We talk Games, Touring, and Toxic Crusaders at a Gaming Convention outside of Pittsburgh, PA.

It’s a late summer weekend, and I have a mountain of chores that need to be completed and a to-do list that is a mile long. The air is crisp, and the warm sunlight is bathing the leaves as they begin their Autumn transformation ritual. What better time to be reluctantly dragged to a gaming convention by your teenager?

I am by no stretch of the imagination a gamer and have almost zero interest in the culture and merchandising that surround the industry; however, I was resigned to partaking in a day of gawking at Pokemon merchandise, games I didn’t understand, and mountains of characters about whom I had no knowledge.
We paid our entrance fee and were making our way through the rows and rows of booths as I was half check-out when I noticed a second large convention hall full of video games. It was chalked full of everything from vintage PacMan and Centipede games to the latest console games and even a large section of pinball machines. As I wandered, I heard a blast of noise come from a room off to the side. It was the distinctive sound of a live band. I quickly made my way into the room, where the sound that has been my lifeblood for decades was emanating.

As I stood watching the band play and absorbing the few moments of personal pleasure, I noticed a row of merchandise tables off to the side of the venue. As I pursued the band’s wares with my eyes from a distance, I saw what I thought was the Psychostick logo. I did a double take and realized that yes, in fact, there was a Pychostick merch. table. What? I thought to myself. They must be playing here today! As I examined the scene, I saw what I was pretty sure was Matty J “Moose”, the bass player extraordinaire of Pychostick, standing behind the table. I had to go talk to him. After all, he is the notorious moose antler-wearing bassist from the enigmatic, comedic, and all-around badass band Psychostick.

This is our conversation:

This is a different setting for you, playing at a gaming convention. How different is that from your usual club setting with people looking in and going, “What the hell is that?”
Well, I think most people say, “What is that!?” But we have been doing conventions for almost 10 years.
So you’re all gamers and comic nerds?
All of us except our drummer We forced him to play a video game with us not so long ago. He admittedly had fun. I have played games my whole life, and the other two guys [in the band] are the same in that respect.
So when one of these type of events comes up, you are like, “Sign us up?”
Oh yeah, years ago, we had an offer to play at the Dallas Gaming Expo. It was its first year, and any expo or convention has its growing pains. We had a blast. Unfortunately, they are not still around. From there, we told our booking agent, “Look for more of these things.” People keep hiring us, and it is really cool that we get to do a few of these every year. This is actually the second of three video game conventions that we are doing this year.
You have the TORG Gaming Expo in Columbus coming up.
Yeah, in a few weeks (November 11th), we will be at TORG, and we just did Too Many Games in Philadelphia. That is a yearly thing for us.

Are you guys based on the East Coast?
We are based out of Chicago now. I grew up in New York; our guitar player Josh and our singer Rawrb are from West Texas. Alex, our drummer, is originally from Arizona, and we all live in Chicago for some reason.

It is really fun doing these conventions, considering our last show was a death metal festival. Then we come to these gaming things, and its, well, you know, different.

Well, you guys can fit in most anywhere with a lot of different genres. You can squeeze in here and there.
Oh yeah, it is fun, and I love that we have the demographics that we do. We can captivate and grab them, at least for a little while. Then they get it and realize that, yeah, these guys are funny.  I get it now.

Speaking of the diverse audiences, you got to actually play at Blue Ridge a few weeks ago.
Yeah! That was a rough weekend for a lot of people. Luckily we played at just the right time. We had an AWESOME day at Blue Ridge. I feel really bad for everything that went wrong. We had a fuckin’ blast.

You kind of mentioned it, but to backtrack, can you explain the reaction of strangers seeing you for the first time? Does it mean more to you for somebody to laugh or to start head banging?
That’s like two of my favorite things. That’s why I love being a part of this band. Making people rock out and making people smile are two things that don’t necessarily go together, but we have the honor of being able to do both. That is the best thing somebody could do at a Psychostick show: headbang and giggle. It makes me so happy, and it is a dream come true.

What next for the band—any new material or projects?
If you remember the Toxic Crusaders, they are rebooting the franchise with a feature-length movie. A company called Retroware hired us to do the video game theme song. When they heard it, they liked it and then hired us to do the whole soundtrack. So we are working diligently on that and cranking out a lot of songs for it. It’s kind of weird for us since the style is a bit different for us.

Is it full 3-minute songs or more background music pieces?
The majority are two-minute loops with no vocals, which is quite different for us. The vocals have always been our creative constraint. Most of the songs we do are done vocals first. Well, lyrics first, then we craft the music around the vocal. This has been fun for us to get out of our comfort zone. There have been a couple songs that started with drum riffs. A couple that started with bass riffs and a couple that started with a guitar part. There is a lot of electronic programming going into this. Which is very different for Pychostick to have synth in our metal. It’s kind of cool and really exciting. I’m really excited for people to hear it and for people to play the game. We got to play it, and there is a playable demo on Steam right now. I think it lets you play one or two levels. That’s actually the game we forced our drummer to play. We did a four-player co-op, and it was a blast. I’m so excited that the game doesn’t suck.

What’s the time line for the release of the game?
2024 is all I can say now.

Is the soundtrack going to be a separate release from the game?
I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to say, so take it all with a grain of salt. From what I understand, there is a good chance of the soundtrack being released as a disk. That would be through Retroware. So think of the video game developer as our record company. They are funding it.

We haven’t been on a label in a long time. We were really fortunate in the early days to be with Rock Ridge Records, and they really worked with us. There are so many horror stories about how people get fucked in the music industry. Tom, who was the head of our record label, gave us back our rights and our masters. Really a solid company. We have been independent for a really long time, so it was weird going back into a situation where somebody is paying us to do the music and taking a percentage of it. So, I don’t know; we will see. It’s really fun, and we are doing it to get our foot in the door. Hopefully, we can do more. It’s been a blast. I have nothing negative to say about the process. I’m excited.
It’s one of those situations where you find yourself falling ass-backwards into something.
There was a bit of apprehension within the camp, but I think we all agreed that it would be a good thing for us in the long run, especially since we have worked with this company before. We sort of know some of the guys and gals that work for the company. Ya just gotta go with your gut sometimes. It seemed like a really good move for us. Please, if you read this, go on Steam and wishlist the game. It is called Toxic Crusaders.

Aside from the game, what’s coming down the pipe? Any tour plans?
We haven’t been doing “tours” per se. We have done it for so long and grinded for so long. We have families now, and we are middle-aged or older. Touring is hard. It’s a young man’s game. We did 13 years on the road. That’s a long time. We have been really happy doing these weekend shows. That’s it. We drove out yesterday to Pittsburgh and go back tomorrow and hopefully have some change in our pockets.

The band that was just on stage said something about their van breaking down, and you shouted “You’re a real band now” at them. How much is that a reality for Psychostick?
We are on our third trailer, our second van, and our fifth bass player.

I’ve been in several bands and have done the whole club tour thing. We spend the weekend towing a trailer around the country side, sleeping in bar parking lots, and living off the McDonald’s Dollar menu.
I’ve eaten a lot of dollar menu food and slept on the floors of people I met that night. I slept in the Walmart parking lots. I’ve been sick, sleeping in a sleeping bag with seven guys in a freezing van with frost on the windows.

Speaking of being sick, one of our shows, on the way there, my tooth started killing me. By show time, I was dying. I took a handful of Advil just to get through the set, and then I sat in the truck and let the other guy load all the equipment. I was so over the whole touring and live music thing at that moment.
Our guitar play had the same thing. We have a song called “The Root of All Evil” which is about getting dental work done and how fun it is. We were actually on tour, and he had, I think, an abscessed tooth. He had to get a root canal and all this stuff done. We were on tour, and he just kept putting it off and putting it off. We had a few days off, and we stopped where our drummer was living at the time. He recommended a dentist. He went to the dentist, and she told him, You need to get this fixed today. She said that if you wait any longer, you are going to need to go to the emergency room. It was brutal getting that all done on tour. He had a root canal and extractions; it’s all in the song, so check it out. A true story, and he wrote the bulk of it while going through that shit.

These are some of things that people don’t understand about being out on the road and touring. Simple things like a doctor or dentist
Yeah. I’m going to say the only other guys that have it worse than tour musicians are maybe military guys. I give them a lot of credit. I think, man, I could be in a tank in Afghanistan right now. This show sucks and our van broke down, but at least I’m not in Iraq. I give them a lot of credit. Shout out to the armed forces.

Oh yes. There are such highs and lows too. One night you’re playing to hundreds or thousands of people, and the next night you’re playing to ten people and the bar tenders.
I remember a long time ago when we played this festival. At the time, it was the biggest show we ever played. Then the next show was, like you said, twelve people. But that’s how it goes. You gotta rock just as hard for those twelve people.
I know you go from playing something like the Gathering to playing to nobody.
We had the privilege of playing The Gathering a couple of times. Whoop, Whoop! (He pulled up his sleeve to show me his Hatchetman tattoo.)
There are highs and lows. You get there, and the show is canceled or something.
That is touring, man. I know you can’t see it reading this, but he did this hand motion. His hand was up here at eye level and then all the way down here. That sums up touring. As a road band and the grind, that pretty much sums it up.
Yes. And you drive for hours or days and spend hours unloading and setting up equipment for your 45 minutes or an hour of playing, only to do it all again tomorrow.
We are a glorified t-shirt sales company that specializes in moving and happens to play music for roughly an hour per night.
I was just having a conversation about venues keeping a percentage of merchandise sales.
Oh, that’s a big source of contention in the music industry. I talk to bands about it all the time, everywhere we go. About how it originated and why they are still around. It basically comes down to shitty promoters. Promoters need to do their job. There is a difference between buying a show and promoting a show. Too often, guys who put on shows call themselves promoters because it sounds better than being a buyer. In reality, a lot of guys buy a show and don’t promote it. Fuck those guys. If you reading this and you do this, fuck you. Promote your show. Don’t put all the work on the artist. That’s just bullshit. Especially now, people just make a Facebook post and think they promoted the show.
And that is the scenario where you have 400 people interested and forty show up.
Exactly! People click “I’m going”. That doesn’t mean anything. How many tickets did you sell?
In my bands, if we could, we always tried to print tickets for shows that we had any control over or say over. We would sell the tickets because once somebody lays a few dollars on the line and has a physical ticket in hand, they are a hundred times more likely to show up.
That is great, especially for bands like us. I like seeing local bands who give a shit. It’s really a good thing for local bands to do when you get on a bigger show. And a good promoter will figure out a bill with bands that are just a little different [from the headliner] and help bring in a little bit of a different crowd. That way, you have boots on the ground. That is what old-school street teams used to do.
The musical landscape has changed. This band started in 2000. So the band is 23 years old. We have seen a lot of changes in how things are done between record labels, touring, promoting, and selling merchandise.

We started back with a Myspace page.
Yes, Myspace and radio—that’s how I found Psychostick. There are two things that I really don’t have my hands in anymore. I have satellite radio now, but I listen to WDCB Jazz college radio in the Chicagoland area. Shout out to them.

That’s all the question I have for you now. Anything you want to throw out there for all our readers?
Go to Steam and wishlist the Toxic Crusader game. Go to Pyshcostick.com to find out when we are coming around. Go to Pyshcostick.com/showalerts and put your info in we will email and/or text you whenever we come to your area. It’s all zip code based so you won’t get spammed with a thousand shows. New music and merch. coming.
I love the pseudo-cookie monster shirt.
Haha, that’s the “So Heavy” shirt. Yeah, so check us out. Spotify, or YouTube, we have a shit-ton of videos on the way. We have been working on some… puppetry. You heard it here first. That’s all I can say.

About Author

Josh Drespling

Josh is the Publisher and creator of Empire Extreme and it’s sister publication Kingdom Extreme Magazine. He is an accomplished writer, photographer and graphic designer. He is always conjuring up new ideas and has a amazing passion for the music industry and all the things that surround it.

See author's posts

Lets get the cliche questions out of the way first. Your new album Three Sides of One comes out Sept 2. To me it sound like a bit of a stripped down sound, with no big studio tricks. I might even dare to say I hear a hint of some grunge era sound in there. What say you?
We went back to the 70s. That’s were we come from and we just went home with it. We did what was totally comfortable with us, it’s what we love do and how we love to do it.

The opening track “Let It Rain”, I let me 16 year old kid listen to it in the car the other day and he said it sounding like it was the soundtrack for the scene in a movie when the cool kid pulls up in his vintage sports car with the dust flying and the low camera angle shows his boot stepping out onto the ground with the school or wherever he is going out of focus in the background. I thought that was an awesome description.
It is! Love that reaction. I’m 72 years old and I don’t fell like anybody under 50 listens to us. I’ve been finding a lot of young kids who listen to us, which surprises me.

Yeah, its like the whole Metallica thing with the show Stranger Things. I’m sure your aware of that. You now have 15 years old kids wearing Master of Puppet shirts.
[Laughing] Yeah, Yeah. You know kids are always discovering or rediscovering things and make it their own.

There are some lyrics on the new album, and I don’t know if you wrote them or if was Ty or Jerry, but they go “Everybody wants their rights, everybody wants to fight”.  Is that a commentary on your own life or is that more of a broad stroke?
That is a WIDE, WIIIIDE, WIDE stroke. Its like I’m sitting down talking to a friend and we look at the state of the world or the news is on. I go you know what we need is a flood. Then everybody chuckles and you keep going. But that’s all it is. I’m making light of a dire situation. Sometimes there is noting we can do, but look at it. Go to work the next day and pick up our kids from school.

You mentioned the flood, and knowing your background, I hear a bunch of those key or buzz words from the evangelical or religious world.
I love using those words. It confuses people.
I pick up on those. I grew up in a non-denominational church and when I’m listening to you and think “What did he just say?” I know what that means.
I look at it this way. There is all this wisdom in the writings that you find. People say “Well what did Confucius say or other scholars say?” Well what did Jesus say? I just throw it out there as part of the conversion as what I see as a writing or wise saying. And then the funny thing is, if I do a Jesus quote all of a sudden I’m a Christian. I can do a quote from everybody and nobody says a word. And that’s why I do it, because they don’t understand. They don’t get it. It’s not about religion, it’s not about politics. Its about why can’t we let each other live our lives and to come together to stop this world from falling apart.

I believe I heard you say in a recent interview that you thought the pandemic was kind of a reset. It made people stop and look at things differently.
It seemed that way around a lot of people I know. I mean I hang out with mostly musicians. We all had to sit around at home and think “What the fuck am I doing?” I think it was a good thing for a lot of people. People got closer together, people got to know their kids, and well, some got divorced. There was all kinds of good and bad stuff. I mean, people were killing each other, drinking too much, and doing drugs. But… What I’m saying is it stopped everybody in their tracks. Like I say, “this runaway train ain’t slowing down.” It literally stopped everybody for a second.  We needed a reset. I don’t know how good the reset was [laughing] but it was a gear change.

Me personally, I’m at home all the time anyway. I’m always writing. I’ve been doing this most of my life. I don’t have a day gig. I haven’t had one since I was in my 20s. So what I do, I can pay my bills with. So I just stay home hang out and write music. I do what I want to. The pandemic didn’t really do anything to me, but make me realize that I do like being alone. And do like not going out [laughing].
You have an excuse now.
Yeah!  People go “come on over and hang out.” I’m like “Nah…. I’m just enjoying begin with me.” I don’t have to worry about other people’s emotions. Maybe its selfish. I don’t know. You know you share you life with people for so long that every once in a while you just gotta stop and take care of yourself and refill. That’s what it did for me. It helped me fill back up, so I can spew it back out again.

In your answer you touched on several other questions I was going to ask you. One was about day jobs. What jobs did you have growing up and what were they like?
Oh, man. I remember when I was seventeen, I got a job. It was a summer job. I was an office runner. Basically, I sat at a desk and every now and then I took papers to someone somewhere else. It was one of those thing for the poor kids who needed jobs. You know, the poor black kids. So I got that and it lasted for the summer.

The next job I got was at a factory. They has these sheets of insulation for cars and came out of this roller. They would be stamped and you would have to punch out the stamped holes where the knobs for the car would be. You just stood there for eight hours. I did that for three weeks and quit. It was an assembly line and was just horrible.

I got another job they had me putting tops on aerosol cans. So this thing would go by and I would just keep putting them on. I remember sleeping at night and doing it in my sleep. That also lasted about three months.

I’ll tell you, back in the 60s when I grew up, there was a lot of prejudice. Underlying prejudice. One thing that was always said was that a black person can’t keep a job for any longer than a year. It was a way of saying we were lazy. In my community it was a goal of ours to keep a job at least a year. So I got a job in shipping receiving at this place when I was 27. I kept it for a year, and then quit. I have never had a job since [laughing].

Oh, I did have one other job, I worked at a daycare. I cooked for these kids. I loved these kids. They wanted me to be their dad. It was so sad. There mom or dad would drop them off and some of them would cry cause they parents were getting a divorce. They would go “will you be my daddy?” They would break my heart, On my God I loved them,bu tit was just terrible for me to hear.

But anyway, after that I never done [that again]. Its either do or die. If I only made fifteen bucks, I bough/made spaghetti dinner for everybody and slept on the floor.

You mentioned you cooked at the daycare.  I was going to ask you what was the best meal you have ever had?
You will just have to come to a Pinnick family reunion. You will have some food that you have never tasted and it’ss amazing. What my family can cook is the best cooking ever, as far as I’m concerned. At least five times in the career of King’s X we were in the Chicago area when there was a family reunion, or we had a day off and we could go to my mom’s house. We would roll up the bus to my mom’s house and she would cook a Thanksgiving dinner for the everybody. The road crew, the opening band, everybody. They will tell you, it was the best food they had ever eaten.
I think she kind of planned it. She knew you tour schedule.
No. I never planned it. Maybe somebody in the tour did it. I guess I need to thank him… Oh, I’m so full of myself.  I never thought of that. I just thought it was a coincidence. Daaarrr, Unbelievable, I am. On my God.

I know your friends with Charlie Benante of Anthrax and as you know he is sitting in for the late Vinnie Paul for Pantera reunion or tribute. Do you have any thoughts on that?
No. Everybody asks me that, and everybody is talking about it. Here is my take. It’s nobody’s fucking business what anybody thinks. They should do what they want. I wasn’t in the meeting when they talked about it. I haven’t talked to any of the guys from any of those camps about it and they are all my friends. As far as I’m concerned, when they come to L.A. I will go. I would love to see them, they are my friends. Other than that, no comment, because I feel like I have no right to say anything.

Aside from tour, I understand that you were also friends with Dime and that you were one of many lucky ones that would get 3am phone calls from him. Can you share some of those?
Yeaaaah. Oh My God.  The phone would ring and it’s like four in the morning. I would here “This is dUg, leave a message.” [In drunken slurred voice] “Dug this is Dime, and we drunk as fuck… and we riddin’ down the highway.  We wanna sing a song for ya. Everybody!  Listen to us dUg!”  Then you hear the whole bus going “…can’t be bought better..”  they could never get past better. Then they would all start howling like wolfs. Just WAAOOOO,  WAAAAOOOOOO! Just yellin’  Then he would hang up. Then in a few minutes call back. “dUg, dUg. We got it… we gonna do it. We got it right this time.” And they would try, but they never could finish it. I would not answer the phone just to hear that.

That’s just one of the many, many stories of Dime that all of us could tell. He was just one of those characters.

I know one thing for sure there a lot of young one in like their twenties that are going to get to experience at least a millisecond or a piece of what we all lived through. They just don’t know yet.

Just a few nights ago, I covered the Anthrax show with Black Label and Hatebreed. I was there doing photography. But at the end of their set Anthrax does part of the Pantera song “Domination”. It was kind of surreal as Scott hits that first cord the place got quite for a second and there was a crazy energy. It insane to think that is going to be happening all over the country in a few months.
I’ve heard. That’s going to be a big deal. I haven’t really talked to anybody from that camp in a while. I’m curious, but that just because I’m a friend and I love them.  I mean, I’ve watched those guys go through everything. I’ve talked to them when they weren’t speaking to each other.  They were like “What he say about me?” “What did they say about me?” [laughing] And I’m just like “nah. nah, nah.” I would plead the fifth.

I look back and kinda wish I could have maybe been a mediator way back in those low points. But I didn’t know any better either.

Looking back and having guys like Dime and many other praising your early albums like Gretchen, Faith Hope, Love, and even Out of the Silent Planet, how does it make you feel that those works are so respected three and four decades later?
For me, it’s still a surprise even thought it shouldn’t be. I should stop being surprised by it. Does that make any sense? You know I’ve watch people cry when I sing my whole life, so when someone says, “What is it like now”. You know, it still kinda baffles me that these things happen and I’m still kinda surprised. You know, my whole life has been that way. I have had a great life. The ups and the downs. It has been a great adventure and I look forward to the rest of it. In a way it has grounded me and it helps me accept the things I can’t change and see the things that I have accomplished.

Basically, We hate ourselves, don’t we? I have learned to love myself in some capacity, were I’m OK now. I’ve stopped beating myself up 24 hours a day. Maybe it’s an hour a day now. Periodically I’ll go on a binge and hate myself all day. But I’m at the point where I can go “You’re not that bad.” You kinda want to believe these good things [about yourself]. Its things you always wanted to hear, so listen and be happy about it. Stop trying to discredit yourself when somebody gives you all the credit. So, it’s a battle. A 24 hour battle of look what you’ve accomplished verses what you haven’t. It’s like having a mom who says “You are the greatest thing since sliced bread.” And having a dad that goes “Whatever.”

Keeping the same vein of looking back, I’ve heard rumblings a while back that you are working on a retrospective documentary about the band.
Yeeeeeaahh!  OOOh My God. Its almost done. Roy Turner actually showed us a tiny clip and it made me cry.  It was only a minute. This guy had an uncanny ability to bring your into something emotionally with lights and cameras and the way people talk. He is really good. I can’t wait to see it all and how it all turns out. He basically wants people to see what we have done through our whole career. From where we started to where we are at and that we are still here. He wants people to understand the depth of the three of us. Not only as what we produce, but as real people. He has got a lot of people in there that get to share their opinion. Which is really, really cool. I like that. I think it’s going to be pretty cool.

The camera work is really good. There is this one scene, he took a drone and flew it up this mountain, all the way down into the studio all the way to the sound board.  It was just so cool and as it goes the music get louder and louder. That is the kind of stuff [he is doing].  It’s going to be fun.

I don’t know if he is going to use that scene or not, but if so, I’ve just blown it.

I cant wait to see it.

I have some more silly kind of questions for you.
Ok. Sure.

Do you have any pets, and if so what?
No. No, I can’t deal with pets.  Because I feel things to much. Animals…ummm… I can’t stop the energy that I feel from them, so I can concentrate on myself. I am one of those very sensitive people. Sometimes it drives me crazy. If a dog is in the next room, I’ll have to go see if it’s OK. It will look at me and all of a sudden I’m think, “What are you thinking, what do you want, whats wrong?” Then I start to just focus on the dog and I can’t get anything done. I’m like that with everything. My plants are the same way. I go and talk to them, I tell them I’m sorry when I don’t water them. I hug my tree. I walk barefoot on the ground. I can feel the difference on the ground between Los Angeles, Chicago, and Texas. When I take my shoes off I can feel the vibration is slightly different. All that shit I go through.

For me being alone is good because the only noise I have is made by me. On the other hand, I like going out among the world. It’s just overwhelming sometimes, because I can feel so much.

Its truly nice to be able to turn it off or do your own thing when you want to or need to.
Well, the pandemic taught me that also. I didn’t know I could turn it off, I didn’t know I could leave and stop for a while and give myself a break. I would just drain myself and drain myself, cause I wanted to be there give my attention to whoever was there and needed it. I would pout it [out] and pour it [out]. I was always exhausted, and tired, and frustrated too, especially.  There are people who will just drain you, just to drain you. You’re not really helping them. They just need your attention. The pandemic has really shown me all the traps that have trapped me most of my life. Even with my mother passing away, and some of the things I felt in that. It’s all what it is. I put it into music. Wrote a song. Wanna hear it? Here goes. [laughing]

I can totally relate for where you are coming from. For years I did tons of freelance design work, along with a full time job, ran this website and magazine, did other music stuff, had a band and also was a single dad.  And..
Geeeze.. I just have to interrupt… SINGLE dad. On My God. You know something? I just have to say one thing. I have to give you 100% credit. I admire you. It’s hard enough for two people to raise a kid, but to do it as a dad… Bless you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Through all those things, I have taught myself to say no to people. It’s nothing personal or anything like that, its just I already have 49 things going on, so it just has to be a no.
Exactly, Exactly.

I did want to ask you before we wrap up is about an upcoming tour. I see you have a handful of dates scheduled in Texas and I think Tenseness. Is there any plans for more dates after the release or in the new year?
Yeah, well what you see is what we have now. We are just beginning to figure it our. When we are gonna do it, and how we are gonna do it.

US Tour Dates

28 July – Gramercy Theatre, NYC, NY, USA
29 July – Sellersville Theatre, Sellersville, PA, USA
30 July – Spyglass Ridge Winery, Sunbury, PA, USA
19 October ・ Amos・ Southend, Charlotte, NC, USA
20 October ・ The Concourse, Knoxville, TN, USA
21 October ・ The Forum, Hazard, KY, USA
23 October ・ Brooklyn Bowl, Nashville, TN, USA
25 October ・ The Howlin・ Wolf, New Orleans, LA, USA
23 November ・ Trees, Dallas, TX, USA
25 November ・ Come and Take It Live, Austin, TX, USA
26 November ・ Warehouse Live, Houston, TX, USA

About Author

Josh Drespling

Josh is the Publisher and creator of Empire Extreme and it’s sister publication Kingdom Extreme Magazine. He is an accomplished writer, photographer and graphic designer. He is always conjuring up new ideas and has a amazing passion for the music industry and all the things that surround it.

See author's posts

The new album The New Dark Ages was released in June here on planet earth. I understand that you did a couple tracks with Kanye West and another with Justin Timberlake. Can you tell us why those collaborations didn’t make it onto the album?
Because they were terrible, and they were just awful, awful people. We thought maybe with some name recondition we could get some more idiot fans that would be able to pay and supplement our lavish life styles. But that was not the case. We just couldn’t put out garbage like that!
Who else did you think of approaching to do collaborations with?
Maybe Lady Gaga
Maybe Whitney Houston, bring her back from the dead?
Hell yeah! She would be perfect!

I saw a picture of you with a guitar that had a green leafy symbol on it. It looked like some kind of plant. What is that symbol? Is it some sort of intergalactic code?
That is s secret, but I moonlighted in a group that was all about smoking marijuana all the time. But that was in a former life. That sticker is no longer on my guitar. I dislike the marijuana because it calms the rage. I like to be ready to be enraged at any time. I like to become enraged at the flip of a switch.

I found something on the dark-web that indicated the GWAR developed the Monkeypox virus after their failed attempt to destroy the human race using Corona Virus, Fentanyl, Aids and Diabetes. Is there any truth to that?
Yeah, of course. We invented Monkeypox from, of course, fucking monkeys. The target demographic is not exactly what we expected. We wanted all of humanity to suffer, but we’ll take what we can get.

Do you yourself have any pets and if so do you cuddle with them?
Yes.  A cat.
Does it sleep with you? I would imagine you sleep standing up.
I sleep under a bed of leaves outside. I like cats because they have this unique ability.  See their piss stinks so much. I like to throw cat piss on my enemies. That stuff will stick with you for a long time.
Do you mix it with anything, or just straight up?
Straight up.

With your soft subtle skin, have you ever been approached by CoverGirl, Revlon or even Clearasil to be a model?
Lush Beauty Cosmetics, but I couldn’t sit though the photo shoot.
Why? They couldn’t offer you enough money?
No, not enough booze.

Would you consider yourself or the rest of GWAR as ‘woke’?
[Laughing] NO!… I think aware. We are a very well aware of the struggles that humanity faces. “Woke” is synonyms with pointless and unnecessarily being offended.  I don’t know what the word is for it. Someone who is just being offend all the time. Fake outrage is mostly what woke-culture is. I think it’s important to be aware of things that are going on around you and identify with struggles of other people. At the same time, everything doesn’t have to make you a cry-baby. Also some things are fucking weird. Not everything is normal. I think its OK to identify life as it is, instead of trying to put everything into a neat little box. Or to create a safe environment for little Billy and Tiffany to go about their lives and be safe and protected from everything that might hurt their egos. Fragility is why the youngest generation now is so fucking doomed. It really is. Have you tried to date any kids in this era? It’s really difficult.

How is it that GWAR has been able to make every sitting president in the last few decades a fan of the band?
I don’t know man. I think they just love the spot light. They gravitate towards us. We have a lot of things in common, a lust for blood, war economy, money, virgin blood.  We have a sex island. Presidents love the sex island! Let me tell ya, its a big hit.

Any chance of GWAR ever play Coachella or any other festival like that?
For the low, low fee of $25,000 yes. Shit yeah, as long as the check won’t bounce we’ll play.

Empire Extreme is based in Pittsburgh, PA and we are talking to you today to help promote the upcoming date at Mr Smalls. Your coming with Nekrogoblikon, Light The Torch, and Crobot. Isn’t that goblin just a Scum Dog of The Universe reject?
I don’t know what planet or underworld that dude is from, but it is funny to get into trouble with them. Obviously we are the headlines, so whatever happens he gets blamed for it. In my line of work it’s good to have a scapegoat.

The new GWAR documentary is on Shudder right now. Why should I stop watching Stranger Things and go watch this?

I don’t know. Its all lies anyways. I would stay away from it if I were you. It’s all about these humans masquerading like they are actually in the band. That’s not true at all. A real documentary would talk about how GWAR is from outer space and all our trials and tribulations destroying other planets and galaxies. And other things of that nature. But this just involves a lot of crying.

Does the documentary cover any of the part of the history of the band playing on America’s Got Talent or American Idol?
Briefly, I think I’m actually in the movie for 30 seconds.

Just long enough to get your SAG card (Screen Actor’s Guild).
After that appearance, yeah!

There is a new comic out, well a newer comic GWAR In The Duoverse of Absurdity. Can you give us the rundown on that?
The comic is great. It picks up were The New Dark Ages leaves off. It cross collateralizes some of the story, but both stand alone. You don’t have to have both, but you should. It’s really cool. Its not a continuation of that last comic book story. Its a graphic novel, so there is no separate issues to buy. You have one complete story. There are different segments illustrated by different artist. If you are just a general comic fan or a GWAR fan you got to pick one up for sure.

You guys are on tour in the states for the rest of the year?
Yeah, we just came back from Europe, so we will be in the Unites States for the next two months.

About Author

Josh Drespling

Josh is the Publisher and creator of Empire Extreme and it’s sister publication Kingdom Extreme Magazine. He is an accomplished writer, photographer and graphic designer. He is always conjuring up new ideas and has a amazing passion for the music industry and all the things that surround it.

See author's posts