CANNIBAL CORPSE Bassist: 'We Had No Idea A 20-Year Career In Death Metal Could Even Exist'

Greg Pratt of Canada's Exclaim! magazine recently conducted an interview with CANNIBAL CORPSE bassist Alex Webster. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow.

Exclaim! Did you ever think you'd be in a death metal band for 20 years?

Alex: When we look at it and think, "We've been around for 20 years," it seems kind of impossible, especially if you put yourself in the frame of mind we were in when we first started. Would I have thought when I was 18 this was going to be where I was when I was 38? No way, no way. We were hoping to maybe get one or two albums out. We had no idea a 20-year career in death metal could even exist. Death metal was really in its nascent stages, there were only a handful of bands that came before us, like MORBID ANGEL, DEATH, and POSSESSED. You couldn't say, "Wow, look at this band, they've been around for 20 years, we want to do that too." There was nothing like that, it was like, "Hey, this band's got a great demo, I love this music, I want to do music like this." [Laughs]. All of those bands were a couple years ahead of us. Most people would say the earliest death metal started was probably in 1983; I could be wrong, maybe a little bit earlier. We got started in 1988 so that was about five years after the beginnings of it, so it was still really new. So it's remarkable to us; we're kind of surprised, and being able to look back at it like this has given us some sort of perspective on how incredible the whole thing has been.

Exclaim! It is pretty crazy that you've managed to pull it off.

Alex: It is. [Laughs] You never know what's going to happen. That's why we gave it the subtitle "The First 20 Years." Why shouldn't there be a second 20 years? We couldn't have predicted these first 20, so we don't want to predict it's going to be over in 20 years either. We also wanted to let people know the band is very open-ended, we see our career as being ongoing and hope our best years are actually ahead of us. So this is the first 20 years and hopefully there will be a second 20 that will be just as fun. In 20 years I'll be 58, so we'll see about that [laughs]. But you know what I'm saying: we are far from being done and that was something we wanted to get across in the title.

Exclaim! Is there an age limit in death metal?

Alex: I think it's not an age limit as much as a physical ability limit. One person might hit the wall when they're 45; like some of these drummers that are playing so fast, they're doing something that's the equivalent of being an athlete, so it might be difficult for some of these drummers as they get older. Somebody like me, the bass playing, the guitar playing, that kind of stuff, [it's possible] if you headbang a little bit less which of course I don't want to do, I want to be out there banging as hard as I can and putting on as good of a show as I did when I was in my 20s. But physically, my fingers will be able to do this until I get arthritis or something, which hopefully will never happen. You see jazz musicians playing really fast guitar and bass playing well into their elderly years.

Exclaim! As you get older do you find the themes the gore, the violence interest you as much?

Alex: I like horror in general, so I think we just try to capture an evil, dark vibe with the horror songs. I always thought that was an important part of death metal. I think there needs to be a darkness in the music and lyrics you're trying to capture and that's something that still interests me. CANNIBAL CORPSE is the outlet for that for me as a musician. I do a few other things that are different, BLOTTED SCIENCE being the main one I do as a side band that's a little different. But CANNIBAL CORPSE, death metal, it should be horror, all the way. It should be dark, evil stuff that we're doing.

Read the entire interview at www.exclaim.ca.