Chuck Varga, a founding member of the shock-rock heavy metal band GWAR who prowled its stages as the character Sexecutioner, died Friday, Sept. 25, 2026, following a battle with cancer. He was 68.
GWAR bassist Casey Orr, who performs as Beefcake the Mighty, announced the death on Facebook. “Chuck 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 a gentleman,” Orr wrote, adding that the world “is lesser for his leaving.”
Orr said Varga was likely being “welcomed into Valhalla right now by Brockie and Smooty and all who went before,” a reference to late GWAR co-founder and frontman Dave Brockie, who performed as Oderus Urungus, and late guitarist Cory Smoot, who played Flattus Maximus. Orr asked fans to raise a glass and tell stories about him. “Legends never die. Hail Varga! Hail Sexicutioner!” he wrote.
The band paid its own tribute on Instagram on Sept. 27. “There are some losses that hit harder than others. The world lost Chuck Varga a few days ago, and GWAR lost one of its own,” it wrote, calling him an artist, a vocalist and “a brother to everyone in the band.”
From the Slave Pit to GWAR
Born in Virginia in 1958, Varga attended Virginia Commonwealth University, where he befriended fellow student Hunter Jackson. Jackson had set up a production space called the Slave Pit to make a science-fiction film, and Varga became part of the community of musicians, artists and filmmakers that gathered there and gave rise to GWAR, which formed in Richmond, Va., in 1984.
The band fused heavy metal with science fiction and Norse mythology, dressing the whole thing in Kiss-style costumes taken to violent and grotesque extremes. Known for its outlandish getups and intentionally offensive lyrics, GWAR became a local favorite around Richmond before building a national following. Varga designed characters and props for the band, and as the Sexecutioner he sang lead on his signature songs, including “Sexecutioner” and “Ragnarok.”
Two Grammy Nominations and a Breakthrough
Varga performed with GWAR through the band’s breakthrough years, from the mid-1980s until 1997. The group’s debut album, “Hell-O,” arrived in 1988, and 1992’s “America Must Be Destroyed” cracked the Billboard 200.
The recognition extended to the Grammy Awards. GWAR was nominated in 1993 for Best Long Form Music Video for “Phallus in Wonderland,” losing to Annie Lennox, and picked up a second nomination in 1996 for Best Metal Performance for the single “S.F.W.,” a category that went to Nine Inch Nails. The band’s 2013 release, “Battle Maximus,” peaked at No. 7 on Billboard’s Top Hard Rock Albums chart. Brockie, who co-founded GWAR while attending Virginia Commonwealth University, died March 23, 2014, at 50.
Varga left the band in 1997 and moved to New York City to pursue work in film, television and Broadway. He co-founded Hypereal Productions, a costume and set design company, with fellow GWAR alumnus Don Drakulich, and returned for stints with the band from 2000 to 2002 and from 2014 to 2017, before retiring from the stage after GWAR’s Halloween Scumdog Reunion in 2021, according to the band.
A Blood Drive in His Honor
Varga’s cancer diagnosis became public in April, when his bandmates launched a nationwide blood donation campaign; donors received a limited-edition shirt he designed. In June, the band started a fundraiser to help Varga and his wife cover medical, hospice and housing costs.
“Chuck Varga’s contributions to the Gwar and Slave Pit collective are enormous,” GWAR member Bob Gorman, who plays Bonesnapper, said at the time. “The influence of his illustrations, character designs, performances, and artistic vision can still be felt throughout Gwar today.”
Varga lived in Brooklyn, N.Y. He is survived by his wife, Bambi; complete information on other survivors was not immediately available. GWAR begins its “Gor Gor Must Die!” tour on Oct. 27 in Charlottesville, Va.