Gwar have reacted to the conservative backlash they received after ‘killing’ actors dressed as Donald Trump and Elon Musk onstage last week.
The costumed heavy metal band’s singer – Michael Bishop, who performs as “Blöthar The Berserker” – says the idea that they’re normalising political violence is “absurd”, likening their stage shows to the cartoonishness of Looney Tunes.
“The idea that Gwar is normalising violence is patently absurd,” Bishop tells Billboard. “We’re not millionaires that are afraid of what people are going to say when they see what we do.”
When asked if he’s angered by the backlash against Gwar, the singer replies: “Yeah, it pissed me off! We’re a group of artists that makes art, and it’s really the idea that what we have done is normalizing violence… there’s nothing normal about the violence that goes on at a Gwar show. It’s a cartoon, it’s Looney Tunes.”
Gwar perform onstage as alien musicians from the planet Scumdogia. Their controversial ‘murders’ took place at Riot Fest in Chicago on September 20. In the days following their set, video footage was picked up by right-wing social media accounts, such as Libs Of TikTok on X (formerly Twitter), and shared with furious captions.
The Libs Of TikTok account posted footage from the set depicting an actor – dressed as a green, hooved alien – who stabs a fake Trump with a sword and pulls out his ‘intestines’. The Trump costume then sprays fake blood into the air and out onto the audience.
The video’s caption read: “Performers at Riot Fest in Chicago, Illinois, simulated the bloody disemboweling of President Trump on stage while people cheered. This is incitement. They know exactly what they’re doing. Democrats can’t help themselves. They love promoting violence.”
Another X account, the seemingly satirical @hottakekaren, shared a video of the band ‘beheading’ Elon Musk at Riot Fest. It added the caption: “Saw a friend’s video from Riot Fest – Gwar mock-beheaded Elon Musk on stage. That’s not edgy, it’s grotesque and reckless and normalises violence against a real person. This is not okay. Riot Fest and Gwar crossed a major line.”
The official Riot Fest account replied to the @hottakekaren post by simply writing, “LOL.”
In truth, Gwar have been ‘murdering’ politicians from both sides of the political spectrum onstage for years. At Wacken Open Air festival in Germany in 2022, they ‘decapitated’ someone dressed as then-sitting Democrat president Joe Biden and brought out actors dressed as China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and a Trump supporter. At a 2015 show, they ‘killed’ one-time Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Kevin Goldberg, vice president of the non-partisan First Amendment education organisation Freedom Forum, tells Billboard that Gwar’s performances are protected by the right to free speech written in the United States Constitution.
“What you’re seeing and what you’re hearing [from Gwar] is fully protected by the First Amendment,” he says, “as is the right to engage in parody and satire as part of that performance.”
The controversy surrounding Gwar comes at a time of heightened political discourse about First Amendment rights. Earlier this month, late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel was taken off of the air by his network ABC following comments he made about Trump’s response to the murder of far-right speaker Charlie Kirk. Kimmel’s show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, returned on Tuesday (September 23) after much backlash from viewers and fellow TV personalities.
Gwar will return to the stage at Aftershock festival in Sacramento, California on October 5. On October 18, they’ll kick off a North American tour with Helmet, Dwarves and Blood Vulture. Dates and details can be found on the band’s website.
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