GWAR's Blöthar On Recent MAGA Uproar For Controversial Onstage 'Executions': "It’s A Cartoon, It’s Looney Tunes"

While GWAR‘s satirical live shows have seen them gruesomely ‘sacrificing’ world political leaders, religious figures and pop culture icons onstage for roughly four decades now, the thrash metalband’s recent ‘Riot Fest‘ performance this past weekend caused a significant firestorm.

As they have done countless times prior, the group cartoonishly depicted onstage beheadings and disembowelings of the likes of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and current U.S. President Donald J. Trump during their time onstage.

Sans the amount of fake blood being regularly spewed into the audience, few of the band’s fans in attendance likely batted an eye. GWAR have long existed draped in satire. With an absurd elaborate alien backstory, the b-movie horror effects employed onstage at their shows, the mock onstage ‘sacrifices’ of fans and public figures, and perpetual sexual innuendo, GWAR are essentially metal’s own larger than life adult cartoon characters.

Throughout the course of their decades-long run, political bias and statements have been equal opportunity. Countless effigies of Republican and Democrat political officials have met their untimely end onstage at a GWAR show, trying their tongue-in-cheek disdain for all humanity.

However, with the recent assassination of right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk putting new scrutiny on perceived implications of political violence, and tempers continuing to flare amid the daily political culture war, GWAR‘s recent set at the Chicago festival made headlines.

With context and nuance escaping many of the publications, influencers and social media users, GWAR‘s so-called ‘onstage executions‘ were quickly fed into the rage-bait paradigm, and weaponized for political gain in implying the band were mere leftists acting out against the right-wing.

One of several posts to gain traction over the incident came about via suspect X account last weekend and can be seen below:

That uproar hit various politically-oriented news outlets and influencers, including Breitbart and the NY Post. Popular right-wing political influencer Libs Of TikTok went as far as proclaiming GWAR‘s onstage performance as being “incitement”.

In a new interview with Billboard, GWAR‘s vocalist Blöthar The Berserker addressed the recent backlash and outcry from the performance, stating:

“The idea that GWAR is normalizing violence is patently absurd.”

“We’re not millionaires that are afraid of what people are going to say when they see what we do… 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.”

He went on to add:

“It’s a parody of violence. It’s trying to make violence into a spectacle and show humanity’s absolute absurdity. That’s what GWAR is, it’s absurdism. To say it’s normalizing violence is really reaching.”

Reflecting later on the some of the more direct responses to have been lobbed the band’s way after the flames of discontent were further fanned, Blöthar added:

“Like I know this is a rage bait engagement farming twitter account, but ‘GWAR crossed a major line’ is one of the funniest f–king things I’ve ever heard. The dumbest people on the internet are still mad today. Got to love it. As long as they keep posting that awesome video and mentioning our name for the free publicity it’s a win for me.”