R.I.P. Chuck Varga, GWAR's Sexecutioner

Varga, who left the band in 1997 and returned for occasional appearances through 2021, was 68.

By Matt Schimkowitz | September 28, 2026 | 8:13pm

Credit: https://memoritree.com/memorial/chuck-varga

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Chuck Varga, a founding member of the art metal group GWAR, has died. Varga, known as the Sexecutioner, was a key figure in developing the band’s aesthetic and mythology, and a running character in the group’s stage show. GWAR bassist Casey Orr, a.k.a. Beefcake the Mighty, announced Varga’s death from cancer on Friday, September 26. He was 68.

“Chuck Varga has left this earthly realm,” Orr wrote on Facebook. “He passed peacefully, his beloved wife Bambi holding his hand. He was one of a kind. As an artist, as a performer; as a scholar and a gentleman. I’m better for having known him and the world is lesser for his leaving. He is most likely being welcomed into Valhalla right now by Brockie and Smooty and all who went before. Raise your glass and tell his tales. Legends never die. Hail Varga! Hail Sexicutioner!”

Born in Virginia in 1958, Varga attended Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond in the early ’80s but wasn’t pleased with the art scene. While attending college, he and Hunter Jackson co-founded The Slave Pit, a studio space in the city, where he hoped to provide a space for the area’s artists and to make independent movies. It would become GWAR’s home base.

“When I first started doing the GWAR stuff, I thought, ‘We’re making history here. We’re giving the music industry a much-needed kick in the pants.’ I was surrounded by people like Dave Brockie, Hunter Jackson, and Don Drakulich,” Varga told Decibel earlier this year. “All the core people were living in a shit-hole town, and we’d just gone through art school, and we were not happy with what they said was art, and we were not happy with what was passed off as music, which was bullshit. It was a total artificial construct by MTV and big corporations. We were all part of the underground fight.”

At Slave Pit, he and his cohorts would develop GWAR’s aesthetic, costumes, and characters, formalizing the group in 1987. Describing himself as “one part performer, one part designer, and one part sculptor,” Varga was a multidisciplinary artist who helped the band construct its revolutionary stage show by designing and building sets, costumes, and props. Though he did not play any instruments, he was credited on GWAR’s debut album, Hell-O. He sang vocals on his titular song, “Sexecutioner,” which he co-wrote with frontman Dave Brockie, on the group’s second record, Scumdogs Of The Universe, and the title track off the band’s fourth, Ragnarök. He also co-wrote two of the band’s films, including Phallus in Wonderland, which earned the band a Grammy nomination for Best Long Form Music Video in 1993. “The influence of his illustrations, character designs, performances, and artistic vision can still be felt throughout GWAR today,” said Bob Gorman, a.k.a. Bonesnapper, in a statement.

In 1995, Varga began branching away from GWAR, founding Hypperreal Productions with Drakulich, who played GWAR’s longtime manager Sleazy P. Martini, to build sculptures and figures for clients outside the band. He left the group in 1997, when he moved to New York City to start his career as a scenic artist and special-effects designer for Broadway, film, and television. In New York City, he met his wife Bambi, then a mermaid in the Coney Island Mermaid Parade. They were married in 2017. He would return to the group sporadically over the next few decades, before retiring the Sexecutioner character at Halloween Scumdog Reunion 2021.

Varga learned he had prostate cancer 10 years ago and spent the next decade treating it. In 2025, the cancer became uncontrollable, and he was left paralyzed from the waist down. Earlier this year, GWAR launched a blood drive for Varga, with more than “thousands and thousands” of GWAR fans draining their veins for the Sexecutioner. The band continued to support Varga as his health declined, opening a donation page to benefit his treatment, medical equipment, hospice care, and full-time nursing support.

He is survived by his wife, Bambi.

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