{"id":861751,"date":"2026-09-26T21:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T21:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/861751\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T21:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T21:10:08","slug":"chuck-varga-dead-founding-member-of-gwar-was-68","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/861751\/","title":{"rendered":"Chuck Varga Dead: Founding Member of Gwar Was 68"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tChuck Varga, a founding member and vocalist of the heavy metal band Gwar<\/a>, died on Friday following a battle with cancer. He was 68.<\/p>\n

\n\tGwar bassist Casey Orr announced his death in a statement shared to Facebook<\/a>, writing, \u201cChuck Varga has left this earthly realm. He passed peacefully, his beloved wife Bambi holding his hand. He was one of a kind. As an artist, as a performer; as a scholar and gentleman. I\u2019m better for having known him and the world is lesser for his leaving.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOrr also shared that Varga would likely be welcomed into Valhalla, a hall where soldiers go after they die in Norse mythology, by late band members Dave Brockie<\/a> and Cory Smoot.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRaise your glass and tell his tales,\u201d Orr concluded. \u201cLegends never die. Hail Varga! Hail Sexicutioner!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile on stage, Varga would often play a character named Sexicutioner. The rock band, known for its unconventional costumes and intentionally offensive lyrics, was nominated for two Grammys, one in 1993 for Best Long Form Music Video and another in 1996 for Best Metal Performance. Gwar is currently preparing to tour this October.<\/p>\n

\n\tVarga\u2019s battle with cancer became public in April, and the band organized a blood drive and fundraiser in his honor. Donors would receive a shirt designed by Varga, with Gwar\u2019s Bob Gorman noting that Varga\u2019s \u201cillustrations, character designs, performances and artistic vision\u201d continue to influence the band and his aesthetic \u201chelped define an entire universe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tVarga attended Virginia Commonwealth University, where he met fellow student Hunter Jackson. The two co-founded The Slave Pit, a production space aimed toward creating student films, and its creative community ultimately led to the creation of Gwar.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 1997, Varga left the band and moved to New York City to focus his career on film, TV and Broadway. He would return to perform with Gwar intermittently until 2017, when he founded the costume and set design company Hyperreal Productions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chuck Varga, a founding member and vocalist of the heavy metal band Gwar, died on Friday following a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":861752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,181140,216],"class_list":["post-861751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-gwar","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}