An Industrial, Musical, Fiery Cancellation - Brian Graupner of the Gothsicles

Join us for Keri Smith's #Deprogrammed interview with Brian Graupner of the industrial bands The Gothsicles and Gasoline Invertebrate, and host of Space Couch. Brian went through one of the craziest cancellations in the music industry, which included an intervention, a divorce (in part because he had a "secret" Daily Wire subscription) and the turning on him of many in his audience, replete with cancellations of gigs and more. All because he's willing to talk with people, anyone, who disagrees with him, and listen to a variety of ideas. What he did after was a fiery bit of alchemy that speaks to standing for truth over social pressure.

Brian Graupner's "dumb band," as he describes it - The Gothsicles - was more successful than anyone, including himself, ever thought possible. In his own words:

What started (and largely stayed) as some skinny nerd from Wisconsin emitting ear-splitting caterwauling comedy music about video games (a novel idea in 2002) and various animals I think are cool over industrial beats and marketing it to crowds that banked on eyeliner and sadness was destined to never find purchase. I mean, I called the thing “The Gothsicles” for goodness sake.

Yet somehow, the project remained viable for decades and spanned the globe including (and often headlining) spots at international industrial festivals worldwide (Resistanz in England, Kinetik in Canada, Mechanismus in Seattle, Species in Ireland, all the big ones), European tours and US tours, playing “goth cruises” to the Bahamas and Alaska, along with a headlining spot at Dragon*Con in Atlanta, and “gamer” / sci-fi cons coast to coast. Kickstarters for albums were regularly funded in a matter of hours, going on to several times their capacity, and the resulting albums received glowing reviews. I mean, people would write me poems about how I changed their life & stuff. Here’s us in Finland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG4VQDKrnzs&t=14s

Here’s a music video about stag beetles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo-OGSt2Hr8

And here’s one about howler monkeys:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1vzPq8II7M

And this is a fun one about Ice Hockey for the Nintendo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4qCzoQWzoE

Then I started branching out! I tried my hand at “serious” music with a project called “Gasoline Invertebrate” and whaddyaknow, it hit #2 on the German Alternative Charts (the “DAC”)! A high school dream come true!

I was “canonized” as the model for a card in Vampire: The Eternal Struggle, this card game I’ve been playing forever! Check it out!

I started a record label and people loved it! The community built-up therein became a true global family and some of the stuff we put out hit number #1 on bandcamp (fleetingly, but hey, I’ll take it)! We did online festivals and put out some crazy releases (En Ensch of KMFDM, even, whaaaat).

And I had 3 podcasts I was doing, all to relative success! And the real kicker was my “show”, Space Couch. It was basically a live Skype call on which people could comment in real time (which was a novel idea before the lockdown). And again, this Space Couch thing got bigger than I would have ever imagined! I interviewed high school heroes and movie directors and published comic book creators and ever bigger bands (Orgy! Combichrist! bonkers!) Made crazy connections! All those are still up at facebook.com/spacecouchshow/videos, actually.

And then I did a reciprocal interview for someone who had me on her show and it all went away over a weekend. People had found she’d made some tweets critical of the trans community and told me not to have her on and I did anyway ‘cause I think it’s okay to talk to people. I don’t agree with gender ideology anyway, but it’s not like I was going around making that my thing.

People went nuts. Like BONKERS. I was cancelled super duper hard. Smash cut to the present and I just put out a new Gasoline Invertebrate album and I talk about this a lot (again with MoxieDame, the person that made everyone so mad) on her show and I think her intro really captures it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh0kUcq3gJk

My wife left me because I quietly listened to the Daily Wire. My parents turned on me. I lost all my friends. I got dropped from every gig (including the big fancy international ones) I had lined up. I was banned from local clubs and had to move states. People were smashing my CDs and sending me pictures. All ‘cause I talked to someone on the internet for 30 minutes about old video games.

Then I put out this new Gasoline album and people just went insane, especially over the track “Leftism Is Bad”: https://gasolineinvertebrate.bandcamp.com/album/crash-and-burn-and-burn-and-burn

New single, too:
https://gasolineinvertebrate.bandcamp.com/track/being-called-transphobic