Q&A: Cannibal Corpse

Paul Mazurkiewicz, Alex Webster, George Fisher, Rob Barrett, Patrick O’Brien (from left) Photo: Alex Morgan/Courtesy of Metal Blade Records

Between actor Jim Carrey getting them for a cameo on the 1994 comedy movie Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and the numerous gory, gruesome images that have served as cover art for their last 12 albums, American death metal band Cannibal Corpse still prefer to let their music do the talking. Says drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz, “We just stick to our formula. It [publicity] is stuff we don’t even think about. It happens as a band, these are things we deal with. You think about it and then you move on.”

For the last 25 years, there’s never been a Cannibal Corpse album that has fallen short of the mark to both critics and fans alike. While recording new material for their 13th studio album, due in September, Mazurkiewicz says the inspiration to write more brutal music is driven by the “want to create the best” music they can. It’s just been that simple and straightforward for a band that continue to sell thousands of copies of their albums [2012’s Torture sold over 10,000 copies in its first week in the U.S, ending up in the top 40 albums] and remain one of the most sought-after extreme metal bands in the world. In a “quarter of a century,” as Mazurkiewicz calls it, not much has changed for Cannibal Corpse, even though they’ve gone from playing small clubs to packing in amphitheaters and arenas. Part of their journey was documented on their 2008 DVD Centuries of Torment: The First 20 Years. Says Mazurkiewicz, “There’s a reason we added the words ”˜The First 20 Years’ to the DVD title. That sums up that Cannibal Corpse will be around, centuries into the future.” In his interview with rolling stone India, the drummer talks about recording new material and the possibility that Cannibal Corpse will become elevator music in the far-off future.

RS: You guys have an American tour coming up and then a world tour. Is this all in preparation for the new album?

Paul Mazurkiewicz: Yeah, we basically start touring a little bit before the new album comes out. We do this tour in the US, The Mayhem Festival tour in July and August. Then we come to Japan and Australia in September. Then we do a big European tour in October and November. The album, I believe, is supposed to be dropping around mid-September. Some of the tours, especially the Mayhem Festival, are a warm-up of sorts for the release of the new CD. The rest of the tour is to promote the CD.

What stage is the album at right now?

Actually it’s in the recording stage right now. We’re finishing things up, though. We just kinda wrapped up the vocals. For the most part, we’re done. Pat [lead guitarist Patrick O’Brien] and Rob [Barrett, rhythm guitarist] should be doing guitar solos as we speak. They should wrap up this week as well. We should start final mixing and all that, and hopefully in a couple of weeks, we’ll have the finished product.

After completing 25 years together as a band, how have things like being on the road and touring changed for you?

I don’t think it’s changed too much for us. Actually, not much has changed in anything we’ve done in the last 25 years, for the most part. Our attitude has been consistent ”” we release an album, go on tour and the only thing I’ve noticed being a big difference is just how we have evolved as people. We were different people, in the early days, when we were 20 years old, than we are now, like being a father and all that kind of stuff ”“ having a family. Overall, with what Cannibal Corpse has been doing, nothing has changed, nothing has affected us. We’ve been doing our thing consistently and this is where we love to be. We’ve just been riding that ladder up, walking up. It’s been that kind of journey.

Does 25 years seem like a lifetime ago or actually not so long ago? Because I feel like that juxtaposition between then and now came across strongly on your DVD, Centuries of Torment.

Sometimes it feels like forever and sometimes it feels like yesterday. It depends on what you’re thinking about. It’s been a long time. Twenty five years is a quarter of a century, you know? It’s just the beginning of Cannibal Corpse. Like you said, Centuries of Torment does sum up all our years. There’s a reason we added the words ”˜The First 20 Years’ to the DVD title. That sums up that Cannibal Corpse will be around, centuries into the future. But for me personally, it’s been a long time.

I noticed two kinds of publicity for Cannibal Corpse ”“ the decades-old plug that Jim Carrey gave you guys by appearing the movie Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and the countless times your album artwork has been censored or even when the album itself was banned from sale in countries like Australia and Germany.

I really think we take it all as good publicity. There’s going to be different forms of it. A very obscure way of getting publicized was by appearing on Ace Ventura. For a death metal band to be in a comedy movie, it didn’t make sense. What a great vehicle, what a great way to expose our music to people, though. So many people saw that movie and told us about how they heard of death metal and heard of Cannibal Corpse. Overall, people saw that movie and lot of them bought Cannibal Corpse records, especially back then in 1994.

It’s the same thing with the censorship. We’re not being Cannibal Corpse to put out these images to cause censorship or to cause any problems. That [artwork] is what we want as musicians, as fans of the music, and if it causes problems, so be it. You’ve got to take it with a grain of salt.

If we were to be identified just by these two things, there could be worse things to be identified by and like I said, it’s all good publicity to us. We’re a death metal band. We’re not everybody’s band. We’re not family entertainment. If we’re going to get talked about and people are speaking against us, we get recognized. At least we’re doing something by which we’ll be remembered.

Cannibal Corpse drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz. Photo: Alex Morgan

I’m surprised you haven’t written a song about it.

[laughs] Well there you go, it’s probably why we haven’t. We just stick to our formula. It [publicity] is stuff we don’t even think about. It happens as a band, these are things we deal with. You think about it and then you move on.

You mentioned in an interview that when Cannibal Corpse started out, you “were just kids trying to figure it out ourselves.” What are the things you’ve stopped worrying about and stopped figuring out for yourselves as a band?

All the things ”” now it’s become more of a business. We have to have other people helping us. We have a manager and a record label ”” they help you out in that way. If you did the things they do yourself, it’s too much. We used to do that stuff for a long time. Alex [Webster, bassist] and I, we self-managed for years and it was only recently, in the last eight years or so that we have management. It really helps a lot ”” taking the load of every day business things that you don’t even realize that come up.

What can you tell me about the album art for the new album. Is Vince Locke doing the artwork again and is it going to be graphic and morbid or is it much more simpler, like [2006 album] Kill?

We’re still kinda figuring those things out. We’re not set on a title yet, but I think we have a good idea what it’s going to be called, but I’m unfortunately not at liberty to say anything right now.

Vince is definitely doing the artwork. It’s not going to be really graphic artwork. I think we’re going to go for a more dark theme of artwork. Torture, Butchered at Birth and that kind of album art. That’s all I can say right now. I don’t even have any structures at this point. As far as the music is concerned, it’s Cannibal Corpse. It’s the next chapter and it’s the continuation of what we’ve been doing. We work very hard, practised the song over since last September and hammering out different ways to put things together. We really have made it the best we could make it. I think the fans are going to be really pleased when they hear it.

What is it like going from the smallest of clubs to amphitheaters and arenas for your gigs?

It’s weird, because we still play at small places too. We play bigger places as well, but yeah, it’s hard to say. I remember on our first tour, just playing to more than a hundred people would be great. But then we did our first Europe tour, playing in front of 500 or even a 1,000 people ”“ that was tremendous.

But if you really want to talk back to the shows over the years, our first time at Wacken Open Air in Germany, in 1999, we had a good time. We had at least 8,000 people there and it was surreal. So many people out there and tearing it up. That kind of gig made us realize we’re not some small band playing just the local clubs any more.

You have always mentioned how Cannibal Corpse tries to top itself with every album. Where does the inspiration come from?

Our drive for wanting to create, and create the best we can comes by working from what we’ve done in the past and utilizing it the best way we can. We’re writing death metal, so there’s got to be some restraint, but we don’t mind. We’re Cannibal Corpse. We tend to try to hammer out different riffs, combinations and beats, different ideas ”” albeit in a subtle manner. It’s probably stuff that we didn’t do in the last album or in the last 10 years. But all the inspiration comes from within ”“ knowing that we want to create. It’s a huge motivation.

Alex said in an interview that “death metal never got big, but it never got small either.” Do you agree with that? Are you happy with where the scene is right now or do you think it’s become saturated?

I think it’s great that there a lot of bands inspired by death metal and there are so many genres of extreme music now, which is great. I think the scene is a bit saturated these days, but Alex is correct. It [death metal] never got huge. Is Cannibal Corpse ever going to get mainstream? I don’t think we’re ever going to get to that level. If we do, it’s going to be because of what society thinks. We’ve seen the difference in society in our 25 years together. I find it hard to see Cannibal Corpse ever become radio-friendly or in that stage where you’re playing to the masses. For us to be living off the music and making it a career for so long, that’s all you can ask for as an artist. No matter what you do, as long as it can sustain you. And it has. I couldn’t be happier.

Twenty five years ago, who would’ve ever thought we would get to this point and that death metal would be where it is. It will get bigger; I always look at it that way. Even Elvis and rock ’n roll, they haven’t been around for that long. Just wait until we’ll be gone [laughs]. 200 years from now, death metal will have been around for 230 years, you know? That’s the kind of music it is. Maybe Cannibal Corpse will be elevator music at that point [laughs]. I think of those things, it’s mind-boggling.

This article appeared in the June 2014 issue of ROLLING STONE India.

Cannibal Corpse release their 12th full-length album A Skeletal Domain in September on Metal Blade Records.