Patrick Rennick: Did you have any expectations when you went in to record your 11th album given your lengthy death metal career?
Paul Mazurkiewicz: Well, you’re always going to try to make it fresh to some extent, I mean we’re death metal, we’re extreme death metal so we’re gonna stay along those guidelines for the most part. If you listen to all of our releases I think they do sound maybe different in some ways but at the same time we have retained the Cannibal Corpse sound. So really when you go into a release or into a session kind of thing like we did with Evisceration Plague; I mean we knew we had a great product with Kill, the quality was amazing, the production, all of us really thought we came up with some great songs for Kill so you know you do have to have that in the back of your mind. You always want to do the best that you can and hopefully make a better record so we used the same team, Erik Rutan again, went back to Manna Studios, so if anything it was just a build off of Kill. We knew what to do, we were used to working with each other so really it was just going into the sessions just trying to write good songs.
I think when you listen to EP we just try to break it up here and there. You don’t want to have everything super fast or super slow so we try to mix it up with the tempos, make some a little faster/slower than others and mid pace songs. So I think that’s all we really tried to do when we were going into a session, to make things different. I just think it’s a natural progression to change things if we were to change things up here and there but for the most part I think the changes have been pretty subtle and we have retained our sound since day one.
PR: A lot of people seem to think with Kill, like you were talking about, that it had really tapped into something and people seemed to really like it. What is it that you think you tapped into there? What made it such a great album?
PM: It’s kind of a tough thing, you don’t go in saying ok we’re going to make our best album and this is going to be the album. That’s for the fans to decide. Every time we go into writing at that moment in time you’re trying to do the best that you can at that point. Why now instead of 8 years ago? Why was Kill more well received than Gore-Obsessed? You just gotta sit back and look and be like well, we didn’t really try anything specific or like I said trying to make the best album that’s going to go down as the best. Yeah you want to do your best but it’s kind of hard to say. I think the songs really flow on Kill and the reasoning is almost unknown. It just comes out of us, it’s what we do. I think every album you’re going to have a couple of songs at least hopefully that stand out that end up in the live set or whatever. But for some reason Kill was kind of like The Bleeding album in some sense where every song just flowed and every song was catchy enough so that they just stand out and like I said you don’t just go into those things really consciously thinking about that. But, if it happens it’s a good thing so we’re just luckily riding the wave and wrote some great songs to follow up Kill on EP and arguably make it a better CD.
PR: You guys have really weathered the tide per se, you were in the death metal scene at the beginning and remained as it gained, lost, and regained popularity again. Today you are playing with many bands, some of whom are popular in the mainstream currently. What, in your opinion, has made death metal and Cannibal Corpse resurge in popularity lately?
PM: Well luckily for us we’ve been there through all the trends and ups and downs in the scene. Luckily for Cannibal Corpse we’ve got such a great fan base and such an awesome cult following so to say that we actually never really saw much of that. I mean yeah there might have been some times where it was tapering off a little bit but luckily for us the fans were still there. They’re buying the merch, they’re going to the shows you know they’re into it. Obviously I think it’s just a different era with society kind of changing. When you’ve got a lot of these young bands and these young kids getting into some crazy kinds of music albeit whatever kind of metal style it is, it’s still heavy it’s still extreme and of course it could only help a band like us that’s been around for a while. When bands get into Job For a Cowboy and those are the first bands that they are hearing about and then later after a little digging they find out oh there’s this band Cannibal Corpse that have been around and they’ve influenced a lot of people. So luckily I think that extreme music is doing so good that it can only trickle back down to us in a sense and make us more popular than we ever have been. So that’s kind of what I contribute it to because yeah when you think about it we started 20 years ago. Even regular metal wasn’t an accepted thing. Now you go to a hockey game and what do you hear? You hear Metallica, you know Ozzy all these bands that was our music when we grew up. It wasn’t our parents’ music. You weren’t going to hear those at sporting events 20 years ago. Now it’s mainstream in a sense. So I mean it’s like death metal is also becoming that and that’s really just from society changing, because we’re not doing anything differently. We’re not trying to be out there pleasing everybody but hey the more people that are into it, that’s an awesome thing.
PR: What are your thoughts on the festival today? I just thought it was interesting in the press tent listening to the woman talking about interviewing Trivium and you’re sitting over there a 20-year veteran and nobody is even asking to talk to you. What are your thoughts on the festival, did you look forward to it?
PM: Oh big time! I mean this is like one of the biggest things we’ve ever done in the states so of course. We’ve never really done a major rolling festival. We never did Ozzfest, we did the Sounds of the Underground a couple of years ago which brought us here as well, but in comparison this festival is much larger. Especially when we heard Manson and then Slayer, which is a dream come true for us to be on the same bill with them for the first time. I mean we played with them at festivals in Europe and stuff but to be on an actual tour with Slayer playing every night and we can go and watch them, that was a dream come true. So that was huge for us and all the other bands and this outdoor part of the festival is a pretty brutal heavy package. So we knew it was going to be a big opportunity for us to play in front of our fans and in front of some new fans. You’ve got bands like Trivium and All that Remains and God Forbid that are heavy bands maybe not intense brutal death metal like us or Behemoth or Black Dahlia but that’s the whole point. Everyone can feed off each other’s fans and it’s still a heavy metal music festival and that’s why you do something like this. So I think this is going to go down as a huge success and we are really happy to be on this tour and it’s been amazing and the shows have been great and we can’t say enough good things about it.
PR: So how have you guys been received so far? Have there been any looks of shock?
PM: For the most part we got our fans here. We’ve been around 20 years so we’re not a new band and we have a cult following and there are a lot of people who have seen us. But then there are a lot of people who have never seen us and we get that. You know say when we do our Hot Topic signing we’ve got people that are like, oh I’m so excited to see you guys! I’ve never seen you before and they’re pumped as heck and you know that’s great. There are a lot of people here that want to see us but have never seen us before so that’s awesome. If you can get some people who might not be fans of death metal to come in and check us out and pique a little interest and buy a CD you know that’s what we’re here for. So for the most part we’ve just been getting a really good response, and it seems like our fans are out here in numbers.
PR: Now you guys currently reside in Tampa Florida, being the birth place of a strain of death metal what’s the scene like nowadays?
PM: I mean I guess it’s still going pretty good. It’s weird that there are a lot of bands from there or who moved down there like we did originally from Buffalo but it’s a good scene. We’re going to be playing down there on Tuesday and you know we’ll see how it is with the masses because every time we’ve played there it’s always at St. Petersburg or Tampa with some pretty good shows. I mean it’s no hotbed, it’s not like oh you go to Tampa and there’s thousands upon thousands upon thousands of death metal fans. It’s like any other city. It’s just really ironic that so many of them reside there. But there is still a great scene there so yeah we’ll definitely be looking forward to it and seeing how major the turnout is playing in Tampa for the first time on a big festival like this to see who the true fans are.
PR: I noticed that in Europe especially they really know how to put together a metal festival. It seems to me that we are starting to pick up on it in the states with more extreme bills at shows like this one but there are still a lot of radio friendly bands playing, how would you compare your European tours to the ones in the states?
PM: I mean it’s all different. There are great places in Europe, some great countries and cities. It’s kind of like America, it’s regional and a lot of the time there are so many different factors. If it’s say a Saturday night and you’re in Paris the turnout will be huge because it’s a big city and whatever or you play a Tuesday night in some smaller country or city and you know whatever it varies. But really the fans in Europe are metal, you go to a festival like Wacken and there’s just a mass of people from the globe coming to support metal. So obviously Europe has the weekend festivals down. Unfortunately America doesn’t have anything like that and we’re just more relying on these rolling festivals, which is cool too but yeah when we go over there and play some shows there are some sick crowds and it’s really hard to compare because a lot of places vary. In that way it’s very similar to the states.
PR: Well if you’re going to say a death metal band has made it Cannibal Corpse can certainly claim that. Where do you feel like you are going from here? Is the fire still burning? Are you thinking of calling it quits?
PM: Aw man, I mean we’re doing better than we ever have in all ways. We’re playing better than we ever have, the band is gelling together personally the best it ever has. I mean we just released arguably our best CD, I mean sales wise it’s probably gonna be so why would we think of quitting you know? This is what we wanted to do starting when we were little becoming fans of musicians and music. This has been our dream and for us to be living our dream 20 years into it with no end in sight it’s kind of like I think we just gotta take it in until it’s over. Luckily we all feel good. I mean if there was a medical kind of thing, some health issues, we might consider but right now we’re feeling great and there doesn’t seem to be any reason why we wouldn’t go on another 10-15 years. But of course you still gotta take it day by day. We’re not 20 years old anymore. You know, who knows what your thought patterns and the way you change over time but we know we’re getting older and you know it’s maybe a little harder on the body and all that but if everything is working the way I just mentioned it is then there is really no reason to stop. I think we’ll know if it is that time because we don’t really want to be one of those bands that just goes through the motions of course and writes songs just to do it and release an album and it will sell because oh we’re Cannibal, no. We’ve never looked at it like that and if we ever got an attitude like that I guess it would be time to stop but definitely there is no end in sight right now.
PR: I’ve always found it interesting, you probably could compete on the technical level with some of the newer bands, especially with your newer lead guitarist, I thought his solos were excellent on EP by the way, but I think you really have a sense of groove that the newer death metal bands don’t seem to quite grasp.
PM: Well I think we’ve retained a lot of stuff from when we grew up. And our influences were the early 80s metal bands and the thrash bands of the mid 80s like Slayer for instance and that’s why we don’t want to say we’re copying or anything but they were a big influence and why are they still around, they write great songs that have got some groove to them and they’re brutal. That’s what we always tried to do you know we are straight forward for the most part but we try to write good songs, and they’ve gotta be catchy and we do have some groove to us. I think there’s nothing wrong with that and I think that’s why we’ve been around as long as we have. We’re not just focused on oh we gotta be the fastest band in the world or the most technical band, no let’s just write good songs albeit if it’s a slower easier song that anyone can play, it doesn’t matter. We’re just trying to write a great song and luckily for us the fans have been there to support and I think we have somewhat succeeded in that way.
PR: It seems like there’s a bit of a division between bands who focus on the groove or songwriting and others just push the envelope of technicality.
PM: Right exactly and that’s fine, you do what you want to do, to each their own. But we have always been you know let’s focus on songwriting and playing and getting better as musicians and adding technicality here and there but just really trying to write a good song as well. You know a song like EP on our new record, what’s so hard about it to play for anybody? A guitar player, a drummer, anybody, it’s not. But Alex [Webster] wrote it, it’s a heavy catchy song. I mean there you go that’s what it’s all about, that’s what we want to do and that’s what we’ve been doing for 20 years.
PR: When the albums are written with the band is it along the lines of a jam session?
PM: It varies nowadays obviously. In the early days it was written more collectively, everyone is coming up with riffs and throwing things together that way. But right around The Bleeding time was when we started to, I remember Alex coming in and being like, I just want to write a song by myself, I want to write the whole song by myself. And you know cool, I guess everyone is getting confident enough as songwriters or better as musicians so right around then our songwriting style changed a little bit. We still had some collaborative efforts but for the most part that’s the way it’s done nowadays. Alex is home on his computer writing his songs and he usually just brings the finished product in on CD. You know, here’s all the drum parts I thought of and here’s all the guitar parts for you guys, and it’s all a midi version maybe from the computer and we can learn to play it that way. Pat [O’Brien] and Robert [Barrett] write a little bit more conventionally, a little more old-school where they might have some riffs and we get together. You know maybe Pat’s got five or six riffs and we work on some arranging and do it that way but for the most part it is an individual effort from the songwriter and then we get together and make it a song as Cannibal.
PR: Do you ever have trouble getting your vocalist off of World of Warcraft to come down and do some jamming?
PM: Of course, I mean you know he gets into the studio and does what he needs to do but on a creative level he’s pretty much not a lyricist and that’s fine. I think Alex, myself, and the other guys are coming up with lyrics to fit the songs very well.
PR: Oh so you guys handle the lyrics?
PM: Since we got rid of [Chris] Barnes, me and Alex have pretty much been writing all the lyrics. So that’s it, George [Fisher] isn’t a lyric writer. We get all the songs mapped out for him and he just learns them pretty much like he’s learning a song from any other band. That’s just how it works.
PR: It must be a challenge to come up with new lyrical territory. Gore can only be described so many ways it seems, it must be difficult to keep it fresh.
PM: Oh of course, I mean how many times can you kill somebody with a certain device?
PR: Did anything inspire you to write the lyrics for this latest album?
PM: Not really, the way I look at it and the way I think Alex looks at it is lyrics are a vital part of the band but they are definitely the last thing we think of. It’s all music first. Arranging is more important and getting the vocals to fit properly than the actual words. So when we come down to that obviously I’m writing lyrics, Alex is writing lyrics. We’re not sitting around daily thinking of these things in our head. We aren’t those kind of people. But when it comes down to it and I gotta write my lyrics I get in my own world of doing that and I get it done. And a lot of it is just really inside of us now. It’s really just imagination. If we get a good title or we know what we’re going to call a particular song we think about, ok what would the concept around that song be and that’s usually how it ends up morphing. But for me personally it’s just delving into the imagination because I’ve been around it so much with so many movies and books it’s not like we’re new to this kind of game. So I just kind of dig in and I try to come up with something different than we’ve done before because we’re still going to be sort of pigeonholed into our gore, guts subject matter.
PR: A lot of death metal bands write grotesque lyrics but Cannibal seems to be targeted the most for this by censors in various forms, do you still have this issue?
PM: A little bit but not much. The whole Germany thing has passed. You know for 10 years we weren’t able to sell our first three records there or play them live and we’ve had some problems in other countries but apparently it seems that everything is pretty mellow these days without much targeting of Cannibal. Obviously controversy can drum up some publicity but it just seems all ridiculous because we fought through it and here we are, nothing has stopped us. That whole German thing was probably the biggest thing that happened in the way of censorship for us but we still went to Germany and still played shows. People weren’t like oh my god they can’t play “Hammer Smashed Face” so I’m not going to get to see them. We got plenty of other songs and we made it through all that and our fans were there supporting us the whole way. So it’s more annoying I guess but it’s good that it’s over and we look at it as nothing more than ridiculous. But it’s over now and Cannibal has prevailed.
PR: I’m always interested when I speak with bands, is this a full-time gig for you or do you have to find work on the side?
PM: Luckily we are one of the handful of death metal bands who can afford to make something of a living off of this. We’re fortunate that we’re able to tour and make money off of the band and the records are selling enough so that we’re lucky enough to make a living off of this, but by no means is it some lavish life. I think any musician, any artist of any caliber be it a painter or an actor, you just want to make a living off of what you love to do. And if you can make money to have a roof over your head and food on the table I think that’s all that really matters to you. So we’re lucky.
PR: Does that ever come with pressure for you?
PM: Not really, the other guys might say something different but for me this is just what we do. We’ve been doing it for 20 years and luckily for us it started out pretty hot off the bat. It’s not like oh we’ve been struggling for 10 or 15 years and oh we got our break! We released an album and there was a buzz immediately and we release our second album and we’re headlining tours already. So for Cannibal, luckily it started out with a hot buzz and we’ve just bee slowly rising up the ladder. There was never a thought like oh we gotta do what this band is doing now or oh we really gotta do better. We just do what we do and luckily the fans have been there and obviously some hard work and trying to write better songs as musicians. But I really don’t think there has been any pressure on us for the most part. We just do what we do and luckily we’re doing well and the fans are there and it’s from the heart. If we were faking it maybe it would be a lot harder but we’re not, it comes naturally and this is it.