In a recent Rolling Stone cover story, Dave Grohl offered a glimpse of how different his career arc might’ve been had he accepted an offer to join the heavy metal band GWAR.
You may know GWAR as the group of barbaric interplanetary warriors who’ve been spreading sci-fi mythology while wearing grotesque costumes since the mid-1980s. Like Grohl, GWAR hail from the Virginia/D.C. area, and in the late-’80s, while Grohl was playing with D.C. hardcore band Scream, GWAR were looking for a drummer.
“I talked to their guitar player Dewey about it,” Grohl told Rolling Stone. “At the time GWAR was a band that would draw like 700 people, right? Which is huge. And then the more I thought about it, am I really gonna invite my uncle to see me play when there’s like fake blood and cum shooting all over the place?”
GWAR’s current lead vocalist, Blöthar the Berserker, caught up with Heavy Consequence to tell his side of the story. “[Grohl] used to hang around the track with all the other young punks jacked on gak,” he said. “This is back before he lost all his teeth. We hired him and then called him back immediately and fired him. He was in the band for around 7 and a half minutes. He was holding us back.”
Blöthar’s alter-ego, Michael Bishop—FKA as GWAR’s bass player, Beefcake the Mighty—had a slightly different recollection.
“We had all seen Dave play with his bands Dain Bramage and later on in Scream,” Bishop said. “He was already one of the greatest, hardest hitting drummers I had ever seen. He still is. Dewey called and started the conversation with him about joining GWAR. I was stoked because I played bass at the time, and I would have loved to jam with him.
“Just think, he could have been working his ass off playing drums in a rubber monster suit all these years. Boy did he make the wrong choice.”
