GWAR typically stick to their blood-spurting, monster-decapitating lane. But on Tuesday (July 15), the costumed thrash metal band’s lead singer, Blöthar the Berserker, took time out from howling about a “New Dark Age” and spraying fake viscera on his audience to share a very special message about something close to his heart: public broadcasting.

After the Republican-controlled Senate narrowly advanced the Trump White House’s request to claw back $1.1 billion in funding it had previously approved for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) — the private nonprofit that oversees funding for National Public Radio and PBS — Blöthar (born Michael Bishop) posted a video urging Americans to stand up and fight against the efforts to eviscerate what he said were a vital public resource.

“Humans. This is the Berzerker Blöthar of GWAR and I’m here to talk to you about public media. Public media is in danger,” he said in his signature gruff voice in a rare moment of straight talk. “You know many years ago my personal friend, the great Fred Rogers, he testified in Congress about the value of public media, about how important it was in children’s lives. He famously secured funding for National Public Radio. Why? Because he was able to demonstrate that it makes a difference and that’s important. Mr. Rogers brought love and light into the world, into a dark and hateful world.”

In light of the actions taken by Republicans this week as part of their efforts to advance Trump’s deficit-exploding “big beautiful bill” Blöthar said the very light that beloved children’s show host Rogers was determined to keep shining is in danger of being snuffed out. “The Senate will vote on a House-passed Rescissions Act this week which would eliminate 1.1 billion dollars in already approved funding for public media,” he said of the procedural efforts being advanced by Republicans to claw back funds they had already allocated as part of Trump’s slash-and-burn approach to shrinking government.

“This would strip essential services. It could force rural stations off of the air entirely. They won’t be able to pay licensing fees the same way they did for music. This could very well silence the music,” Blöthar said. “I’ll tell you what else. It’s gonna to take away art and culture from the lives of people, or at least access to that from the lives of people who need it and benefit from it. Rise up, people! In the name of Fred Rogers! In the name of Big Bird! And the drunken Lady Elaine Fairchild! Changes to this bill are still possible. Now is the time to urge your senators to remove the proposal that targets public media from the package of this Big Beautiful Bill.”

As part of that effort, Blöthar encouraged supporters of public media to go to protectmypublicmedia.org to read about how voters can urge Congress to save their public radio and TV stations. “Call your senators. Make a difference,” he said. “Do it now because there’s not a lot of time.”

According to NPR, the Senate voted by a “razor-thin” margin late Tuesday to advance debate on the package of funding cuts requested by Trump to pull back the $1.1 billion previously allocated to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — as well as $7.9 billion earmarked for international efforts to combat famine and disease around the world. Vice President JD Vance had to be called to the Senate floor to cast a tie-breaking vote after three Republicans bucked their party and joined all the chamber’s democrats in rejecting the measure.

In a recent statement from NPR’s Katherine Maher, the network’s CEO said that enacting the rescission would remove crucial funding and cause immediate budget shortfalls that would result in the “cancellation of beloved local and national programming, a reduction in local news coverage and newsroom jobs, a severe curtailing (if not elimination) of public radio music stations who depend on CPB to negotiate music licenses, reduction in service areas for rural and remote communities, as well as forcing dozens of local stations to shutter operations.”

She added that the action to cut the already approved funds would “irreparably harm communities across America who count on public media for 24/7 news, music, cultural and educational programming, and emergency alerting services.”

Trump has called PBS and NPR “RADICAL LEFT ‘MONSTERS’” in his bid to strip away the organization’s funding, despite the CPB not acting as a federal agency under his jurisdiction; public broadcasting is mostly supported through a combination of federal funds, donations and philanthropic grants, with CPB saying that around 1% of its budget comes from federal sources. According to the CPB, its funding is also a minute amount of the overall federal budget, with its estimated $535 million annually amounting to approximately 0.01% of the total $6.9 trillion annual federal outlay.

Check out Blöthar’s video below.