�2004 AbsolutMetal
Interview - Cannibal Corpse
Sean Michael Coale interviews Alex Webster of Cannibal Corpse
Sean Michael Coale: Was Jack
leaving something you guys all knew about before hand ?
Alex Webster: "Well Jack, kinda
surpised us with the timing of it, but we figured
eventually. We were getting the idea he wasn't as
into as he used tobe. It has been kinda getting worse
and worse throughout the years and you could see it
on stage and he admits it too, as you could see on
the messagehe left on the website after he left the
band, he said he wasn't really into it and it was
showing up in his stage appearance and everything
else. So it wasn't a huge surpise that he did it, it
was more that he did it at that time."
SMC: Did you kinda think he would
finish the tour that you had already booked ?
AW: "That's what we were thinking,
I thought, I don't know Jack's kinda a quietness guy
where you can't really tell. I thought maybe he was
still having a goodtime, he just wasn't being as
physical as he once was on stage. But it wasn't that
obvisiously he wanted to quit, and we were hoping he
wouldhave stayed on for the whole tour because it put
us into a position where we had to teach a replacement
songs in a big hurry. But I guess in the long run
better thing, cause the guy we got playing now Jermey
Turner of Origin he's been really motivated and a
lot of fun to work with him and really into what we're
doing. It's more exciting to be on stage with someone
who wants to be there."
SMC: Now is Jeremy just gonna be
doing this tour, or is he actually gonna be helping
on the next album?
AW: "We don't know yet, the
whole band has to get together and talk about it,
we've been touring so much we really haven't taken
the time to sit down and go over what the future is
gonna be."
SMC: How does it feel with you
and Paul being the only two original members left in
the band?
AW: "It's cool, it would have
been nicer to have things work out with Jack, but I
feel if the band gets better when somebody leaves
with the replacement, then it's ok. There's no way
we could have stuck with the orignal 5, we never
would be the band we are now. So we feel we've gotten
a lot better, it's definetly gotten a lot better with
our ability to play and everything, it's improved a
lot with the people we've had come into the band."
SMC: Wretched Spawn's artwork
has kinda gone back to the older covers look, was
that something you guys aimed to do this time around
or just the best piece you had to go by at the time
and was it the same guy that did the artwork on
"Butchered at Birth"?
AW: "Yeah a lot of people had
always been like why don'tcha do something like the
first couple fo we were like ok, let's see if we can
come up with something similarly offensive to the
originals. Yeah it's the same guy, he did them all
except for the European version of "Hammer Smash Face"
EP, where someone at that record label at that time
(Music for Nations), without our permission put a
piece of art on there we never even seen by some guy
in England, that we don't know and never talked to
about it, but other than that it's all been Vincent
Black."
SMC: When you start writing or
even recording what different sounds and amps do you
try out?
AW: "We try a few different
things, but we pretty much just bring our own amps,
like Pat really like those Mesa Boogie triple
rectifiers and I use an Ampeg STPV4. Me, I didn't
even try any other amps, I knew that was gonna be
the best one, but we do try some combo amps. Stuff
that's expensive, stuff we could rent but not really
afford to own, like 3 different amp heads and get a
couple combo ones and try them against it."
SMC: No vintage cabs?
AW: "Ha, no we don't have
anything like that. I mean I got a cab that's old but
I wouldn't call it vintage."
SMC: How have the tours been going?
AW: "It's been going really good,
but we're defintently ready to get home, when we
finish this tour it'll be 140 shows this year and for
a bunch of guys in their mid 30's that abit of work."
SMC: Yeah, that's funny you say
that 'cause when you guys rolled thru Jaxx in VA,
I was talking with Paul and he said you'd probably
just finish the Euro part of the tour and head home.
AW: "Yeah we did a bunch more.
The part of the reason we did so much in such a
short period of time is cause George's wife is gonna
be having a baby in december and we wanted to get
things done so George could have plenty of time at
home. So he'll have like a month or so before the
birth and then time afterwards to spend with the baby."
SMC: Yeah, how is George holding up?
AW: "He's doing ok, he had that
lung thing but he's taking some medicine for it. Some
kinda lung virus and probably related to bronchitis
or something. See it's weird, he doesn't even really
cough or anything, he's just got super bad pain in
his right side. I guess his right lung is inflamed,
but he's been taking like a prescription version of
ibuprofen and it's reducing it."
SMC: How was the show you guys
did with out him?
AW: "It was weird, you don't
wanna do a show. We debated just not doing the show,
but were in the parking lot, we're here at the show.
George was at the hospital getting diagnosed, we
really didnt wanna cancel the show seeing how we
were sitting there. So we took 3 bucks off the
ticket price, so from $23 down to $20 which is not
a big difference but we felt they should take a 'lil
bit off cause it wasnt gonna be a regular show.
Maurizio from Kataklysm said he knew how to sing
"Stripped, Raped and Strangled", cool, come up and
do that, and he did so were greatful for that. We had
a mic up there so I could announce the songs and I
said "Yeah, anyone who thinks they know the songs
come on up and give it a try." So a bunch of people
came up and tried to sing a couple of the songs and
we had fun with that."
SMC: Cool so kinda like jukebox
Cannibal Corpse.
AW: "Yeah, we figured why the
hell not, we did the first half of the set completely
instrumental and then i just said if anyone of you
know any of this come on up. It's cool but it's not
the same, people are used to listening to things thru
the voice, even if you got someone coming up there
doing vocals it's not gonna be the not really exactly
what it should be. It's hard to do what George does,
you know you gotta practice and know the timing. I
mean just the timing is tough, in addition to having
a voice like that too, you gotta have the timing
and know where things go. It's a lil more difficult
than people think. We had a couple of guys that did
a pretty good job, and again we're thankful for that,
and that people were patient with us and a lot of
people, we thought were gonna be like fuck this this
is bullshit, but everyone were really cool but the
next day was Philadelphia at the Trocadero and that's
a big place like this and we just thought we can't
keep doing these shows this way. Especially like at
the Troc were there is gonna be like 500 people, it
was cool at the Pittsburgh show where the number of
people were a little smaller, you know, more informal.
So, it seemed ok to have people come up and sing the
songs, but you come to a major city people wanna see
a show. We were just thinking "God we don't wanna
have to do it this way anymore." I mean we dont wanna
do it for any show, we'd like to think all the shows
are equally important, but you feel a little different
being up on a huge stage. So, we talked it over with
George, and he thought maybe I can do one or two
songs, well do whatever is comfortable to for ya. We
didn't want anything to screw him up, but he was
cool and said he'd give it a try and he got up there
and did it. I mean he was in pain, it was hurting
him a lot but he was able to sing fine and we were
really greatful to him for coming thru and doing that
and like yesterday he felt even better, and tonight
he should be fine."
SMC: So after so many years of
playing with vocals, how did that sound without and
did it give you guys any new ideas for future song
ideas?
AW: "It's weird, 'cause sometimes
you listen to the vocals to cue we you're going in
the song and helps you keep track of where you are
in the song too. But we do practice without him a lot
of the time, we practice 5 days a week and he'll come
up and practice maybe 2 days. I mean there's no real
reason for him to do it everyday, he doesn't wanna
wear his voice out and doing it live was different,
I knew it would give a lot of people a chance to pay
attention to the music a little more than they do
because the first thing you hear when you listen, or
one of the first things your brain tunes into is the
vocals."
SMC: Yeah, you guys helped set
George up with "Devoured By Vermin".
AW: "Yeah, we definetly wanted
to lay down the law with what George was capitable of."
SMC: Actually this is something
I've seen on a lot of message boards these day, how
do you feel about people saying there aren't any
inspirational bass players out there right now?
AW: "I think what it is, as far
as me being premiere, there's a lot of great bass
players out there but I'm one of the ones who tries
to throw things in that you're gonna notice and
I think there are some definite good bass players
in the scene. I mean as far as the Death Metal
scene goes, the bands that I'm farmiliar with and the
bands that we tour with, there's alot of great bass
players. The bass player from Macbre is really
excellent and the bassist from Vader there are a
lot of really good ones out there, the guy that
used to play for Origin. So there is a bunch of
really good bass players out there and I think it's
the one instrument that could have the tendencies
to do more, but as you know bass deals with lower
tunings and all of the guitars now a days are
getting down into B or lower and that's jumping
into bass frequencies. So a lot of the studio
engineers and live engineers for that matter are
having a hard time finding a place for bass. So
if you do a few things that are different from
the guitar, you could tend to just be burried
under a wall of guitar. I wanna do a support roll
and so do the other bass players I mentioned, but
you wanna do something were you're not gonna
be heard all the time, why play an instrument
if you can't actually hear it. It never made any
sense to me, why are these guys in a band, when
you can't even hear them. Bass players got to be
more assertive, they have to make themselves as
important as the guitar player, drummer or singer
in the band, not more important but as equal. You
gotta find a way, it's not always something that's
easy to do but you gotta find it to pop up and let
people know you're in there, like writing parts that
are a little different from what the guitar player
is doing. I don't do that all the time but when you
do it, it really jumps out, a lot more people will
notice it."
SMC: So when you write material,
do you sit back and think to yourself if something
would be better just as a bass line other than say a
guitar part?
AW: "Some of the bass stuff
again, I'll write on a 4track a couple of things,
I'm writing it all on bass and I'll just try to
decide which would be good on bass or guitar, or
two different guitar parts. Like on "Grotesque from
Gore Obsessed" both guitars and the bass are all
doing completely different things, there's a lot of
things going on it's different from song to song.
Some of them wind up being really simple, where
everybody is gonna do the samething the whole time
like a song like "Pit of Zombies", which is all of
playing the exact samething the whole time."
SMC: On this last album, it
seems like you tried to step on the tech side, even
Paul seemed to be playing more techincal drums. Was
that something you went into the studio in mind?
AW: "Well, with Paul, it all
depends on what we give him. Pat will write parts
that some of them are so strange there's no way
you're gonna be able to write a normal drum beat to
them, so it winds up being a lil more on the technical
side and I think it's also just what we like to do
and as a player you can get bored just playing the
easy stuff. Unless it's a really well written song,
it can get boring to play something thats really easy. So it's fun to up there playing something that's kinda hard and it gives you something to think about when you're on stage.
Some of the songs on the records are still easy, and
some of the songs on "Wretched Spawn are easy but
it's still whatever makes them the heaviest is what
we'll always be going for. That's the first priority
that we make it brutal and heavy, it just so happens
we also enjoy the technical stuff too, so we can try
to make it a lil more each record."
SMC: Would you mind commenting
on what Chris Barnes is doing these days ?
AW: "I don't know it's not
something I'm into really, I'm not into the music
the band is doing but the guys in the band are cool
but what it does is by what he's doing now, shows
people why we wanted to have George in the band
instead. The direction that we went and he went are
totally totally different, in my opinion to say the
two bands are in competition with eachother would be
totally ridcilous, as there are no similairities
between the two bands. But there are a lot of people
who do and they say Six Feet Under vs. Cannibal
Corpse. That's like having Coke Cola not verse Pepsi
but Coke Cola vs. fucking pizza. It's two totally
different things, so yeah we have totally different
similiarities and the stuff he's doing now would not
work with the music we write now."
Top 5 Albums
1. Slayer "Reign in Blood"
2. Iron Maiden "Power Slave"
3. Morbid Angel "Alters of Maddness"
4. Sadist "Illusions"
5. Immolation "Dawn of Posession"