Jizmak Da Gusha (GWAR) Interview

It’s day 3 of Milwaukee Metal Fest. I’m tired, sore, and longing for home. Meanwhile, PR phenom Jon Freeman is leading me to my doom. As I and other local metal media personalities walk through an empty Eagles Ballroom, I can’t help but think to myself, “Great. This is how my obituary is going to read: Death by Scumdog.” Thankfully, Oderus Urungus and the rest of the alien gods had other plans for me. Not only did I survive, but it turns out Jizmak Da Gusha, longtime drummer for the mighty GWAR, is a nice guy! Well, as nice as a Scumdog can be towards human scum such as myself, at least. In this brief, yet enthralling discussion, Jizmak touches upon everything (literally) from their new EP, The Return of Gor Gor, to Diddy parties. And he only tried to kill me once! That has to be a new record!

Greetings Jizmak and welcome to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing today?

Jizmak Da Gusha: We’re doing alright. We’re here at the Milwaukee Metal Fest today. We’re closing it out, as GWAR should. No one leaves the fucking state fair until the fireworks go off, so here we fucking are.

Should we expect a mass casualty event tonight?

JDG: Yeah, whoever was left for the weekend will obviously die tonight. Then, Milwaukee will have no more metalheads, so they’ll just have to move it to like a Minnesota Metal Fest or something. I don’t know.

This summer will see the release of GWAR’s 40th anniversary EP, The Return of Gor Gor.

JDG: Woah, woah, woah, woah. What did you say? Did you say Gor Gor?

Did I mess it up?

JDG: I don’t want to be around when that thing shows up. Shhhh. *Whispers* That thing will decimate an entire city, no problem. You think Godzilla was bad? Gor Gor? Please, please be quiet. We don’t want to wake him until showtime.

What can we expect from the release this summer?

JDG: Oh man. It’s gonna fucking burn your house down first play, I know that. It’s fast. It’s visceral. It’s fucking real heavy. We got our new guitar player, Grodius Maximus, coming in. It’s his first release with GWAR. We just got a new sickness to us. Of course, you have to because Gor Gor is coming back, and I don’t know if he’s gonna be our pet like he was in the old days, or if he’s just gonna kill us. He’s pretty pissed off.

The leadoff single for this EP is a raging thrasher entitled “Lot Lizard”, which is accompanied by an utterly gore-tastic video. By any chance was this song inspired by real life events?

JDG: Hey, you know. It’s tough being a little lizard in the world. You have to do a lot of questionable things. He grew up pretty tough, and that’s why he’s so pissed off right now. He had to do some lot lizard type shit in his teenage years and now he’s just been roaming around. We can’t control him. I think he’s gonna show up here because he reads Reddit and he knows GWAR’s here.

When it comes to writing GWAR music, what comes first: The lyrics or the riffs?

JDG: Uh, the death! We think about the death first. That inspires us to write whatever. It could be a lyric. It could be a riff. It could be a drumbeat. We just wing it all the time, and whatever comes out, it’s like a nice bouillabaisse of fucking death. I just love it. It just swirls around in bile and piss and urine and fucking…piss is urine, right?

Yep!

JDG: I meant semen and all of that good shit. Boogers, you know? We just write it how we do it. GWAR does it their way. I don’t know how everyone else does it.

Not only does this year mark GWAR’s 40th anniversary, but it marks the 35th anniversary of the classic Scumdogs of the Universe. What are your favorite songs off that album and why?

JDG: You know, there’s a couple. Actually, all the songs are great, but the one that makes me laugh, that never got onto the album, is a part of the song “King Queen”. There was an entire verse section that was cut out of the song because it was too long. But I think on our rerelease, we put the full version on there. Oderus is a funny guy, so I love those lyrics the best. That song to me, when we first did that record, I was like, “Wow, that’s a heavy song that I haven’t heard before.” So “King Queen” has a particular special place. You know “The Salaminizer”, I named that song, so obviously I love that one.

GWAR are of course known for their cameo in Empire Records, which came out 30 years ago this year. If you had the opportunity to infiltrate any other cinematic universe, what would it be and why?

JDG: It would be Jennifer Love Hewitt. That’s who I would infiltrate. I would infiltrate her everyday, all the time.

Speaking of cinema, there are some who’d say the final act of last year’s The Substance owed much to GWAR. Any thoughts on this, and can we expect legal action against Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley anytime soon?

JDG: You know, I don’t even know what that is, but I’m sure that American culture has been ripping off GWAR for decades. Where do you think Madonna got the pointy bra from? It was fucking Slymenstra Hymen! GWAR’s done it first, and then humans will pick up on it and make millions off of it. I don’t know what to say.

As they tend to do. If I may, I want to play a game called GWAR-worthy or Not. I’m going to list some infamous people, and you’re going to tell me if they’re worthy enough to hang with the mighty GWAR.

JDG: You’re gonna be lucky if I even know who you’re talking about. I don’t know what’s gonna happen.

Let’s start with a guy who’s on trial right now, Mr. Sean “P. Diddy” Combs. GWAR-worthy or not?

JDG: Oh yeah, man. His parties were awesome. We were at all of them! I don’t know. You human beings have this moral compass that you live by. GWAR doesn’t live by any of that stuff, so if you think the guy was a bad guy and you want to put him in jail or whatever, all I know is what we love about the human race is they actually help GWAR do one thing, and that’s kill each other. You guys kill each other all the time! Human beings love killing each other. In GWAR, we say, “Humans: People selling people to people.” You guys are really good at that shit, and it’s kind of helping our cause because we definitely need to exterminate you. If this fucking interview shows up anywhere and I don’t like it, I’m gonna fucking kill this guy. *strangles me*

AAHHH!!! I believe you! How about Chappelle Roan? She’s freaky looking!

JDG: Who?

Chappelle Roan.

JDG: Don’t know her. Next. Not important in the GWAR world.

Last, but certainly not least, Vice President J.D. Vance. He might’ve killed the pope!

JDG: Did he?!

He was the last guy to see the pope alive.

JDG: You know what I want to see? You never see this: A Pope Buster. There’s never a pope with the name Buster. That would be cool, right? Like a guy, just a regular guy. I don’t know.

GWAR have proven influential on a multitude of punk and metal bands over the past 40 years. How do you feel about such human scum citing GWAR as an influence? Are you flattered? Humbled? Disgusted, even?

JDG: Look, I just like the fact that they come to the show. This is the place where we gather them at the blood orgy ritualistic death metal concert, and then we can just kill you! I get so excited about it. I get so excited. Anyway, you guys keep coming to the show and we’ll keep killing you. We love it! We love being at Milwaukee Metal Fest too.

We love being with you at Milwaukee Metal Fest. Jizmak, thank you for sparing us!

JDG: I think you did a good job. Your lives will be spared. But for you out there that are reading this, you might already be dead!

The new GWAR EP, The Return of Gor Gor, comes out Friday, July 25th on Slave Pit Inc. For more information on GWAR, click here.