Bible Of Butchery: Cannibal Corpse: The Official Biography

By Joel McIver

The first-ever official authorized biography of Cannibal Corpse. Written by Joel McIver, author of Justice For All: The Truth About Metallica and biographies on Black Sabbath, Slayer, Slipknot, and Queens Of The Stone Age, Bible Of Butchery - Cannibal Corpse: The Official Biography contains over 150 pages loaded with photos from the band's collecti

• Language: English
• Publisher: Metal Blade Records Inc.
• Release date: Nov 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9780975280775

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Photo by Alison Webster

Photo by Alison Webster

GEORGE FISHER

The life and times of death metal's most intimidating frontman. Warning: features World Of Warcraft.

I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. I have a younger brother and a younger sister. My earliest memories? Let me think. I played baseball for a year or two in Little League. A local business called Flower Cart sponsored us and their name was on the back of our shirts. My mother still has the pictures.

I didn't really pay much attention at school, especially when I got into my teens and I just wanted to be in a band. I pretty much went to school because I had to. I could have learned, and I should have: I'd tell any kid to get an education. Learn as much as you can. But I just used to fuck around. I didn't want to hear what anybody wanted to tell me, because I just wanted to be in a band. I didn't graduate from my high school, Northern High School in Baltimore. My parents knew my heart wasn't in it. I wouldn't have listened even if they'd pushed me.

I heard Black Sabbath when I was fairly young, along with Accept and Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. Then later on, around 15 years old, I got into Slayer and Celtic Frost: a lot of different music came in about that point. Kreator were incredible. There were about eight to 12 of us who liked metal, but only me and one other guy who really got into the super-heavy stuff. I never learned to play an instrument, though. My mother bought me a bass, and I tripped over it and the headstock cracked, so I ended up selling it to someone and my mom yelled at me for that. I had a bit of a wood that my friends called the Rickenboarder - instead of Rickenbacker, right? - and years later me and Lee Harrison from Monstrosity did a demo called Sonic Vomit that had me on drums. I could play drums a little bit, I guess.

When me and some buddies were looking to form a band, which was difficult because there really weren't many people around who were into really heavy music, one of them told me You need to sing because you know the lyrics to everything. That was true, although I didn't want to train my voice or anything. I don't have a singing voice anyway. I like listening to old country songs on the bus and I know I can't sing them, but I'll sing them anyway. I don't care. The other guys sit there and look at me. What I do in Cannibal Corpse isn't singing, though: it's growling, and it's not in key, although obviously I still need to know about timing.

Death metal growls came easily to me. In 1988, when my first band started, I was singing deep. Before that I used to practice singing in a death metal way. Death and Sacrifice were big influences on me: the high screams I do definitely come from Chuck Schuldiner and Rob Urbinati. Slayer were huge for me too, and so was Tom G. Warrior from Celtic Frost. He wasn't singing as gutturally as, say, Jeff Becerra from Possessed, of course: those voices were more growly compared to the death metal singers of today. Later, in the 90s, I really liked Glen Benton from Deicide's vocal style, and John Tardy from Obituary as well. I used to practice headbanging in front of the mirror: I really took it seriously.

Photo by Alison Webster

Photo by Alison Webster

My first band was Corpsegrinder, hence my nickname. I wasn't called that while I was in that band, only after I went down to Florida to cofound Monstrosity. Corpsegrinder played a lot of different stuff. It was just buddies of mine, really: we had two guitar players and we didn't have a bass player for years. We recorded a few things though, with me singing. We did that and went to local shows and talked to everyone we met about joining a band, but we never found anyone who was interested.

I went to a lot of metal shows. I'd go see Vio-Lence or Testament and people would come up to me afterwards and say, You were the headbangingest person there! But that's my philosophy: I think you should be completely brutal on stage. If you watch me on stage, you'll see I'm always either headbanging or singing, and there's nothing in between. Nobody else does that. It looks more savage that way. That's why I'm stationary on stage: I don't walk around much. You see some singers walk back to the drum riser and take a drink while rocking out with the drummer: I never do that unless I'm choking on something or