As we reported earlier this week, MAGA is pretty miffed at GWAR. The legendary shock rock band’s current on-stage antics, which incorporates staged disembowelments and decapitations of effigies of public figures like Donald Trump and Elon Musk, is the newest supply of fake outrage by conservatives. However since we nonetheless technically have free speech on this nation, GWAR have roared again concerning the “controversy,” and its extra on-brand than their big, people-eating worm.
In a brand new interview with Billboard, singer Michael “Blöthar the Berserker” Bishop responded in sort to the blitz of media protection stemming from the band’s set at Chicago’s Riot Fest final week. That features gadgets like this largely asinine New York Submit headline, “Heavy Steel Band Stage Phony Beheading of Elon Musk, Homicide Trump in Surprising Pageant Efficiency.” (I can virtually hear the pearls being clutched.)
Get GWAR Tickets Right here
“The concept that GWAR is normalizing violence is patently absurd,” Bishop stated. He went on so as to add, “Yeah, it pissed me off! We’re a gaggle of artists that makes artwork, and it’s actually the concept that what we’ve executed is normalizing violence…there’s nothing regular in regards to the violence that goes on at a GWAR present. It’s a cartoon, it’s Looney Tunes.”
Associated Video
Bishop additionally struck again at a sequence of tweets (together with these from a supposedly faux X/Twitter account, @HotTakeKaren) that stated their efficiency wasn’t “edgy, it’s grotesque and reckless.” To which Bishop replied, “We’re not millionaires which can be afraid of what individuals are going to say after they see what we do.”
Heads Up: GWAR’s Bud of Gods assortment is at present BOGO on the Consequence Store.
As so many have identified time and again throughout social media, GWAR have staged these so-called spectacles for years, even disemboweling a Hillary Clinton effigy previously. As Riot Fest tweeted out after the surge of reactionary press, a declare like “GWAR crossed a serious line” is “one of many funniest f**king issues I’ve ever heard.”
As for the addition of a faux Elon Musk (carrying a DOGE shirt, in fact) to their stage present, Bishop stated the band typically focuses its rage on essentially the most related public figures of the time. However whoever is on the chopping block at a given present, it’s all executed within the title of silly-but-transcendent artwork.
“It’s a parody of violence,” Bishop stated. “It’s attempting to make violence right into a spectacle and present humanity’s absolute absurdity. That’s what GWAR is, it’s absurdism. To say it’s normalizing violence is de facto reaching.”
After doing this sort of factor for four-plus many years, GWAR have discovered to roll with the punches. Reflecting on the band’s 40-year run, Bishop instructed Heavy Consequence in a current interview, “[It’s been] bumpy, to say the least — like a log flume or one thing. Simply continually plunging and rising, ready for the following drop. It’s been a blast.”
If you wish to see GWAR’s spectacle in your city, their North American fall tour picks again up on October fifth at Aftershock pageant in Sacramento, and runs by means of a November twenty second present in Norfolk, Virginia. Seize your tickets right here.
@riotfest @GWAR 📸: @Kate Russell
♬ unique sound – Riot Fest
Noticed a good friend’s video from Riot Fest—GWAR mock-beheaded Elon Musk on stage. That’s not edgy, it’s grotesque and reckless and normalizes violence in opposition to an actual individual. This isn’t okay. Riot Fest and GWAR crossed a serious line. #RiotFest #GWAR #ElonMusk @RiotFest @gwar @elonmusk @X pic.twitter.com/ngr0GRVbP9
— karen (@hottakekaren) September 20, 2025