Cannibal Corpse – Rob Barrett

Cannibal Corpse are not your ordinary death metal band. They’re incredibly gruesome, mind-numbingly heavy and will pretty much make your ear-drums bleed! I caught up with the awesome Rob Barrett, guitarist of the band who was a really laid back guy and really cool to talk to! “Hey, man! Yeah, we’re doing well. We just finished the Mayhem tour here in the US about 3 weeks ago. We’re actually about to head over your way to Australia, do about 5 shows there and then do 3 shows in Japan!” Asking what he’s looking forward to the most about the band’s return to our shores, I got a pretty exciting answer (attention all you hardcore CC fans!). “We’re looking forward to letting everybody hear the new material because we haven’t been playing any tracks off of ‘A Skeletal Domain’. We were waiting for it to be released which is when we’ll be playing in Japan, right after Australia. But Australia will be the first place to see some of the new songs live which I think will be cool for any fan who’s keen and excited on listening to the new stuff before it actually comes out!” Psyched?

The band are all set to release their 13th album, ‘A Skeletal Domain’ and it is hands down, one of their darkest, heaviest sounding albums yet! We talked about how things kicked off for the album, the writing process and the band working with the famous Mark Lewis (Audio Hammer Studios) on the production of this album. “Well, we went about it the same way we usually do – each of us individually come up with song ideas at home and then we make a demo recording of our ideas after which we send it to the rest of the guys. Then it’s just a matter of us getting together at practice and practicing till everyone has it as a complete song. We kind of work by ourselves for the most part though. There’s one song which Paul and I co-wrote together which we just worked on in our practice room. This album definitely is one that is heavier and I think obviously, one of the main differences is the production – working with Mark Lewis! This is the first time we’ve worked with him; we did the last three with Erik Rutan and he’s definitely awesome! We’re not counting out working with him again but we just decided to change it up a bit and go a different way this time! Mark did an awesome job, it’s killer and we’re really happy about it!”

Cannibal Corpse, apart from the sheer monstrosity that is their music, are known for their epic, controversial, extremely gory lyrical themes, album art etc. I asked Rob how the band deals with some of the responses they get and his answer made me respect him and the band a whole lot more than I already do!“Well we don’t! They have to deal with what we’re doing,[laughs]. We don’t have to deal with anything they say because we’re still gonna do what we’re gonna do. That doesn’t affect us in any way except for when its somebody that has some power in the government or somebody that’s involved in parents groups or whatever, trying to throw censorship on us in some way which then it becomes a problem. We’ve actually had issues in Germany and even in Australia with censorship. Supposedly the last tour we did there, somebody was trying to cancel it but fortunately that didn’t work out for them! Sometimes, these things will get in a way if it’s, like I said, a certain person or group trying to give us trouble but if it’s just criticism and negative opinion, that doesn’t bother us at all!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuRWK17T4_M

The first album I heard was ‘The Wretched Spawn’ and it made me break something (literally). I asked Rob his opinion on what he thinks, makes Cannibal Corpse stand out and apart from other extreme death metal bands. “I think we have a distinct style to be honest, not one that can easily be adopted! I joined in 1993, they had 3 albums before I actually started writing with them, I noticed that they had this very abrasive, aggressive, kind of neanderthal, cave-man style of death metal that was very rough around the edges and not so perfect sounding which is what I liked about it! I think we’ve still upheld that neanderthal, aggressive sound because when you hear it you know for a fact that it’s Cannibal Corpse, or somebody that’s mocking us really, really well! [laughs]

Apart from that raw death metal sound, the sheer gore factor is what appeals to me about Cannibal Corpse. Where do they get their ideas from? For Rob, it’s his love for violence! “Well I think obviously all of us are into gore and horror movies, splatter films where there’s a massive amount of violence and to me, I’ve always been intrigued about violence and just gory things, things that discuss the average person, I actually get enjoyment out of it [laughs] The whole obsession with gory stuff – its a primal thing! I love it! Since the dawn of man there’s always been a violent side to humans that some people don’t want to acknowledge, But I think there’s an animal inside everyone, some people just don’t like to let it out. Nowadays most people are too civilized to acknowledge it but with us, we like to study it! And put it in music!”

The band has seen a handful of line-up changes over their 2 decades of existence. I asked Rob to what extent that has changed and affected the dynamic of the band. “Yeah the way that I look at it, there’s just been four! In the whole history of the band four changes and for 26 years that’s not bad at all! In terms of how it’s affected our sound, I mean, yeah, you could definitely tell each line up has a different sound to where you go ‘Oh so this is the era where Pat O’Brien and Jack Owens were in the band together’, you can tell when me and Pat were in the band for the last four albums. It’s a distinct era that you can tell from the sound that’s being played!”

Rob joined the band in 1993 till 1997 and then re-joined in 2005. Being in the band for so long I asked him whether he feels anything has changed over the years in the metal scene.“Well I think all the bands that are playing nowadays have a lot more technology to their disposal because back when we started it was basically, ‘Alright, lets record something on a boombox with a cassette player’ [laughs] but now all these young kids and bands have pro tools hooked up right in their practice room, sometimes they don’t even practice together! They practice via Skype when they’re in different countries which is weird to me because I don’t really know how many bands physically rehearse anymore. But yeah technology is definitely the main thing because it has changed things for the better but it does have its drawbacks too.”

‘A Skeletal Domain’ out September 16 via Metal Blade Records

Rob’s favourite bands are the bands that I grew up listening to and it was awesome to hear how much this gore/death metal fanatic loves his classic and old school metal, some of which are also his influences. “ Seriously man, thats all I listen to really! When people ask me what new bands I’ve been listening to, all I can say honestly is ‘none!’ I’m 44 years old, and I love the old school stuff! It’s what I’ve always listened to. Malcolm Young, Eddie Van Halen, those are musicians that I can’t get enough of! I’ve always got Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, all the classic stuff playing! They say most of the music an individual listens to in their teenage years ends up being the music you listen to forever and love the most!”

My favourite thing about talking to band members is asking them some of their  most memorable experiences considering the years of touring that they’ve done. Rob shared his! “I’d say the first time we went to Russia is definitely one of my favourite experiences because it was back in 1993, not too long after The Berlin Wall came down, about four years later was when we toured so things were still pretty edgy in Europe. But we were one of the first extreme bands to play in Russia I think and from what I can remember, it was just an crazy time. It was exciting for me because that was my first time anywhere overseas and of course the first time to any country is always memorable!”

Cannibal Corpse are all set to obliterate Australia on their upcoming tour! Rob passed on a final message to all their fans before they arrive! “Well yeah of course we gotta say thanks to all of you for still going strong. Without you guys we wouldn’t be here doing this for as long as we have and it’s definitely our fans  contributing to our longevity. It’s just awesome to be able to be a vital band in the present day with all these new bands – we’re actually still keeping up with all of them. Be ready to hear some new songs from the new album and we hope to see all of you at one of our shows!”

It was a pleasure talking to Rob on behalf of Metal Obsession; he’s a really cool, down-to-earth guy and is pretty excited about heading back to Australia! Be sure to attend one of their shows, you won’t regret it!
Cannibal Corpse kick of their Australian tour today (September 9th) in Perth, followed by shows in Adelaide( September 10th) , Sydney (September 11th) Melbourne (September 12th) and Brisbane (September 13th)!

Also check out Cannibal Corpse’s new song here! It’s a riot!

Tickets for the tour are on sale now via Oztix, Moshtix, Ticketek, and the respective venues.

Cannibal Corpse Australia Tour 2014 w/ Hour of Penance

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