GWAR’s Dave Brockie, a.k.a. Oderus Urungus, Dead at Age Fifty

Update, 10:24 a.m.: The news has now been confirmed by the band’s manager. Tragic.

I’m in a state of shock.

A reader e-mailed us this morning to say that DC 101’s Elliot in the Morning has reported that GWAR vocalist Dave Brockie — better known to most of us as Oderus Urungus — has been found dead.

As of this writing, the band’s Facebook page doesn’t saying anything about Brockie passing away, and I have yet to receive confirmation from his longtime publicist. I’m still hoping this is all a misunderstanding or something. But multiple websites of good repute, including NME, Punknews.org, and Digital Spy, are all reporting the death.

From Themusic.com.au:

“In response to recent unconfirmed rumours circulating online, the management of popular thrash metal band Gwar will be making an official announcement at 4am AEDT Tuesday morning [1 pm Monday EST, 11 am Monday PST], theMusic.com.au has learned.

“Rumours are circulating that the band’s frontman David Brockie – who performs as Oderus Urungus – has passed away, though we stress there is no confirmation at this stage.”

In addition to being one of the most recognizable frontmen in metal for the past three decades, Brockie was a columnist for MetalSucks, first penning the “Ask Oderus” advice column starting in 2009, then taking over our “Necessary Roughness” NFL column in for three seasons starting in 2011. Our experience working with him was never anything less than positive; in an industry where it often seems to be completely acceptable to be flaky, if Dave ever handed in a column late, we would get an apologetic e-mail almost immediately. I only had the chance to meet him in person once, but he kept thanking me profusely for “letting” him do the column. Although “Oderus” thought very highly of himself indeed, Dave came across as a legitimately humble dude.

Like I said, I’m still hoping this is all somehow not true… but I fear the worst. We’ll update you as soon as we know more.