans Are Morons: "Back on the road, it's no lie, stupid fucking humans pay money to die."
• I Am the Band: Dave Brockie aka Oderus Urungus, as he's the only remaining founding member and the idea of the band was his in the first place. In fact, several characters in the band have had multiple people play them.
• Impossibly Cool Clothes
• Insignificant Little Blue Planet: The Master banished GWAR to the worst place in the universe he could find: Earth
  • As Oderus calls it in many instances, "This stinking mudball planet", among others.
• Intentionally Awkward Title: A main staple of the band from their songs, to their albums, to their videos, to their tours, to their et. all...
• Kick the Dog: Almost literally. Oderus throws a dog into a whirling death machine. And then has sex with it.
  • The dog or the machine?
• Killed Off for Real: After Cory Smoot died on tour, the band decided to retire his character. Officially, Flattus has returned to his home planet and is never to return.
• Moral Guardians: Parodied in "The Morality Squad"
• Never Speak Ill of the Dead: Averted. GWAR trash talks and re-kills the deceased (Laci Peterson, Michael Jackson and El Duce, to name a few) on stage.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Most times Gor Gor, their pet Tyrannosaurus Rex, is resurrected as a cyborg-zombie dinosaur. Who was forced fed crack as a baby. Who might be Oderus' bastard son.
• Old Shame: The band is not very fond of We Kill Everything.
• Omnicidal Maniac: "I want to murder everything in the entire world, Every man and woman and every boy and girl."
  • Also from the self-titled song on "We Kill Everything"- "We will kill everything, including ourselves."
• Pedophile Priest: Father Bohab. Phallus in Wonderland has him caught waving his "lucky charms" at an alter boy. He was then sodomized with a large cross, a fate met in later tours.
• Puny Humans: Oderus constantly refers to Earthlings as "human filth."
• Rock Opera: Pretty much every one of GWAR's albums, along with accompanying movies/videos and even comic miniseries.
• Running Gag: Among GWAR fans: "So......how do you hide money from a hippie?" "PUT IT UNDER THE SOAP!"
• Shout-Out: "The Salaminizer". Sung to the rhythm of "Gangsta Gangsta" by rap group NWA. Dave Brockie enjoyed NWA's work and decided to put his own spin on it.
  • Urungus's penis is named after Cthulhu. The band also fought Yig regularly early on.
• Squick: From showering their audience in fake blood and semen to songs like "Fuckin' An Animal", GWAR runs the gamut of stomach-churning.
  • A nice example from "Bloody Mary", the lovely phrase "Her womb explodes in a meat maggot mesh".
• Stock Sound Effects: Used in their live shows.
• Refuge in Audacity: Many of their songs and most of their live show.
• The Show Must Go On: During Tour De Scum GWAR had protesters on stage who blocked the show from happening. After asking if they are in show business (no? Well then get the fuck off the stage!) Sleazy P. Martini declares the show must go on.
  • A serious version of this trope occured when Cory Smoot (AKA Flattus Maximus) died while on GWAR's Fall 2011 US tour. Shortly after his death, Dave Brockie announced that the tour would resume as planned and that the character would be resigned permanantly in honor of Cory.
• Take That: They bring celebrities and politicians on stage for ritualistic public execution.
  • Oddly enough, Oderus considers being killed by GWAR to be flattering.
• Those Wacky Nazis: They come up pretty often.
  • One of the victims in Slaughterama is a Nazi skinhead.
  • Wharghoul is about an American zombie troop who joined the SS.
  • Sonderkommando's title is taken from death camp units.
  • KZ Necromancer mentions Mengele and a plot to save Hitler's semen.
  • Poor Ole' Tom was killed by Nazi skinheads.
  • Hitler's vomiting face and a Nazi soldier were in the flesh column.
  • Beyond Hell (and the tours following it) featured a half Hilter half Jesus. Jesus was a dick, but Hitler was (in Orderus' own words) pretty cool.
  • Dave Brockie has pissed on Hitler's Real Life grave.
• Tyrannosaurus Rex: the afore mentioned Gor Gor.
• Villain Protagonist
• Villain Song: "The Insidious Soliloquy of Dr. Prof. Skullheadface", "Morality Squad", "Surf of Syn", "Private Pain of Techno Destructo" and "Techno's Song" are all sung by GWAR's enemies.
  • Also "The Salaminizer", "Crack In The Egg" and many more... About the band themselves.
• World of Ham