Blood minded

When the going gets good, GWAR get grinding

by Chris Kanaracus

Huge, bizarre costumes, pagan rituals, corpses squirting bodily fluids, beheadings, even a giant mechanical maggot are de rigueur for GWAR. Quite often, in fact, the music (mostly uninspired punky sludge metal with snuff-film-friendly lyrics) plays second fiddle. But this seminal splatter-metal act (who appear this Friday at the Palladium) still deliver a stage show that manages to redefine scatological extremes.

The band have crafted a bizarre, rather corny prologue for their traveling geek show, claiming to be intergalactic space pirates bent on enslaving, humbling, and ultimately destroying mankind.

And their combination of kitsch and carnage has worked out nicely. Over their 20-or-so-year history, GWAR have managed to crank out eight albums, score a Grammy nomination, notch up countless, slain audience members, and even win a couple of censorship fights. And though world domination is a long way off, GWAR have created a lasting and often unsung legacy, one as equally unique as it is, well, disgusting.

Techno Destructo, founding member and occasional GWAR vocalist, speaks in a languid Southern drawl, peppering his tales of slaves, blood-soaked audiences, and colossal meat grinders with the occasional quiet chuckle. It's far from an evil sound, though; instead, it's much more like the semi-detached amusement of a 40-something guy who, along with a bunch of his college buddies, has been acting like a freak for a long time. Which, of course, Destructo (born Hunter Jackson) actually is.

With little prodding, Jackson admits that he and fellow bandmates (Oderous Ungerus, Hymen Slymenstra, Balsac the Jaws of Death, to name a few) are not aliens. They are, in fact, middle-aged former art-school classmates at Richmond, Virginia's Commonwealth University.

But what goes on during GWAR's concerts, though, Jackson insists, is "all too real . . . the blood that we spray over the audience during the show in fact comes directly from them. They contribute it willingly before the show." And they do so in droves; Jackson says that on a typical night, GWAR goes through two 60-gallon drums. "But we try to recycle as much as we can.

"Our meat grinder is 100 percent legitimate," he continues. "We usually get plenty of volunteers." Indeed, a regular feature of any GWAR show is the sight of a parade of audience members ("mostly hot girls, if we can find them," says Jackson) being carried to the stage by one or more band members and, with great ceremony, being crammed into the mouth of a super-size grinder. Not long after, the unlucky spill out the other end, resembling something close to strawberry purée. Recently, talk show host Jerry Springer fell prey to GWAR's grinder after a tumultuous appearance by the band on a Springer episode concerning censorship in music.

It's a nauseating sight, to be sure, but one that also asks a burning question: how have GWAR managed to avoid prosecution all these years? "Well, the credit for that has to go to our slaves," explains Destructo. "Their primary job on tour is to scout out one town ahead and look for fodder for the grinder. They try to find people with very few ties to society or family, ones that won't be missed."

Precautions notwithstanding, GWAR have had a few run-ins with John Law. Charlotte, North Carolina, for instance, banned the group for a year after a particularly gruesome performance. And, in 1993, the city of Athens, Georgia, actually shut down a GWAR concert midway through. GWAR successfully sued with the help of the ACLU, and then donated the proceedings to charity.

It's been a few years since high-profile altercations like those, but GWAR's fanbase, while always cultish, remains strong. But it's not as strong as it could be, says a slightly bitter Jackson. "People like Marilyn Manson have stolen what we do, but most [media] people don't want to touch us. KISS, of all people, wouldn't even talk to us at one music convention. I think it was because the night before, we had gone on before them, and after what we did, they looked like glitter fags." But Jackson doesn't scoff at his success. Though VH1's recent Where Are They Now? featured the band, their concerts consistently draw in the thousands. And their albums, long-form videos (one of which, 1993's Phallus In Wonderland, received a Grammy nomination), comic books, and role-playing games sell strongly.

Indeed, as Jackson points out, GWAR are less a metal band than a self-contained cottage industry. "We do everything basically by ourselves. We're down in the Slave Pit (GWAR's studio in Richmond) all night long, building new monsters, planning new things. It's a constant process."

A process, says Jackson, that is so exhausting and time-consuming, that it has left GWAR with only two original members out of a total of 12. "I'm like, 40 years old . . . this is basically what I've done for 20 years. I've had my doubts at times. Obviously, other guys have, too. That's why they left. But it's only when we're between tours, when nothing's going on, that I get a little tired of it . . . when I'm on stage, in costume, covered in blood, spraying the audience, and feeding the grinder, it's just great."

GWAR appear at 6:30 p.m. on November 5 at the Palladium. Tickets are $20. Call 797-9696.