{"id":12289,"date":"2013-03-18T00:00:59","date_gmt":"2013-03-18T00:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=12289"},"modified":"2013-07-24T07:54:18","modified_gmt":"2013-07-24T07:54:18","slug":"feature-cannibal-corpse-03-13-pt1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/feature-cannibal-corpse-03-13-pt1\/","title":{"rendered":"CANNIBAL CORPSE &#8211; 1988-2013: 25 Years Of Metal, Part One (March 2013) | Features \/ Interviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"title\"><strong>CANNIBAL CORPSE &#8211; 1988-2013 (25 Years Of Metal)<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"smalltitle\">Anthony Morgan<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: arial; font-size: 8pt\">March 2013<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"image floatedleft\">\n<table width=\"100%\" align=\"center\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\">\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td>\n<div align=\"left\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/cannibalcorpse2012promophoto1.jpg\" border=\"0\"><br \/><span class=\"smalltext\"><b><em>Cannibal Corpse (l-r): Alex Webster, Rob Barrett, Patrick O\u2019Brien, George \u2018Corpsegrinder\u2019 Fisher and Paul Mazurkiewicz<\/em><\/b><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<td><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-content\/themes\/metalforces\/images\/spacer.gif\" width=\"10\" border=\"0\"><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-content\/themes\/metalforces\/images\/spacer.gif\" width=\"10\" border=\"0\"><br \/>\nTampa, Florida-based death metal outfit Cannibal Corpse formed in December 1988, its members pooled from two Buffalo, New York-based groups, namely Beyond Death and Tirant Sin. The ensemble\u2019s inaugural line-up consisted of bassist Alex Webster, guitarists Jack Owen and Bob Rusay, drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz, and vocalist Chris Barnes. The latter trio had earlier figured among Tirant Sin\u2019s ranks, Alex and Jack having plied their trade in Beyond Death.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was excited to be jamming with those guys,\u201d Alex remembers. \u201cBeyond Death was more of a hardcore crossover kind of thrash band, whereas me and Jack were more interested in the darker kind of thrash and death metal stuff. We liked Sodom, Possessed, Death, and Kreator, and so we were into thrash but a little bit more of the thrash that was almost death metal. We did like some crossover bands too, but that was more the other two guys in the band. Darren (Pfeifer, drums) and Frank (Lombardi, guitars and vocals) were really a lot more focused on bands like D.R.I., S.O.D., and those kinds of bands. There was this other band in town called Tirant Sin. Now those guys were really doing more death metal-oriented kind of thrash, but this was all in the very beginning where these genres weren\u2019t quite as clearly defined. Those guys sounded a lot more like Sodom, Kreator, or Slayer. They ended up needing a guitar player and a bass player, and Jack and I were getting ready to leave our old band Beyond Death. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was December of 1988, and it was the very beginning of the month. I remember it, because it was the first practice that those guys had together. I missed the first Cannibal Corpse practice because I had to have my tonsils out (laughs). I was in the hospital, because I had been sick or whatever and they had to go. Those guys got together. Jack got together with them, and reported back to me \u2018Yeah, it\u2019s gonna be cool. It was really fun jamming with those guys.\u2019 We started getting together throughout that month, in December of 1988. That was the beginning of Cannibal Corpse \u2013 December 1988. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we recorded our first demo in February of \u201989, and then did our first show shortly after. A lot of that stuff I remember fairly well, even though it was a long time ago. Any time you have a first you remember it. I do remember our first show, and I do remember recording our first demo. I was very excited; I was excited to be jamming with guys where we were all heading in the same direction. In Beyond Death we were good friends and had a good time jamming together, but one half of the band wanted to do one kind of metal and the other half wanted to go in a different direction. <\/p>\n<div class=\"image floatedright\">\n<table width=\"100%\" align=\"center\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\">\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-content\/themes\/metalforces\/images\/spacer.gif\" width=\"10\" border=\"0\"><\/td>\n<td>\n<div align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/beyonddeath1988promophoto1.jpg\" border=\"0\"><\/p>\n<table width=\"100%\" align=\"center\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\">\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td>\n<div align=\"left\"><span class=\"smalltext\"><strong><em>Beyond Death 1988 (l-r): Jack Owen, Alex Webster, Darren Pfeifer and Frank <br \/>Lombardi<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<td>\n<div align=\"right\"><span class=\"smalltext\"><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cWith Cannibal Corpse, from the get go we were all focused on going in a darker direction. We didn\u2019t really want any of those crossover elements in there; we wanted darker content, death and thrash but really death metal. We were starting to get into Morbid Angel, and we were already into Death and that sort of thing. Once we made Cannibal, we knew it was gonna be a death metal band. Even though we had a thrash background, we knew that death was what we wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The four-stringer christened the group. \u201cI was just sitting around thinking about names \u2013 we were all thinking about names,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI think it was in December, because we named the band within the first month that we were together. We were just sitting around thinking about it, and everybody would go home and think about names. We kept coming up with ideas. Paul came up with the name Malevolent Impalement. I\u2019m so glad we didn\u2019t use that, because of course there are our buddies Malevolent Creation. That would\u2019ve just been bad. They had already moved down to Florida at that time, so Paul was like \u2018That\u2019s a cool name. We could just use Malevolent Impalement. Those guys are way down in Florida, so what\u2019s the difference?\u2019 <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe fact that the band names were similar didn\u2019t matter to him (laughs), but then I think within a day or two I came up with Cannibal Corpse and the guys were like \u2018Yeah, that\u2019s the name.\u2019 It just stuck. I was just thinking about <em>Night Of The Living Dead<\/em> (1968). <em>Scream Bloody Gore<\/em> (May 1987) by Death had had zombies on the cover, and Necrophagia\u2019s <em>Season Of The Dead<\/em> (February 1987) had had zombies on the cover. Both of those bands had songs about zombies and I love zombie movies, so to have a band with a zombie sort of name just seemed perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>March 2013 box set <em>Dead Human Collection: 25 Years Of Death Metal<\/em> marks Cannibal Corpse\u2019s 25th anniversary, a milestone the quintet will reach in December. \u201cI don\u2019t exactly know what is in the European version of the box set because we had some censorship to contend with there, with Germany being one of the biggest countries over there,\u201d Alex laments. \u201cIt is also the one where we have the most censorship problems, so the content of the box set is likely curtailed to fit the situation in Germany, and that has likely affected the content of the box set throughout the UK and Europe unfortunately. There\u2019s a greatest hits, anthology kind of thing in place of there being all 12 albums I believe; since several of the albums are banned in Germany, there\u2019s an anthology CD.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn North America I know what the box set is \u2013 it was pretty easy in the States. We just said \u2018Here you go. Put the 12 albums in there.\u2019 That\u2019s our career really, our 12 studio albums. We have done a couple of other things that aren\u2019t in there, but it wasn\u2019t that hard. It\u2019s actually 13 CDs; all 12 studio albums, plus a 13th CD which is a live album. There\u2019s a picture disc of the live album, and prints of all of the album cover artwork. There\u2019s a calendar in there, which also features each album throughout the months. It just seemed like a good idea, 12 albums, 12 months, and this being our 25th anniversary year. It seemed like a cool idea to have a calendar, with one album cover for each month. We used some additional artwork by Vince. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believe that\u2019s what\u2019s in there, but I\u2019m not sure. I think that might be it. It\u2019s a collection of our 12 studio albums and it celebrates all 12 of them, and the artwork that corresponds with them. It\u2019s a celebration of the studio releases, but we\u2019ve also had a live album and DVDs and things like that, and that stuff isn\u2019t included. If we had also included all of the DVDs we\u2019ve done it would\u2019ve probably been quite a bit more expensive, so this is strictly an audio, studio release box set. It\u2019s a pretty good deal; I believe in the States it\u2019s like a $100, so that winds up making each CD something around $7 to $8.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"image floatedleft\">\n<table width=\"100%\" align=\"center\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\">\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td>\n<div align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/tirantsin1988promophoto1.jpg\" border=\"0\"><\/p>\n<table width=\"100%\" align=\"center\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\">\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td>\n<div align=\"left\"><span class=\"smalltext\"><b><em>Tirant Sin 1988 (l-r): Chris Barnes, Paul Mazurkiewicz, Joe Morelli, Bob Rusay <br \/>and Rich Zeigler<\/em><\/b><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<td>\n<div align=\"right\"><span class=\"smalltext\"><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<td><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-content\/themes\/metalforces\/images\/spacer.gif\" width=\"10\" border=\"0\"><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p>Entitled <em>Torturing And Eviscerating Live<\/em>, the set\u2019s live disc collects its respective tracks from two past concert performances. One half was recorded on May 15th, 2010 at Milwaukee, Wisconsin\u2019s The Rave during tour commitments for February 2009\u2019s <a href=\"\/site\/album-review-cannibal-corpse-evisceration-plague\/\"><em>Evisceration Plague<\/em><\/a>, the other half cut on August 17th, 2012 at Tampa, Florida\u2019s The State Theater during tour commitments for March 2012\u2019s <a href=\"\/site\/album-review-cannibal-corpse-torture\/\"><em>Torture<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve got a really great soundman named Pete Robertson, and he had done a lot of live recordings of us on our 2010 tour that we were taping for <em>Global Evisceration<\/em> (March 2011),\u201d the mainman informs. \u201cWe were originally thinking of doing a CD packaged with the DVD for <em>Global Evisceration<\/em>, so we taped additional live shows. That way we could just really pick the perfect performances from each one instead of just using the two from the video, because we had about 20 live shows that he taped on that tour. He said the one that really just sounded great was Tampa, so we used a lot of songs from the Tampa one. We also recorded a couple of more live shows on one of the recent <em>Torture<\/em> tours. I think it was probably part of the Summer Slaughter tour when we were recording, and that stuff turned out really good too. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat we did was once we had these two shows&#8230; I think one was in Milwaukee that was really good from 2012, and then the other one from 2010 was the Tampa one&#8230; We picked one song from each album and had them go in sequence, starting with a song from <em>Eaten Back To Life<\/em> (August 1990), and then a song from <em>Butchered At Birth<\/em> (July 1991), and then a song from <em>Tomb Of The Mutilated<\/em> (September 1992), and so on, ending with the song \u2018Scourge Of Iron\u2019 off of <em>Torture<\/em>. So yeah, it\u2019s a 12-song live album with one song from each album. Part of it\u2019s from the <em>Evisceration Plague<\/em> tour, and part of it\u2019s from the <em>Torture<\/em> tour. That\u2019s why we called it <em>Torturing And Eviscerating Live<\/em>, because to me it sounds like a name for the album and it seemed like an appropriate one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Audio recordings from live performances are taken, albeit occasionally. \u201cAs far as doing live recordings, our soundman Pete has a recording rack with whatever gear he needs to record,\u201d Alex shares. \u201cSometimes he\u2019ll bring it, but most of the time he won\u2019t. We wouldn\u2019t bring it to Europe, because it\u2019s too heavy. It would cost a lot of money to bring it over, so it\u2019s just easier to do any live recordings we do in the States. He\u2019ll still bring it if he specifically knows that we need to record for some reason, but if not, we just won\u2019t bother to record it. I will sometimes do video recordings. For shows, I have a little HD camera that has microphones on it. Those video recordings are for my own personal record, and to possibly use as bonus material on a DVD in the future. As far as doing multi-track recordings though, we usually won\u2019t do that unless there\u2019s a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A Cannibal Corpse full-length which consists of rare numbers has yet to be issued.  \u201cI think for the European version, since we\u2019re being limited by censorship I believe there might be a rarities disc whereas there isn\u2019t that on the US version,\u201d the rhythmist speculates. \u201cIt\u2019s difficult for us to be dealing with these two different releases, really. It\u2019s kind of aggravating, but it\u2019s the way it\u2019s gonna be. So yeah, I do believe that they\u2019re gonna try to find some rare stuff for the European box set to make up for the fact that not all of the 12 albums are gonna be on there because of the censorship issues. I think the rarities might be some cover songs that we\u2019ve done over the years, but I\u2019m not sure what else. The problem for us is that we\u2019ve already released a 15-year box set a few years ago obviously, and we don\u2019t want there to be too much repetition between the two.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"image floatedright\">\n<table width=\"100%\" align=\"center\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\">\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-content\/themes\/metalforces\/images\/spacer.gif\" width=\"10\" border=\"0\"><\/td>\n<td>\n<div align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/cannibalcorpse1989promophoto1.jpg\" border=\"0\"><\/p>\n<table width=\"100%\" align=\"center\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\">\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td>\n<div align=\"left\"><span class=\"smalltext\"><strong><em>Cannibal Corpse 1989 (l-r): Alex Webster, Jack Owen, Chris Barnes, Paul <br \/>Mazurkiewicz and Bob Rusay<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<td>\n<div align=\"right\"><span class=\"smalltext\"><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p>No cover interpretations by the band remain unreleased. \u201cI think everything\u2019s been released one way or the other,\u201d Alex muses. \u201cSome of them were released as Japanese bonus tracks, because for a long time we\u2019ve needed an extra song for the Japanese release and so we\u2019ve done a cover. Some of them have appeared on the other box set and various things like that, on EPs and so on. A lot of this is stuff that people who\u2019ve been fans of us for awhile already have. To be honest, there\u2019s not a whole lot of new stuff in the vault that we\u2019ve been able to find. We\u2019ve already put out a lot of that stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Artwork duties have always fallen to Vince Locke. \u201cHe\u2019s done artwork for all of the albums, and then on top of that he\u2019s done artwork for our EPs and a number of unique T-shirt designs too,\u201d the co-founder augments. \u201cSo yeah, as an artist he\u2019s captured what our band is visually. His artwork has a Cannibal Corpse look to it; the Cannibal Corpse look is his artwork. I was just doing another interview where I mentioned that we\u2019ve never really had to coach him very much. He was just already on the same page as us having been involved with his own comic Deadworld, which was a comic back in the late 80s, early 90s about zombies taking over the earth. It was published independently by Caliber Press over here in the States, so with him having that horror background, he was just on the same page with us from the beginning. Obviously though, I think our music is what has kept people interested in our band, but seeing Vince\u2019s artwork was the first thing that they saw. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn fact, I remember when Chris brought the original artwork for <em>Eaten Back To Life<\/em> to practice. It was obviously several months before <em>Eaten<\/em> came out, and he had just received it from Vince via regular mail of course back in 1990 \u2013 before people were using the internet a whole lot. I looked at it, and I said \u2018Wow. This album might be good, because I would buy an album that had that cover. As a metalhead who\u2019s into horror, <em>The Evil Dead<\/em> (1981), and that sort of thing, that is an album I would not hesitate to buy, just based on the cover.\u2019 Vince\u2019s artwork definitely attracted people to our band, and I believe it was our music that kept them interested (laughs). Certainly, Vince\u2019s artwork did a really great job of getting people interested in our band.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Vince\u2019s artwork pieces have previously encountered censorship issues. \u201cOur first album had just the one cover, and then for <em>Butchered At Birth<\/em> we had one cover,\u201d Alex begins. \u201cHalfway through the album cycle for <em>Butchered At Birth<\/em> though we started running into all of these censorship problems, so for <em>Tomb Of The Mutilated<\/em> we had two different covers. For <em>The Bleeding<\/em> (April 1994) the cover wasn\u2019t so gory; it still needed to be censored, but we just decided to do a close-up of one of the bloody sections of the main zombie. From thereon out, we kind of had two different covers. Either it would be two separate pieces of art, or it would be a gory piece of art and a close-up of a section that was less gory. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve done that throughout our career, but the solution that we\u2019ve come up with lately is to just put something over the top of the cover which just reveals a small section and that\u2019s what we did for <em>Torture<\/em>. It just reveals a small gory section, but then once you buy the CD and take off the shrink-wrapping and open it up, you get to see the real artwork \u2013 the whole artwork. That\u2019s been a pretty good solution to censorship problems we\u2019ve had as far as artwork is concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"image floatedleft\">\n<table width=\"100%\" align=\"center\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\">\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td>\n<div align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/cannibalcorpse_eatenbacktolifelarge.jpg\" border=\"0\"><\/p>\n<table width=\"100%\" align=\"center\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\">\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td>\n<div align=\"left\"><span class=\"smalltext\"><em><strong>Eaten Back To Life (1989)<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<td>\n<div align=\"right\"><span class=\"smalltext\"><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<td><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-content\/themes\/metalforces\/images\/spacer.gif\" width=\"10\" border=\"0\"><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p>Each of Cannibal Corpse\u2019s studio endeavours will undergo picture disc reissue on a monthly basis throughout 2013. <em>Eaten Back To Life<\/em> arrived in January, <em>Butchered At Birth<\/em> surfacing in February. <em>Tomb Of The Mutilated<\/em>\u2019s picture disc reissue occurred in March, the group\u2019s picture disc reissue campaign scheduled to conclude in December with <em>Torture<\/em>\u2019s picture disc reissue. \u201cSo far, everybody seems really happy about them,\u201d the bassist enthuses. \u201cYeah, they look great. We just decided to have it be artwork without throwing the band\u2019s logo over the top of Vince\u2019s art, because by this point everybody knows what band it is when they see that piece of art. We didn\u2019t feel we needed to slap the logo on there. There have been picture disc releases in the past which I believe have been out of print for some time, and on those previous releases most of the time the band\u2019s logo would be superimposed on top of Vince\u2019s art. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe just decided to let Vince\u2019s art stand on its own for these covers though. If you see the <em>Butchered At Birth<\/em> artwork, you know who it is \u2013 you don\u2019t need to have the words \u2018Cannibal Corpse\u2019 slapped on top of it at this point. Maybe you did 20 years ago when it first came out, but now some of those pieces of art are iconic enough that you don\u2019t really need it. I think Vince is probably as excited about this box set as we are, because it\u2019s a display of what we\u2019ve done for 25 years. It\u2019s also a display of the artwork that he\u2019s done for us for 25 years though, so it\u2019s pretty cool for the both of us I think.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Of Cannibal Corpse\u2019s 12 full-lengths, Alex cites <em>Torture<\/em> as his personal favourite. \u201cI feel like <em>Torture<\/em> probably has our best performances, and our best songwriting,\u201d he compliments. \u201cAlso, it\u2019s my favourite production out of the records that we\u2019ve done. No though, I\u2019m proud of all of them for different reasons. Each album that we\u2019ve done represents the best effort we could make at that time. We really have always worked hard on our records. We\u2019re proud of all of them, but maybe the latest one <em>Torture<\/em>. I think it\u2019s the best representation of what we wanna do, and I\u2019m quite proud of it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Discounting <em>Torture<\/em>, the four-stringer\u2019s favourite is more difficult to select. \u201c<em>Bloodthirst<\/em> (October 1999) turned out really good,\u201d he ponders. \u201c<em>The Bleeding<\/em> was really good too, so maybe one of those two.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Alex views each outing in a favourable light. \u201cI\u2019m pretty proud of all of them,\u201d he judges. \u201cLike I said, they all have songs that we worked really hard on. Maybe <em>Gore Obsessed<\/em> (February 2002) could have turned out a little better, because I think the production\u2019s a little uneven on that one. Neil (Kernon) did a good job on it, but I don\u2019t think we really gelled with him a 100% until the following album <em>The Wretched Spawn<\/em> (February 2004). That album sounded great, but maybe out of all of them there are things about <em>Gore Obsessed<\/em> that could have turned out better. I\u2019m still proud of that one too though; there\u2019s a bunch of stuff on there that we\u2019re really proud of. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo yeah, I\u2019m happy with all of them. We don\u2019t have an album where we veered away from our style or anything; all of our albums are pure death metal, all horror death metal. They all are true to the original mission that the band set out on, which is a gore-oriented, super-heavy band, and we haven\u2019t strayed from that. It\u2019s not like we\u2019ve had some album where we tried to be an industrial band, or an alternative band, or something like that (laughs). I\u2019m proud of all of the albums.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A <em>Black Album<\/em>-style opus (Metallica\u2019s August 1991 self-titled record, generally considered intentionally commercial) doesn\u2019t figure among the catalogue. \u201cNo, not at all,\u201d the mainman seconds. \u201cThey\u2019re all really pretty consistent, in my opinion. There\u2019s nothing in there where we have some really crappy commercial song that we\u2019re embarrassed of. We\u2019re proud of all of the songs on each album.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"image floatedright\">\n<table width=\"100%\" align=\"center\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\">\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-content\/themes\/metalforces\/images\/spacer.gif\" width=\"10\" border=\"0\"><\/td>\n<td>\n<div align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/cannibalcorpsealexwebster2011promophoto1.jpg\" border=\"0\"><\/p>\n<table width=\"100%\" align=\"center\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" border=\"0\">\n<tr valign=\"top\">\n<td>\n<div align=\"left\"><span class=\"smalltext\"><strong><em>Alex Webster<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<td>\n<div align=\"right\"><span class=\"smalltext\"><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p>Though by no means commercial fare, a number of heavy metal aficionados are familiar with signature tune \u2018Hammer Smashed Face\u2019 (from <em>Tomb Of The Mutilated<\/em>).  \u201cWe\u2019re so happy that we have a song that people consider a classic, because not every band is so lucky,\u201d Alex appreciates. \u201cThere have even been bands who\u2019ve been around for quite awhile that don\u2019t really have any classic songs, but we have a couple. \u2018Hammer Smashed Face\u2019 and \u2018Stripped, Raped, And Strangled\u2019 (from <em>The Bleeding<\/em>), and then even some of the newer ones are becoming classics in their own way, like \u2018Make Them Suffer\u2019 (from March 2006\u2019s <em>Kill<\/em>) for example. That one has really has turned into a classic, and maybe \u2018Unleashing The Bloodthirsty\u2019 (from <em>Bloodthirst<\/em>) is another one from the newer albums. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, people think that \u2018Hammer Smashed Face\u2019 is our best song. I wouldn\u2019t necessarily agree with that, but it\u2019s definitely one of our really good songs (laughs). If that\u2019s the one that\u2019s considered to be our classic song, then I\u2019m fine with that because it is a really good one. I love seeing people go crazy to it; it\u2019s a song that we\u2019re basically gonna always end our set with, that one and \u2018Stripped, Raped, And Strangled\u2019. They\u2019re two fan favourites, and they\u2019ve always got such a great reaction. It\u2019s really hard to even contemplate ending the set with any other song. It just works so perfectly at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Commemorative releases have included the involvement of inaugural frontman Chris Barnes, whose voice occupied the microphone for Cannibal Corpse studio full-lengths one through four. \u201cWe had him on our DVD (July 2008\u2019s <em>Centuries Of Torment: The First 20 Years<\/em>), for example,\u201d the rhythmist cites. \u201cWe did a 20-year DVD. As you\u2019re probably gathering at this point, we\u2019re probably gonna celebrate every five-year anniversary of the band being together (laughs). I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll do something fun for our 30th anniversary, and our 35th when we get there. Who knows if we\u2019ll get beyond our 35th, but yeah, the 20-year DVD that we did which chronicled the history of the band had Barnes all over it. We had to make sure he got involved; he\u2019s been out of the band since 1995, but his lyrics and the creative drive that he had in the beginning really helped shape the lyrical direction that the band went in. He really came up with some very disturbing lyrics, and it\u2019s a big part of the band\u2019s history. It\u2019s important to have him involved with these retrospective kinds of things in my opinion. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe wasn\u2019t in the band for all that long; when you look back at it it seemed like a long time at the time, but really when you look back now he was in the band for the first seven years and we\u2019ve been around for 25. George has been our singer for about twice as long \u2013 actually, more than twice as long than Chris was. Chris made an impact, though. He was definitely a very creative guy. We obviously had our differences, but he did add a whole lot to the band. Out of all of the ex-members, he\u2019s obviously the one that people talk about the most and he definitely needs to be involved when we\u2019re doing retrospectives.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><center><strong>1 | <a href=\"\/site\/feature-cannibal-corpse-03-13-pt2\/\">2<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CANNIBAL CORPSE &#8211; 1988-2013 (25 Years Of Metal) Anthony Morgan March 2013 Cannibal Corpse (l-r): Alex Webster, Rob Barrett, Patrick O\u2019Brien, George \u2018Corpsegrinder\u2019 Fisher and Paul Mazurkiewicz Tampa, Florida-based death metal outfit Cannibal Corpse formed in December 1988, its members pooled from two Buffalo, New York-based groups, namely Beyond Death and Tirant Sin. The ensemble\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cannibal-corpse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12289"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12445,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12289\/revisions\/12445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}