CANNIBAL CORPSE Bassist Talks Censorship

Censorship and extreme music have clashed on many occasions, and more than once death metal's CANNIBAL CORPSE has been the catalyst for conflict. Speaking in the new issue of the U.K.'s Zero Tolerance magazine, CORPSE bassist and founding member Alex Webster reflects upon his band's run-ins with censors over the years. "There's a lot of problems in the world, and death metal just isn't one of them," he said. "Listening to a band that sings about crazy, fucked-up things or watching a violent movie isn't going to inspire people the way they might think it would. Censors take it for granted that others are easily influenced, and I don't think that's necessarily true. I think that people definitely know the difference between a crazy, blood-soaked fantasy going on in a movie and reality." And turning to the decision by German censors to ban some CANNIBAL CORPSE material in the early '90s, Webster says, "Some German version of the PMRC that had originally started to crack down on neo-fascist type music decided to just crack down on anything they didn't like, anything questionable. I have a feeling they were using laws that had been made to monitor political hate speech for just anything, though I could be wrong... I'd say that just being successful is a good way of getting back at people who've tried to stop you...I think [censorship] made our band bigger. It was really a failure on the part of anyone who took us on - nobody was stopped. We're lucky enough to have the freedom of speech, and it wound up winning in our case. Censorship is probably seen as a waste of effort by a lot of people because we're still here."

Censorship is the subject of a special investigation in the new issue of Zero Tolerance magazine, in which NAPALM DEATH, BEHEMOTH and SEPULTURA relate their own thoughts and experiences. BEHEMOTH's Nergal discusses how the actions of one would-be censor in Poland have ended up in court, while Barney Greenway of NAPALM DEATH explains why he thinks freedom of speech should be protected at all costs.

Calum Harvie, editor of Zero Tolerance, said, "Although it might raise a smile or two when a self-appointed 'moral guardian' is shocked by the imagery and lyrics frequently employed in extreme music, it's less easy to brush their indignation aside if they then go on to try and have an artist or a piece of music banned. But as the musicians featured in this special show, there are no easy answers. Are there no-go areas in terms of lyrics and imagery? Or should extreme music exist to challenge taboos no matter what? That's what we've been looking at this issue."

For more information, visit www.ztmag.com.