Cannibal Corpse

Cannibal Corpse

Cannibal Corpse is an American death metal band, formed in Buffalo, New York in 1988. The band has released eleven studio albums, one boxed set, and one live album. Although Cannibal Corpse has had virtually no radio or television exposure, a cult following began to build behind the group with albums such as 1991's Butchered at Birth and 1992's Tomb of the Mutilated. Cannibal Corpse reached over 1 million in record sales worldwide in 2003, including 558,929 in the United States, making them one of the biggest selling death metal bands of all time.

Cannibal Corpse draws influence from thrash metal bands such as Slayer, Anthrax, Kreator, Sodom, and other death metal bands like Morbid Angel, Autopsy, Death, and Obituary. Inspired by horror fiction stories and horror films, the band's controversial lyrics and album art have been subject to bans, songs have been banned individually, and at times live performances have been prohibited.

Biography

Cannibal Corpse was made up of members from three earlier Buffalo-area death metal bands, Beyond Death (Webster, Owen), Leviathan (Barnes), and Tirant Sin (Barnes, Rusay, Mazurkiewicz). The band played their first show at Buffalo's River Rock Cafe in April 1989, shortly after recording a five-song demo tape, Cannibal Corpse. Within a year of that first gig, the band was signed to Metal Blade Records, apparently after the label had seen a videotape of a live show, and their full-length debut album, Eaten Back to Life, was released in August 1990.

The band has had many line-up changes over the years. In 1993, founding member and guitarist Bob Rusay was dismissed from the group (after which he became a golf instructor) and was ultimately replaced by Malevolent Creation guitarist Rob Barrett. In 1995, singer Chris Barnes was dismissed since the band didn't think him a team player (becoming a member of Six Feet Under and later Torture Killer), and was replaced with Monstrosity's singer George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher.

In 1997, Barrett, who originally replaced Rusay on guitar, left Cannibal Corpse to rejoin his previous band Malevolent Creation. After Barrett left, he was replaced by guitarist Pat O’Brien, who first appeared on their 1998 release Gallery of Suicide. Founding member and guitarist Jack Owen left Cannibal Corpse in 2004 to spend more time on his second band, Adrift. He joined Deicide in late 2005. Jeremy Turner of Origin briefly replaced him as second guitarist on 2004's Tour of the Wretched. Barrett rejoined the band in 2005 and is featured on the album Kill, which was released in March 2006 on Metal Blade Records.

Writing for the next album began in November 2007, as presaged in an interview with bassist Alex Webster. Evisceration Plague will be Cannibal Corpse's eleventh studio album and is set to be released February 3, 2009.

Lyrical themes

The band have a rather lackadaisical approach toward those who criticize their sometimes violent lyrics: "We don't sing about politics. We don't sing about religion. [...] All our songs are short stories that, if anyone would so choose they could convert it into a horror movie. Really, that's all it is. We like gruesome, scary movies, and we want the lyrics to be like that. Yeah, it's about killing people, but it's not promoting it at all. Basically these are fictional stories, and that's it. And anyone who gets upset about it is ridiculous."

Cannibal Corpse prides itself on overtly violent and sexual songs and album artwork as nothing more than an extreme form of over-the-top entertainment. In the film Metal: A Headbangers Journey, George Fisher said death metal is best viewed "as art," and mentioned that far more violent art can be found at the Vatican, as such depictions actually happened. Some of Cannibal Corpse's most controversial song titles include "Dismembered and Molested," "Entrails Ripped from a Virgin's Cunt," "Fucked with a Knife," "Meat Hook Sodomy," and "Necropedophile"." They were banned from displaying the cover art or lyrics of and playing any of the songs from their first three albums in Germany until 2006, because, according to Fisher, "A woman saw someone wearing one of our shirts, I think she is a schoolteacher, and she just caused this big stink about it. So [now] we can’t play anything from the first three records. And it really sucks because kids come up and they want us to play all the old songs — and we would — but they know the deal. We can’t play 'Born In a Casket' but can play ‘Dismembered and Molested."- George Fisher.

“If people weren’t interested in this kind of thing, then why is it . . . they do hour-long documentaries and they run those all evening long. And it’ll be about prison, or they’ll have a special about child molesters, and then they’ll have a special about murderers. And this is a major station... And it’s like, well, a lot of people seem to be interested in it or they wouldn’t show it, because that’s the bottom line – they’re not going to show it if they’re not getting good ratings. So, people are interested in the dark side... people like to be horrified; they like to be scared. I mean, you wouldn’t have, for example, a frightening ride at a theme park or something... They want to see frightening things at a safe distance."- Alex Webster

When asked about violence in the real world, Alex Webster commented: “I think people probably aren’t that desensitized to it, you know including myself, like you know, we sing about all this stuff and you watch a movie where you know it’s not real and it’s no big deal, but if you really saw someone get their brains bashed in right in front of you, I think it would have a pretty dramatic impact on any human being you know what I mean? Or some terrible, gross act of violence or whatever done right in front of you, I mean you’d react to it, no matter how many movies you’ve watched or how much gore metal you’ve listened to or whatever, I’m sure it’s a completely different thing when it’s right in front of you. Even though we’ve got crazy entertainment now, our social realities are actually a bit more civilized than they were back then, I mean we’re not hanging people or whipping them in the street and I think that’s positive improvement for any society in my opinion.” He also believes that the violent lyrics can have positive values: "It’s good to have anger music as a release".

George Fisher said that in their songs "there’s nothing ever serious. We’re not thinking of anybody in particular that we’re trying to kill, or harm or anything." "How can you say we’re promoting violence with imaginary creatures? The people doing the killing in our songs are zombies."

Publicity

In May 1995, then-United States Senator Bob Dole mentioned the band by name and accused them of violating human decency. Dole later admitted to never actually hearing the music of Cannibal Corpse. Cannibal Corpse also enjoyed a brief cameo in the 1994 Jim Carrey film Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, performing an abridged version of their song "Hammer Smashed Face". Carrey apparently insisted that they perform in the movie because they were his favorite band.

Musical style

On early Cannibal Corpse albums the instruments were tuned down 1/2 step to E flat, with the mid range scooped out of their guitar tone. On later efforts, their sound has switched to a more heavily detuned sound, playing six strings detuned to Bb (detuned 3 whole tones) and with more mid frequencies. Former guitarist Jack Owen used a Digitech Metal Master distortion pedal to get their guitar tone.

Members

• George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher – lead vocals (1995–present)
• Rob Barrett – guitar (1993–1997, 2005–present)
• Pat O'Brien – guitar (1997–present)
• Alex Webster – bass (1988–present)
• Paul Mazurkiewicz – drums, percussion (1988–present)

Former members

• Bob Rusay – guitar (1988–1993)
• Chris Barnes – vocals (1988–1995)
• Jack Owen – guitar (1988–2004)
• Jeremy Turner – guitar (2004–2005)

Discography

For a more comprehensive list, see Cannibal Corpse discography.

• Eaten Back to Life (1990)
• Butchered at Birth (1991)
• Tomb of the Mutilated (1992)
• The Bleeding (1994)
• Vile (1996)
• Gallery of Suicide (1998)
• Bloodthirst (1999)
• Gore Obsessed (2002)
• The Wretched Spawn (2004)
• Kill (2006)
• Evisceration Plague (2009)

External links

• Cannibalcorpse.net - The Official Cannibal Corpse website
• Interview with Alex Webster (2006)