Beefcake The Mighty is rarely the bearer of bad news, but Friday was an exception, his longtime friend and bandmate, The Sexicutioner, Chuck Varga, had succumbed to cancer.
Varga, a founding member of GWAR and the artist who created and performed as the Sexecutioner, died Friday, Sept. 25, at 68. His death was announced by his longtime friend and bandmate Mike Bishop, who performs as Beefcake the Mighty. Varga’s wife, Bambi, was with him.
Varga had been living with metastatic prostate cancer. The illness, first diagnosed about a decade ago, had advanced in recent years and left him receiving hospice care. He helped build GWAR’s world from its earliest days in Richmond, combining creature design, sculpture, costumes and stage performance into the band’s deliberately grotesque sci-fi spectacle.
Bishop remembered him this way:
“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 [Dave] Brockie [who fronted GWAR under the name Oderus Urungus] and Smooty [GWAR guitarist Cory Smoot] and all who went before.
“Raise your glass and tell his tales. Legends never die. Hail Varga! Hail Sexecutioner!”
Varga’s recorded GWAR credits include Scumdogs of the Universe (1990), where he performed vocals on “Sexecutioner”; America Must Be Destroyed (1992), with spoken-word vocals on “Pussy Planet”; Ragnarök (1995), where he sang lead on the title track; and the live album Scumdogs XXX Live! (2021). He also contributed artwork to This Toilet Earth (1994). His screen credits with the band include the concert videos Live from Antarctica (1990), Tour de Scum (1992) and The Gwarnage Campaign (2002).
GWAR kept its live campaign moving this year, appearing at Vans Warped Tour in Washington, D.C., on June 13, CreepyCon in Knoxville on July 31, and Endless Fires Festival in Liverpool, New York, on Aug. 15.
The band carried into September with Louder Than Life in Louisville and Riot Fest in Chicago, where its set included a cover of Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club.”
GWAR also released a limited pink seven-inch pairing the song with “We’re Just GWAR,” its reworking of “I’m Just Ken.”
The band marked the 20th anniversary of Beyond Hell with a remastered vinyl edition and a newly issued HD video for its cover of Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out.” A GWAR retrospective exhibition, “Let There Be GWAR,” is also on view in Los Angeles through Nov. 2.
At Riot Fest, GWAR performed the cover in a set that also included “Fuck This Place,” “Crack in the Egg,” “Lot Lizard” and “Gor-Gor.” A verifiable video of the Riot Fest rendition was not available, so the official A.V. Undercover performance is included here.
