Chuck Varga, a founding member of GWAR and the artist behind the band’s Sexecutioner character, has died aged 68.
His death was announced on Friday (September 25) by longtime GWAR bassist Casey Orr, who performs as Beefcake The Mighty. Varga had been battling cancer, with the band launching a fundraiser to support him and his wife Bambi earlier this year.
“Chuck Varga has left this earthly realm. He passed peacefully, his beloved wife Bambi holding his hand,” Orr wrote.
“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.”
Orr added that Varga was likely being welcomed into “Valhalla” by late GWAR members Dave Brockie and Cory Smoot, before concluding: “Raise your glass and tell his tales. Legends never die. Hail Varga! Hail Sexecutioner!”
Varga was instrumental in establishing the visual universe that became synonymous with GWAR’s music. After studying at Virginia Commonwealth University in the early 1980s, he co-founded Slave Pit Studios in Richmond, Virginia, where artists and musicians developed the elaborate costumes, props and films surrounding the group.
Although he was not one of GWAR’s original instrumentalists, the band themselves have described Varga as a founding member due to his role in creating the wider collective.
He developed and performed The Sexecutioner, an exaggerated leather-clad executioner character who became a recurring figure in GWAR’s notoriously theatrical live performances.
Varga portrayed Sexecutioner from 1985 until 2022, although he stopped being a full-time member of the touring operation in 1997 when he began work on Broadway productions in New York.
Varga also contributed vocals to the band, including taking the lead on the track ‘Sexecutioner’. He later sang lead on ‘RagNaRok’, the title track from GWAR’s 1995 album.
He also co-authored two GWAR feature films, including the Grammy-nominated Phallus In Wonderland.
In June, GWAR launched a fundraiser for Varga as he underwent cancer treatment and hospice care. The initiative was intended to help cover his treatment, as well as support Bambi after she stepped away from work to care for him full-time.
At the time, fellow Slave Pit member Bob Gorman said Varga’s “illustrations, character designs, performances, and artistic vision” could still be felt throughout GWAR.
“Chuck’s over-the-top underground art aesthetic helped define an entire universe,” he added.
GWAR formed in Richmond in 1984 and became renowned for shows combining heavy metal with grotesque science-fiction characters, satire, fake blood and elaborate theatrical violence.
Guitarist Cory Smoot, who portrayed Flattus Maximus, died in 2011, while frontman and founding member Dave Brockie, best known as Oderus Urungus, died aged 50 in 2014.
