WIZROBE: The Story Behind The Album Part 1

Wed, 12/02/2009 — Rev. Ragu

In 1989, Wizrobe released their most popular album to date, "Pussy Liquors & Fine Spirits." The album, widely known as a drastic departure from their EPIC FANTASY METAL roots, sent Wizrobe hurtling into the mainstream, the album eventually going triple platinum. Rather than the triumphal lyrics praising the deeds of the folkloric heroes of old and spinning fearful tales of the beasts that lurk on the edge of humanity's collective imagination, Wizrobe's new style was of the much more mainstream SEXY REACTION METAL (also must be capitalized). With the raunchy licks and erotically charged lyrics, Wizrobe found much wider appeal than merely blaring from parents' basements during all-night Dungeons & Dragons marathons.

Bred Gohma, bassist, describes the thought process that went into the creation of this album. "Man, y'know, we figured 'Hey'. Like, I said this to Larry [Wizrobe] man, 'Hey, man, what mythological beast or tale of daring gallantry should we fuckin' write about for the new album'. And Larry was, man, Larry always had this fuckin' twinkle in his eye, and he was like 'We should write about the most terrifying creature of all... MAN'. Like, y'know, he had this concept, like, for a concept album, writin' about the terrifying bestial excess of man. And man, he knew all about it, we we're all waist deep in pussy. Well, uh, he was. And Ahmed [Stalfos], he was too. Oh, and that fuckin' drummer, whatever the fuck his name was. Not fuckin' Bred, though. Not fuckin' Bred."

Yet many of the die-hard Wizrobe fanbase were unsatisfied with the record, calling it a "sell-out" and a betrayal of the EPIC FANTASY METAL scene. When I asked second drummer Aristotle Dodongopoulis about the band supposedly turning their backs on the faithful, Mr. Dodongopoulis became agitated and shouted. "Fuck them, fuck those motherfuckers, and fuck you," proceeding to kick over his coffee table, ripping several Van Halen posters off his wall, then storming out of his studio apartment, slamming the door on his way out. After five minutes trying to start his rusted gray '83 Chevy Citation, he returned. "Uh, can I get a boost, man?"

Yet controversy dogged the record. The song "Lost In Space (Journey to the Brown Star)" was nothing more than a detailed step-by-step manual for performing anal sex, and "Meat You At Midnight"'s explicit lyrics and borderline pornographic video, famous for featuring simulated sexual intercourse in a supermarket - systematically utilizing every single cut of beef - lead to a PMRC boycott which had the album pulled from Wal Marts and Targets across the United States. However, the most troubling controversy that the album ran into was for the song "Daddy's Science Device." Parents were shocked to hear a song that seemingly encouraged pedophilic sex with young boys; not the first, obviously (The first being the little known Warrant B-side "Tight Little Tushie (The Love Caboose)"), but perhaps the most widely listened. Testifying before congress in 1990, Tipper Gore read the following lyrics from the infamous song.

Pictured above: The 1991 Super Nintendo game "Dino City" was heavily influenced by Wizrobe's album.

Gonna play with something a little obscene,
Like homo erectus in the pleistocene
Pull it, and pull it, until it explodes
Feel it pulsin' through my electrodes
Warpin' you to another time and place
Sensations born before the human race
Do you see now, Timmy, did you take my advice?
If you can't take the heat
Don't play with Daddy's Science Device
Ooh yeah

Do you want it?
Your Daddy's Science Device
Do you need it?
If it feels alright
Do you want it?
Your Daddy's Science Device
You can feel it?
All through the night

Despite the accusations of these lyrics encouraging incestual pedarasty, bassist Bred Gohma, writer of the song, fervently denies these accusations. "Naw, man. That ain't it at all, that's just fucked up man. I write about what I know, who I am, where I think the world is going, man. I wrote this song from personal experience, and as kind of a warning to the kids who might be listening to the album. My pop was, like, a scientist man. And he had all these fuckin' science devices in the basement. So I went downstairs, and my old man had this big fuckin' TV, and I thought 'fuckin' rights'! So I turned that shit on, and shit, man. This is pretty hard to talk about, man."

Bred paused, visibly shaken, and took a swig of his can of Steel Reserve.

"I turned on my pop's big-ass TV, and, like, I fuckin' dematerialized man. I thought I was trippin', but I was stone sober - no one could score me any shit in town that weekend, which is why I was diggin' through my pop's science shit, hoping to find some fuckin' ether or something. Anyway, man, I dematerialized and was sucked into the TV world, man, and I found myself in a magical dinosaur world. They could like, talk English and shit, and it was fucked up, this fuckin' Land of the Lost shit. They had, like, little dinosaur cities built out of rocks and bones and shit. And I just felt so fucked up, like it fucked me up real bad. I guess I went on some kind of amazing dinosaur adventure with my new talking dinosaur pals, and we stopped the cavemen from taking over their civilization, but man. It just stuck with me. Traumatized me. Having a dinosaur adventure made me approach life on a whole new level, and I just couldn't cope with my new perceptions, so I turned to drugs and booze and shit. Well, I was already doin' drugs and booze and shit, but I had more afterwards, because my hookup got some more when he came back from his weekend trip.

"I couldn't tell this to anyone until I got that song out there, because no one believed me that there were magical dinosaur adventures on the other side of the TV. They thought I was just high and shit. But let me tell you, man, that was the realist I ever felt. And that just fuckin' freaks my shit out. So man, I just wanted to tell kids out there that, like, if your dad's a scientist, not to mess with his science devices, because you may wind up different, changed, man. And you may not like what you become after your dinosaur adventure."

Whether or not his story was believed by the public at large, the album still brought Wizrobe its greatest success. In fact, after this controversy, the album's sales increased by a not insignificant amount. A person could not walk anywhere without hearing "Daddy's Science Device"; piped through mall speakers, dentist's lobbies, and pumping across the elementary school parking lot from a slow-ridin' Vandura. And although the material wealth was fleeting, the band reflects fondly on the experience of finally making it.

"What the fuck man? What the fuck, I wasn't even in the fucking band then, they kicked me out! What the fuck, fuck! Fuck!" Dodongopoulis recollected. He then proceeded to kick his toppled coffee table several more times, ripped his late-seventies model Sanyo television out of the socket and tossed it through the window, bashed his head several times into the wall separating the kitchenette from the bathroom, and stormed off. His whereabouts are currently unknown.

"It was a trip, man," Gohma remarked. "The fans were great, man. The shows were amazing, oh man, and all the drugs. And the girls - Well, I mean, I guess I didn't get any of that. But you know, like, what they say. True love waits, man. And I'm waitin'. Got my OKCupid profile here, like, I'll go and pull it up here. Said I was the Boy Next Door, man. I mean, I might not be "experienced" or "successful" or whatever the fuck, but man, I got heart. It also said that the Star Trek character I was is Chekov. He was the cute one, man. I'm the cute one."