Cannibal Corpse - Biography
The abject sadism of Cannibal Corpse’s death metal has won the band the devotion of gore fanatics and the enmity of public-spirited citizens all over the world. People who have never heard a note of the band’s music have condemned it just on the basis of Vince Locke’s cover art, which usually depicts hacked-up, partially eviscerated, decaying zombies committing unspeakable atrocities; Locke’s illustrations made the “parental advisory” warning on Cannibal Corpse’s albums hilariously redundant. Where the albums’ cover art has not been censored, the albums have often been banned altogether, as they were in Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea. According to Cannibal Corpse, not only were their first three albums banned in Germany for over a decade, but they were forbidden to play any songs from those albums at German concerts. However, this ban and some of the others have apparently been lifted in recent years.
Singer Chris Barnes, guitarists Bob Rusay and Jack Owen, bassist Alex Webster and drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz formed Cannibal Corpse in Buffalo, New York in December 1988. Barnes, Rusay and Mazurkiewicz had played together in the Buffalo band Tirant Sin for the last two years, while Webster and Owen came from Buffalo’s Beyond Death. Cannibal Corpse made its live debut in Buffalo in April 1989, and in 1990, the band moved to Tampa, Florida, a city with a thriving metal scene. The band recorded its first album, Eaten Back To Life (1990 Metal Blade), at Tampa’s Morrisound Recording with Scott Burns producing, and returned to the same studio and producer for their next four albums. The song titles sound just like the music. For instance, the second album, Butchered At Birth (1991 Metal Blade) opens with “Meat Hook Sodomy;” their next, Tomb Of The Mutilated (1992 Metal Blade), opens with the fan favorite “Hammer Smashed Face.” Bob Rusay left in 1993, and Tomb was his last album with the band.
To everyone’s surprise, Cannibal Corpse appeared in the otherwise family-friendly Jim Carrey comedy Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) playing “Hammer Smashed Face.” Guitarist Rob Barrett took Rusay’s place on the fourth album The Bleeding (1994 Metal Blade). Senator Bob Dole, campaigning to be the Republican presidential nominee, condemned Cannibal Corpse at a Los Angeles fund-raising dinner in May 1995. The New York Times reported that Dole attacked the entertainment industry in his speech, claiming that “our popular culture threatens to undermine our character as a nation” and criticizing Cannibal Corpse, the Geto Boys and 2 Live Crew for portraying “mindless violence and loveless sex.” (Perhaps “loveless” is not quite strong enough to describe songs like “Necropedophile” and “Post Mortal Ejaculation.”)
Cannibal Corpse fired Barnes during the Morrisound sessions for the next album, Vile (1996 Metal Blade). Mazurkiewicz told Chronicles of Chaos that he and the other band members were unhappy with Barnes’s vocal parts, and that Barnes declined to change his vocals before leaving to tour with Six Feet Under. In a separate interview, Barnes told the same fanzine that Cannibal Corpse’s management fired him by telephone while he was on the road. His replacement was George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher, the singer of the Florida band Monstrosity, who sings on Vile. Barrett left in 1997; his replacement, guitarist Pat O’Brien, debuts on Gallery Of Suicide (1998 Metal Blade), again recorded at Morrisound but this time with the studio’s co-owner Jim Morris producing. Cannibal Corpse recorded its seventh album, Bloodthirst (1999 Metal Blade) and its eighth, Gore Obsessed (2002 Metal Blade), in Texas, and celebrated its crystal anniversary with the retrospective box set 15 Year Killing Spree (2003 Metal Blade). The Wretched Spawn (2004 Metal Blade), also recorded in Texas, was founding guitarist Jack Owen’s last album with Cannibal Corpse, and Barrett rejoined in 2005. Bassist Webster and drummer Mazurkiewicz are the only founding members that remain on the band’s latest albums, Kill (2006 Metal Blade) and Evisceration Plague (2009 Metal Blade), both recorded in St. Petersburg, Florida.