The Charming Gentlemen of Cannibal Corpse
Cannibal Corpse is responsible for some of the sickest imagery I've ever seen?and I've seen both Necromantic movies. The image of two decaying corpses ripping a child from the womb of a bloodied woman, under a string of rotting baby corpses dangling from meat hooks, on the cover of Corpse's 1991 Butchered at Birth, sure as hell did it for me.
About three years ago I gave into my morbid curiosity and picked up a used copy of Cannibal Corpse's 1994 The Bleeding, the last album recorded with the original lead singer, Chris Barnes. One CD is all the death metal I'll ever need. Whatever you think of these guys, you can't deny their staying power. Since they formed in late 1988, gangsta rap, hair metal and grunge have all come and gone. But thanks to the hardcore death metal kids?the subterranean army of disaffected suburban teenagers who pretty much only listen to death metal?Cannibal Corpse is still here. And it is for these kids that Cannibal Corpse will head to the studio in June, following the conclusion of their "Spring Neck Break Tour," to record their eighth studio album, slated for a tentative October release.
"I think death metal is one of the best forms of music," drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz says in a phone interview from his home in Tampa. "Because you're playing just because you want to play death metal, not because you want to make money or be in the limelight or something?because it's not going to be the case, for the most part. We're doing it because we love to do it, and I think the fans are listening because they love to listen."
For every 20 kids who scare their parents by blaring Eminem behind their locked bedroom doors, there's one stoner kid who thinks using samplers and drum machines is bullshit, and can in meticulous detail tell you the subtle differences between each Cannibal Corpse record. And while Eminem panders his shock value to a fickle mainstream pop audience that may one day decide he no longer encapsulates white teen angst for the world, Cannibal Corpse's small yet fiercely devoted fan base will always be there for them?until the day finally comes when they decide they just can't do it anymore, a day Mazurkiewicz admits he thinks about from time to time.
"Sometimes it's like, here we go, we've got another record to do. What different are we really going to be doing that we didn't do on the last one? I still don't think every album sounds the same. But of course, a lot of the same formula is basically applied to every record. You know?it's death metal."
In addition to his duties on the double-bass drum pedal, Mazurkiewicz has cowritten the band's lyrics since Barnes' departure. (Mazurkiewicz said the band "booted" him because he was "half-assing it" back during the recording of their fifth LP, Vile.) And after about six years of writing lyrics for Barnes' replacement, George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher?who does not write lyrics?Mazurkiewicz says the biggest difficulty he now faces is constantly having to come up with new horror stories to tell.
"I find that to be a little more tedious now that I've done it for three CDs. I feel like we've already done a lot in that respect, and that gets a little more tough."
It shouldn't be surprising that there are those who blame Mazurkiewicz's lyrics?like "I'm chewing bloody skin from the cadaver/Consuming lifeless meat, mangled and tattered"?for inciting Columbine-like acts of violence among young, disaffected fans. During his 1996 presidential campaign, Bob Dole named Cannibal Corpse as one example of how rock music harms kids; to this day, the German government forbids the band from playing material from their first three albums when visiting on tour. Then last year a 19-year-old Okalahoma boy arrested for beating an 88-year-old woman to death with a hammer issued a statement citing Cannibal Corpse?authors of the song "Hammer Smashed Face"?as an influence in his crime. Mazurkiewicz calmly responds to questions about the band's taking responsibility for their fans' acts with assertions that what Corpse does is simply fictional and entertainment, no different from a movie or a book. "It's just the same old answer to the same old question: something was wrong with this person to begin with, and music or film or whatever had nothing to do with why they did what they did," Mazurkiewicz says.
Of course, public criticism of Cannibal Corpse simply gives the band more publicity than they ever would have gotten solely from within small, secluded death metal circles. Aside from the band's being specifically requested by Jim Carrey to appear in a scene in the first Ace Ventura movie in 1994, Bob Dole's condemnation was the best p.r. shot in the arm Cannibal Corpse could ever have hoped for.
"It was kind of like, how the hell did he mention us in there? Awesome!" Mazurkiewicz recalls. "Here we are front-page news, on television, people having to hear all that, and who are we? We're selling like 100,000 records a year."
In some ways, Cannibal Corpse and death metal represent what is left in the way of truly subversive heavy metal. Metal fell seriously out of vogue during the sometimes-elitist "alternative revolution" that took place on MTV during the 90s, and it took more than Satanic hand gestures and subtle references to the Dark Prince a la Black Sabbath to keep it alive past the year 2000. Some people may never quite understand, but those who were weaned on thrash in the 80s appreciate the value of violence and ugliness in music.
"About 99.9 percent of the time that doesn't mean you're a bad person or you're evil or you're out doing these things. It just goes with the music," Mazurkiewicz says. "Slayer wouldn't be Slayer if they wrote about something else, ya know?"