Meet the pitiful human collaborators who design GWAR's live show

Atlas Obscura recently risked life and limb to venture into the Richmond, Virginia studio where GWAR’s current array of artistic thralls toil to create their splendid costumes and props. Somehow, despite the odds, writer Eric J. Wallace returned intact and has now shared a report on the space aliens’ headquarters.

Once inside a location where items like “spike-studded battle armor, wearable satyr hooves and haunches … and cybernetic steel mandibles” line the walls, Wallace found that the band’s props and costumes are managed by an art collective headed up by two co-directors and “a few dozen contract contributors” who largely come from Virginia Commonwealth University’s (VCU’s) art program.

The look of a GWAR show is obviously just as important as the music, so it’s no surprise that members of the Richmond collective are “considered band members.” This has been true since the early days of the alien invasion, which began with co-founder Hunter Jackson (AKA Techno Destructo) and the late singer/writer/illustrator Dave Brockie (AKA Oderus Urungus) leasing an old dairy warehouse near VCU along with a group of other young artists who used the space as a studio and venue for big parties in the mid-’80s.

While Jackson was working on “an indie horror-comedy about space pirates” called Scumdogs Of The Universe, Brockie ended up borrowing some of the outfits created for the movie to use in a metal show. Happy with the crowd reception, Jackson and Brockie decided to use Scumdogs’ premise as the fictional background for a band whose live shows “would be like an opera, wrestling match, horror movie, and immersive theater production rolled into one.” GWAR was born. (Though, unfortunately, without Dave Grohl as drummer.)