GWAR‘s lead vocalist Blöthar the Berserker and lead guitarist Pustulus Maximus recently shared their opinion on gatekeeping in the heavy metal community.

Whether we like to admit it or not, gatekeeping is a thing within the global rock and metal community. And while it’s generally not as widespread or blown out of proportion as some people make it, it nevertheless happens, and it can do so in many different ways. However, our transdimensional alien barbarian overlords from GWAR aren’t having any of it.

Speaking to Sophie K of Knotfest in a recently published interview, Blöthar has only one thing to say to those who put other people down for liking music outside of the genre, or being inexperienced newcomers to heavy music – and that’s “Fuck you!”. Pustulus seems to be very much of the same mind, as he says (transcription via The Pit):

“That’s the worst. My philosophy is ‘It’s okay to like stuff.’ If you wanna like good ol’ Dirkschneider over there and Mercyful Fate and Billie Eilish in the same day, that’s fine. It doesn’t matter. But you can’t like N’Sync and metal though, or Backstreet Boys.”

In a fearless manner adequate for someone who recently called Iron Maiden “a bunch of British old women”, Blöthar added:

“Anybody can like anything. I just think it’s absolutely absurd. You know, metal has been excluded [possibly referring to the mainstream]. People that like metal and that are drawn to it are outsiders. Why do they wanna put up the same walls for other people? It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Source: Ultimate-Guitar