Interviews

On behalf of Metalreviews, good evening Mr.Barrett! Has the tour been treating you good?

R: Hey, how ya doing? and Of courpse.

What artists/bands have you been listening to lately? Any recommendations for our readers?

R: Well, lately Ive been listening to some old Van Halen and Judas Priest, Screaming For Vengeance always rules. A new band to be mentioned is Aeon from Sweden, really good death metal. Disavowed, the band were touring with right now is really good. Some old Suffocation here and there, but mostly Van Halen when were laughing and having fun. Of course, Black Sabbath is always playing as well.

Define Cannibal Corpse musically, five words or less?

R: Fuckin’ brutal. *laughs*

Now, I am no brownnose but I shall kiss ass when it is called for. Your latest album, Kill, is simply awesome. I would say my favourite piece since Tomb Of The Mutilated. How is it that you can release this brutally technical yet somewhat catchy material at such high quality year after year?

R: Well, you have to remember that from 1997 I joined Malevolent Creation, so I was out of Corpse for eight years, but the biggest progression in my mind is the technical aspect. The music is a lot more challenging to play, greatly because Pat O’ Brian (Corpse’s second guitarist -ed.note-) is the king of guitar. Most people don’t even notice it, because he doesn’t really emphasize it in solos. We just put them where they fit in. Alex is also constantly coming with good and challenging ideas. He can read music so that’s always a plus.

How was the experience of recording Kill? Easy? Demanding?

R: Well, we worked really hard on it, two months went into tracking and mixing the album. There were a lot of times when small ideas took hours to get done. No broken guitars but broken patience more than once. It was frustrating at times but it was worth it, because the album came out really tight.

As an amateur guitarist, I am especially digging the guitar work on Kill. Those riffs are sick, I would even say evil. How long did it take you to master the whole album even to the point of taking the material live on stage?

R: Well, it was very hard on me especially because I had just rejoined Cannibal Corpse and wasn’t used to this more technical direction that the band is going on. I had to spend a lot of time at home practising; not just practising the new tunes but learning songs from the albums that were made after I had left the group. So I definitely had my hands full. Im getting close to nailing them. *laughs*

Given the very technical nature of the new album, did any of the songs on there make you think “Oh shit, how am I gonna pull this off live?” while recording them?

R: We just want to come up with some really good compositions, some tight riffs and rhythms. Even if they seem to be extremely challenging, we will just work as hard as it takes to be able to play them live. Truth be told, there are a couple of songs that I don’t think we will do live, because they might not work that well on stage. But it’s very good to work on tunes that are challenging, just to see if you can do it. Like the songs that Pat (O’Brian, guitar) and Alex (Webster, bass) write are a little harder for me, just because I didn’t write them. It gives more of a challenge to master stuff someone else wrote.

Throughout the Corpses career, you have delved into some pretty twisted stuff in your songs. Give me a rough estimate of how many ways you have come up with to extinguish human life?

R: Probably thousands, I’m not really sure. How many songs do we have? *laughs* I’d say at least a hundred-something ways would be a good guess.

Now, a person can take many kinds of approaches when reading and pondering the lyrics in Corpses songs. I’d say they can be taken as extremely serious and gory horror tales or with touches of extremely black humour. Call me deranged but I would fall into the latter side. Which kind of approach do you think the band has had when making these lyrics?

R: Well, on the new album, for example, there are a lot more serious overtones in the lyrics. It’s not so much about zombies and pure gore, but instead about mental torment and violence against living people, hence the album title, Kill *laughs* Were starting to touch on more realistic types of violence instead of the fantasy stuff, because it’s already been done so much by so many bands. Were looking for new avenues and it’s developing good.

I’ve also thought about this cooky thing. What if Cannibal Corpse wrote songs about things that would not be so typical to them; what would they be called? Because I think your song titles like Rotten Body Landslide are poetic high watermarks. So I give you a topic to make song lyrics out of and you in return give me the title for that song. Understood? Good. First topic: Unicorns.

R: Dead Horse with a Horn in his Head

Second: Disneyland

R: Dead Cartoon Characters

Finally: Chocolate Pudding

R: Bowl of Shit *laughs*

Sounds Brutal! Let’s offroad right now! You’ve been touring in support of Kill for a while now. How have the shows been, especially in relation to the new material?

R: It’s been great. A lot of people want to hear tunes off of the new record. Like, I hear people yelling for Make Them Suffer a lot.

Have you been recording or filming any material for possible future usage?

R: On this tour there have been two shows, I think, one of which was the Bulgaria show in Sofia, where there have been camera crews filming our performances, so hopefully we can use some of that stuff in the future. If it’s good quality, we should definitely be using it in some form.

What is the Corpses mission when you hit the stage in front of the rabid metal people?

R: Kill. As simple as that.

In turn, what do you expect from the people who come to see you?

R: Kill. *laughs*

Could you share with us a psychedelic memory from your years in Cannibal Corpse?

R: Do you mean like a tour story? One with drugs or stuff?

Well, not necessarily. Whatever psychedelia means to you, a memory based on such a concept.

R: So just a bizarre story? Allright, well, last week I was talking to Alex about this time back on the Vile tour when we played in Santiago, Chile. We met this local musician, can’t remember his name right now, who wanted to take us to some club after the show. He was really drunk and high on cocaine, but we still got in his car and he started driving us to the club really crazy. I thought we were going to die right there. I guess you could call that psychedelia, right? *laughs*

Most definitely. Now, the bands 20th anniversary is closing in and due next year if I am not mistaken. Do you have any special releases or events planned yet to celebrate this occasion?

R: For us, I don’t think there has been anything planned just yet, but I must plug the 25th anniversary of Metal Blade that’s coming this April. There’s a big festival show in Massachusetts where we will be playing with many other greats. So for Cannibal Corpse there will be something special but it hasn’t been planned yet. I’m sure it will be cool, though.

How do you feel on being in Cannibal Corpse right now in relation to the mid-90s?

R: It’s definitely a different band, as the music has progressed a lot. In the earlier days we were a little more barbaric, a simpler style. Although the style is still the same, we have a more technical modern sound, so it demands more from the player to keep up with it.

What is the deepest essence of death metal?

R: It’s the brutality. Just hearing something and feeling the darkness of it. Not necessarily evil but simply brutal. That’s something that should be in all death metal as aggressiveness.

Mr. Barrett, it’s been a pleasure. Would you like to give the readers some powerful closing words?

R: I’d just want to say “Perkele!”, cause that’s what they told me is a funny thing to say in Finland. I’ve also learnt Saatana and *more Finnish obscenities ensue, X-rated*

We here at Metalreviews thank you, keep it heavy n’ brutal!

R: Thank you, everybody out there, keep supporting death metal! We appreciate it.

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