THE BLOODY MATTER BEHIND THE 9^TH PLATTER OF CANNIBALISTIC SPLATTER // PART 2

Introduction: Fully seven months and an unforeseen adjustment in the CC line-up later, Pat and his four fellow thespians in anthropophagical folklore are hard at it on their European touring schedule for The Wretched Spawn. Eager to discover more about their extra-cannibalistic engrossments, and enquire further into the 15-year splatter-metrical saga, Misereion and his erstwhile metal-magazine workmate Adam Frandsen confronted CC’s ambidextrous bassist Alex Webster with a bunch of queries aimed at the central bloodstream of the matter... The Modulus/Spector-endorsee kicked off the interview with a rundown of the live-show sequences and offstage happenings thus far.

“Up to this point it’s been going really good. It seems like everybody likes the shows. Some of the shows in Scandinavia are a little smaller, but then again we’re playing really small cities like Gavle in Sweden and Sandnes in Norway. 200 people is a little smaller than what we’ve been doing over the past couple of years, but we’re still really happy for the fact that there’s 200 people there enjoying the show. So it’s been really cool. And, of course, some of the shows were quite big, like Oslo and Helsinki and the bigger cities. All the shows in Finland were actually really killer. They have a good crowd there – really good. But all around Scandinavia it’s quite good for death metal.”

Oliver: You’ve been touring with Jeremy Turner for a while now. How has that been working out?

“Well, everything’s doing well so far. He’s a really good guitar player and everything, so he was able to learn the songs in a hurry. When Jack [Owen] quit he left us with very little time to prepare for our shows in Mexico. He quit on May 6^th or 7^th; something around that. And we had concerts in Mexico on May 25^th! So during that time we had to think: ‘Who can we get?’. And then we had to get him to Tampa, find a place for him to stay and teach him 18 songs before May 25^th. So it’s a bit of a task. I mean, most of the songs that we are doing in the live set aren’t that hard, but there’s a couple that are pretty hard. It was a last-minute thing, and it was a pain in the ass. May was a very stressful month for everyone in Cannibal Corpse with Jack leaving us like that, but Jeremy came in and did really well, so we’re really thankful to him.”

Adam: You will be touring the US with Napalm Death after this European trek. What can two such high-profile bands achieve from playing concerts together?

“For us, I think, it’s very cool because we haven’t played with those guys in a long, long time, and we didn’t ever play one real tour with them. It was just a small tour back in 1991, so it’ll be really cool to play with them. They’re an old, experienced band – older than us, of course. We’re a little bit bigger than them right now, but they’re still almost as big as us, anyway, as far as popularity goes. They pull a little bit of a different audience. Some older fans, some punk-rock fans, crust fans... Those kinds of people go to see Napalm Death; it’s not just a normal death metal audience. So, they don’t get quite as much as a hardcore death metal audience as we do, but rather a more grindcore-oriented one, I guess – and then of course some death metal fans as well – whereas we get pretty much all death metal people. So in that way I think it’ll be bigger than if it were just one band or the other alone. [the lights in the backstage area suddenly go out] It’s been happening all the time, so... Have you guys got a lighter? Because we’ve got candles here [the lights come back on]. Okay, here it is back.”

Adam: Speaking of the audience, I believe you’ve said in a few other interviews that the scene is growing right now.

“I think so, yeah. Actually, it’s becoming kind of clear what’s going on right now. If you’re listening to some of the bands that are coming out of Sweden now, like Visceral Bleeding and Spawn Of Possession, for example. Spawn Of Possession are on tour with us at the moment, and we played with Visceral Bleeding last night as well as the night before in Gothenburg. Their music is a little bit different than the stuff that originally came out of Sweden, like Entombed or Unleashed, which are both classic and excellent bands, of course. But the stuff that’s going on now is a bit more technical and faster than the older-style death metal from there. And at the same time we see a lot of younger people coming to the shows. Last night, for instance, in Linköping, there must have been... Man, it looked like more than half of the crowd were probably under 25, whereas everybody used to be at about our age, like between 28 and 35. There’s been a lot more young people coming to the shows, and there’s also been kind of a shift in how the new bands sound. You don’t hear so many new bands starting out that sound like Entombed or Obituary or something like that. Most of the new bands that are coming out are faster and heavier than the stuff that was coming out when we started. It seems like all the young kids who are playing now are really great musicians. They’re not just good; they’re really great. I look at guys who are like 20 years old playing amazing death metal, and I think: ‘God, it wasn’t like that when we started!’. And now it is. So the level of the musicians has improved. The young musicians grew up, trying to learn how to play Morbid Angel instead of the stuff that we grew up listening to and trying to learn how to play, like Kreator and Slayer. That’s just the nature of metal, because it’s a kind of music where everybody wants to play heavier and faster than the bands that they grew up listening to. I really think it’s like that. When we listened to Slayer and Kreator, we thought: ‘Well, that’s cool but we want to play faster than them if possible.’ And that’s how the bands that grew up listening to Cannibal Corpse and Morbid Angel feel like: ‘Oh, that’s cool but we want to be faster than them!’ So that’s how you wind up with bands like Spawn Of Possession, Krisiun or some of the bands that are out now that are super fast and brutal. Hate Eternal and bands like that...”

Adam: So what you’re saying is that this whole thing is actually kicked into motion by the bands and not via promotion from the media and so forth?

“Well, it’s hard to say what it is. It would definitely be... It’s just the nature of the music, I think, that pushes it forward. Death metal is to me the most extreme kind of metal you can listen to, and people who play in those kinds of bands are always looking for something heavier, and the fans of the music are always looking for something heavier. When I was young and a fan, just basically learning how to play the bass, I started out listening to Accept and Iron Maiden, and when I heard Metallica I was like: ‘Well, that’s faster.’ And then I heard Kreator and Slayer: ‘Well, that’s even better!’ Then I was introduced to Morbid Angel, and by that time we were starting Cannibal Corpse, so I was like: ‘Wow, that’s the best!’ [laughs]. So I think that’s how most people are; the heavier and more brutal it is, the better. And that’s going to keep it growing. There’s always going to be fans that want to hear the most extreme kind of metal possible, and the most extreme kind of metal, in my opinion, is death metal. So I think death metal will survive, because there’s always going to be an audience for the most extreme. If something comes out that’s more extreme than death metal... I’d be surprised, really! I can’t imagine what it would be. It’s possible, of course, but I can’t imagine what it would sound like.”

Oliver: The Wretched Spawn is your ninth full-length album and this is the European tour in support of it. So what I would like to know is: how do you come about arranging a set list, when you have so many mandatory classics and fan favourites to take into account?

“It’s hard because we listen to what people are yelling for and what they ask us for, and we’ll put those songs in the set – but then we have to take a few away. And it seems like as soon as we pull some off the set list, they start telling for the ones that we took away! [laughs] Man, maybe we should just play 30 songs or something. Of course, we would probably die after playing 30 songs at full intensity. But yeah, it’s tough. We’ve got like over 90 songs that we wrote now, so to narrow it down to 18 is difficult, especially since death metal bands are not writing hits; they’re writing albums and you want every song on the album to be good. And for our whole career we tried writing albums where every song was good. There are a whole lot of songs that people like and not just one or two from each album. So we have a lot of choices – and it’s difficult. We just added “Dead Human Collection” for this tour and took away “Pounded into Dust”, because we’re only doing two songs off Bloodthirst. We pretty much always play “Unleashing the Bloodthirsty”, and then we’ll rotate between “Pounded into Dust” and “Dead Human Collection”. We took away “Pounded into Dust”, and last night someone wanted to hear that song and was very disappointed. So, we’re sorry! [laughs] But we try and put in as much as possible. We don’t want the set to become boring, but of course we’re always going to play “Hammer Smashed Face”, and we’re always going to play “Skull Full of Maggots” as well as “Stripped, Raped and Strangled”. Songs like that...”

Oliver: Considering the fact that you and Jack Owen have not only been part of Cannibal Corpse since the formation of the band, but have also collaborated earlier on in the thrash outfit Beyond Death, how did you personally react when he decided to leave the band?

“Well, I wasn’t that surprised. At first, it was really hard to tell because some nights he was really into it and other nights it didn’t look like that was the case. So I wasn’t that surprised. Of course, it’s a disappointment and everything, and I wish that he would have wanted to carry on. I wish he was as inspired to play death metal as the rest of us are. But he wasn’t anymore, and if you lose it you lose it. He did the right thing in leaving, I guess, if he really didn’t feel good about playing with us anymore. But it’s a disappointment, of course, and we would rather have had him stay. I mean, he’s a good guitar player and he wrote some killer songs, so we didn’t want him to quit. He quit on his own accord, and there were no arguments or anything – he just quit.”

Adam: What would be your biggest achievement as a band?

“Uh, there have been a lot of things, really...

Adam: Well, if you had to look at it from the basis of what goals you set for yourselves at the outset?

“We’ve gone a lot farther than we thought we would. The goals we had were very modest. I didn’t think I’d be able to make a living doing this. That was a goal and we did manage to achieve it. We were really hoping: ‘Oh, it would be great if you could make a living playing death metal.’ But it didn’t seem possible. Back then, when we started out, the only death metal band from America that had been to Europe was... I think Morbid Angel had just gone. Oh no, Death was the first to go and they went without Chuck Schuldiner. It was a long time ago, and it was this kind of famous, controversial tour where Chuck couldn’t go, so they had a different guy singing [Louie Carrisalez – Misereion]. So it was a huge, big deal to go to Europe back in the days, and we figured it would cost too much money and everything. There was no way to possibly survive playing death metal, and yet somehow we did it. And a few other bands did it. But I just didn’t think it was possible. I thought: ‘Okay, we can do albums. We’ll have normal jobs, and then at night work on the band. Perhaps do some albums and maybe get to tour once in a while.’ I didn’t think we could turn it into something akin to what we are actually experiencing right now. This year we’ve been gone for five months, just touring, touring and touring... You know, I didn’t think it could be done – and I’m happy that I was wrong. It was a surprise. And the same thing goes for other bands that have been really successful as well, like Deicide, Morbid Angel and Obituary. It was probably a surprise to everybody. When we got into death metal, we were planning on making the best music that we could and maybe getting an album out. Like, when we signed a seven-year contract, with Metal Blade, for example, I thought there was no way we would actually do seven albums. I was like: ‘Seven years, whatever – it’s never going to happen! We’ll be finished in three years or something.’ I didn’t think it would last this long, but we had an opportunity and we just worked really hard – and we’ve had very dedicated fans. We’ve been lucky. I see some guys at the shows that I’ve been seeing for over 10 years, coming to see us perform. So we’re really grateful for that kind of support. It’s beyond anything we could have expected.”

Oliver: The German band Rammstein recently issued the single “Mein Teil”, which they based around a rather socially disquieting incident of cannibalistic manslaughter in their home country. Would Cannibal Corpse ever write lyrics about an actual incident?

“We’d prefer not to. We would rather keep it a fiction thing. Some bands do it really well, like Macabre for instance, who have a quite interesting, humorous and very clever way of dealing with reality. I think, if we did it, it just wouldn’t work for some reason. Some of the stuff that we deal with is sort of supernatural – and then some of it is more realistic, like serial-killer type stuff or torture killings... Crazy shit like that. That stuff is more realistic, and for me personally I’d rather not do it. Since I’m one of the main lyric-writers, I’ll answer this question just for myself: I’d rather not do it. I don’t know... Yeah, I don’t know! Basically, people out there that actually got killed have still got surviving relatives. Bands that write about real serial-killers generally make it clear that they don’t support these people. They’re just repeating the story. We would have to make it very clear that we were not supporting the killer in any way, but that it was an interesting – although tragic – story to write about. But we prefer to keep it fictional.”

Adam: But still, killings and all that come from the real world, right? So where would Cannibal Corpse be in the day when there’s no more crime, no more violence and so forth?

“Unfortunately, I think that human nature will give us a lot to write about [laughs]. I don’t think it’s ever going to change; not while we are alive. Maybe, in ten thousand years, people won’t be killing each other, but right now... I don’t know, maybe never? I think people will always be doing violent things to each other. And that is what’s funny about the whole censorship thing! Okay, you think death metal, rap music or black metal is causing violence. But whoa; what was causing all that violence before that kind of music? Death metal and so on has only been around for a few years. If you’re going to look at all the murders that have happened because of every different kind of music, whether it be rap, death metal, black metal, regular heavy metal or whatever, we’re probably talking about not even a hundred. And then look at how many people get killed for no reason or got killed because of religion. And yet people wouldn’t think for a minute about censoring religion. So the whole censorship thing has always been a kind of hypocritical and really stupid scapegoat kind of thing: ‘Whoa, we’ve got problems; let’s blame it on something!’. It’s just stupid. Violence is, unfortunately, part of human nature, I guess, and it’s something that everybody is fascinated with. And that’s why people love to watch violence on television, you know. People are fascinated by it. Everybody wants to see it; else they would just have peaceful shit on the news all day long. People want to see the violence. I don’t know why. I don’t know why people do it, and I don’t know why we’re fascinated with it, but it’s just the way people are. And it’s not just death metal fans; it’s everybody. If you look at all the ‘normal’ television shows, you would come across stuff like ‘Serial Killer Special’, and on the history channels it’s all about war, war, war. People are really obsessed with violence, and everybody has some interest in it, I think. It’s not good or bad; it’s just true.”

Adam: Since I run a site that also features film reviews, I would like to ask you another question about the fictional side of it. Which movies have inspired you to write your lyrics?

“Well, everybody who’s into death metal has probably watched Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento movies. You know, that’s what we watched a lot in the 80s and early 90s. Lately, although I haven’t been writing lyrics based on or inspired by any of these movies yet, I’ve checked out a couple of Japanese movies that I really like. There’s one called The Audition and then Ichi the Killer. Those were both really cool. Ichi the Killer was more a ‘pulp fiction’-kind of movie, humorous but still gory, whereas The Audition was really... [whistles]. Me and the soundman for Spawn Of Possession sat up and watched it the other night, because I bought it before the tour, but I didn’t get a chance to watch it. I was like: ‘Yeah, let’s check this out! I’ve heard it was pretty killer.’. And afterwards we were like: ‘Man, goddamn... It’s going to be hard to sleep after watching this one. That’s pretty fucked-up!’. So, anything that makes you think, and hits you on some kind of gut level where you’re really disturbed by it, is like a thrill ride. At the end of the day, you know it was special effects and everything; you know it wasn’t real. But it was still a good enough movie to make you think for a while after you saw it. So I’d recommend that one to everybody. But just be patient because it takes a while for it to build up.”

Adam: Yeah, I know. You should actually watch it without knowing that it’s a horror movie...

“Yeah, that’s what we were saying. We were thinking about giving it to somebody and say: ‘Oh, it’s a nice Japanese romantic comedy!’ [laughs]. But at any rate, I’ll definitely recommend that one.”

And so the conclusion of a comfortable and rather diverse ‘trialogue’ with the ever-friendly Alex Webster, after which my interview cohort and I walked directly over to the still rather vacant bar-area, so as to wet out throats in alcoholic beverages before Spawn Of Possession tore down the palisades of the venue in a relentless blitzkrieg of technical death metal. Cannibal Corpse, however, avec their colossal new recruit Jeremy Turner left little doubt as to who truly headlined tonight’s musical event. Below is the full CC set-list in album-chronological order:

• Shredded Humans
• Skull Full of Maggots
• Vomit the Soul
• Hammer Smashed Face
• The Cryptic Stench
• Staring Through the Eyes of the Dead
• Stripped, Raped and Strangled
• Fucked With a Knife
• Devoured by Vermin
• Puncture Wound Massacre
• I Will Kill You
• Dead Human Collection
• Unleashed the Bloodthirsty
• Pit of Zombies
• Dormant Bodies Bursting
• Decency Defiled
• The Wretched Spawn
• They Deserve to Die

Two gallons of sweat, one extremely sore untrained throat and a few random moshpit beatings later, pretty much everyone at the venue was more than ready to return home and catch a few million Z’s... Ain’t nothing like a violent incursion of death metal on a random weekday, eh’? ]:)

Conducted by Adam Frandsen (www.spectronom.dk) and Misereion.

Transcribed and written by Misereion.

Pictures taken by Christian Iglesias and kindly provided by Jorge Olate.