Gwar's Mike Bishop on Band's New Documentary 'This is Gwar,' Celebrity Fans, and Working With Halestorm's Lzzy Hale (Exclusive)
Heavy metal icons Gwar have been quite enigmatic throughout their 30+ years in the music scene, and the band recently unveiled a retrospective documentary, This Is Gwar, which follows the space-born scumdogs from their earliest origins all the way through to the current incarnation of the legendary band. Ahead of the doc's home video release, PopCulture.com had a chance to speak with lead vocalist Mike Bishop (Blöthar the Berserker, formerly bassist Beefcake the Mighty) and get some insight on the film. Bishop also shared what it's been like to have celebrity fans over the years, and offered some incredibly kind words for Halestorm singer Lzzy Hale, who the band just worked with on their new album.
We first asked Bishop if the documentary was something that band has been looking to do. "Well, we had wanted to do a documentary and we actually, even one of the band [members] had started a documentary," he said. "We also had various attempts to float reality TV shows, which were documentary-like." He explained that what they've been working on covers a lot of Gwar's early days, and is still pending a release date. "What we wanted to do was to do something that was more of the whole arc of the band," Bishop continued. "We had been approached by people, several people about doing it, but they all had a story to tell. And usually, it made it sound like the band was over, the way that they wanted to tell this story. And it's obviously not true."
This led them to Scott Barber, a documentary filmmaker who previously co-directed The Orange Years: The Nickelodeon Story. "Scott was the only one who was like, 'Listen, I want to tell the incredible story about how this band has been through all this stuff and has still managed to.' He just was the guy that wanted to tell this story the way that we wanted it to be told, without us having to get too involved and turn it into some kind of a hagiography or something like that. That's why we went with him."
When it came to being candid about all the band has been through over the years, Bishop joked that there were "tons of things that I don't want to discuss about the history of Gwar." He then added, "But we didn't run into that in the story. If anything, I think there's more that he could have put in. Of course, you're just struggling against the issue of time and how you tell a story like that. It's hard telling any story that it goes over as many years as the story does and has so many people involved. Gwar has had a lot of, lot of people involved."
The frontman added, "There is very little that we... We didn't cordon anything off from him. He just gave us the opportunity to talk and if I didn't want to talk about something, I just didn't talk about it. But it's mostly just weird stuff that happened on the road. The band's been around for a long time and there's been a lot of conflict." Bishop clarified, "Not conflict within the band, but there's just a ton of stories that we could tell. Fighting with security, weird shows in the beginning, weird managers we've had. Just everything. It's such a long story. He did a really good job of distilling it down."
One interesting moment in This Is Gwar, is when the band discusses the first time they were featured on Beavis and Butt-Head in the early '90s, which did a lot to catapult them more toward the mainstream. "It was a surprise when we found out that [Beavis and Butt-Head creator] Mike Judge liked Gwar," Bishop shared, "We didn't have any sort of prior relationship with him or anything. Just one day, I think he might have even come to a show. I don't remember meeting him. I know he came to a show, but he might have come to a show and introduced himself. Beavis and Butt-Head was already going and we were already fans, so when we found out that he liked us, that was very cool."
In addition to Judge, Gwar has garnered many other celebrity fans over the years, including Law and Order: SVU star — and fellow metal musician — Ice T. "You have to remember that Ice-T hadn't really had success in the rock world yet. When he came to the show at the Palladium in Los Angeles in 1989 or '90, it was a big deal," Bishop reflected. "It was really the peak of his hip-hop popping, so that was a surprise. He loved the band. He still does."
More recently, Bishop says he's been "really surprised" to find "that there are a lot of comedians, a lot of the comedians that we really like and respect, that those folks know Gwar and appreciate Gwar. And in some cases, grew up with Gwar, like Patton Oswalt." He also noted Alice Cooper, as well as Weird Al — who appears in This Is Gwar — as fans, saying "that was a surprise." While this all "makes sense" to Bishop, he confessed that "one of the weirdest" shoutouts the band got was from KISS founding guitarist Paul Stanley. "He made this statement where he was talking about Gwar in the context of them not going to the induction into the [Rock and Roll] Hall of Fame. He was like, 'What other band besides Kiss has done what we did?' He's like, 'Maybe Gwar.' I was like, 'Wow.'"
In addition to This Is Gwar, the band also recently put out a new album, The New Dark Ages. One of the standout tracks on the album is "The Cutter," which features Halestorm vocalist Lzzy Hale. This album and the previous one — 2017's The Blood of Gods — are the first time the band has openly featured guest vocalists which is something that Bishop explained has a lot more to do with late vocalist Dave Brockie (Oderus Urungus) having "a lot to say, and he said everything. There wasn't a lot that he left out."
Bishop continued, "In that space, there really wasn't any room, man. He also used to have a way of working where... most of the material would come really late... You have the songs and then you show up and he sings the stuff. And it's like, 'Oh okay, that's what this song is about. That's what this is.' It's just not that way now." He also shared some history of how the band approached things in their earlier days, saying, "The interesting thing is that it actually wasn't that way early on. Probably the first four albums were much more of an ensemble sort of effort, and even the two after that. The first six records were like that where you had a lot of guest singers from within the band. A lot of people sharing the burden of creation and the burden of performance on the albums."
However, even with everyone contributing, "over time, it just focused on Brockie more and more, and that was good in a lot of ways. Why stop this genius from talking? But in his absence it's like, well, we had to do something that we knew was different. What we did was, 'Okay, well, we haven't tried this ensemble method for a while. Let's do that again.' Part of that was like, 'Well, let's bring some other people in.' We had always wanted to have or fantasized about it. We just didn't really have a producer who was down with it and would try to make it happen in the way that producer did."
Finally, Bishop praised Hale, explaining that they "share a management company" and "had done an interview with her," which led to them teaming up. "She was a wonderful person. She's such a wonderful human and is so talented," he said, later adding, "she's just a great musician, and so it was wonderful to have her work with us." Fans can click here to check out the new violently-NSFW music video for "The Cutter" at YouTube. This Is Gwar is now available to own on Blu-Ray and DVD. Click here to pick up a copy from Amazon, and stay locked to PopCulture.com for more music news, exclusives, and interviews!
0comments