As we do every year, we pay respect to GWAR founder and leader, Dave Murray Brockie, a.k.a. Oderous Urungus, who died seven years ago today. In addition to being a genius musician, Brockie was an author, cartoonist, visual artist, and led other bands such as proto-GWAR band Death Piggy, X-Cops, and the Dave Brockie Experience.

As Dave told Ghost Cult’s Omar Cordy in one of his final interviews before he passed:

“No matter what kind of shit life takes on your fucking head there is the strength within you to somehow not only just carry but to actually turn it into a positive.”

You can read that full interview here.

In another Dave quote we liked: he talked about his dream for the future of GWAR, which included him retired and working on art and books while the band continued without him.

“All Gwar fans have their favorite song, all Gwar fans have their favorite album, and at this point now some of those albums are twenty-five years old. Which is absolutely freaking mind-blowing to me. When I was a kid, bands would come with a few good albums then a few crappy ones and they’d be done. The Beatles only played live for like six years or something like that and Hendrix, his whole career was over a four-year period. Granted he was playing in a lot of bands up until The Experience, but his real-time to shine was such a short period of time. Now bands led by The Rollings Stones and others can go on forever. So GWAR’s had this get opportunity to continue to progress and evolve as musicians. I always told a lot of people, that by design GWAR is a band meant to last a thousand years, and one of these days when I get to old to do this anymore I will hand pick and hand train my successor, and “The Son of Oderus” will be born. That way GWAR can continue on into the next century and beyond.

Here is our obituary of Dave from when he passed away.

Hail Dave Brockie! Hail Oderus!