Cannibal Corpse – Comment On Sounds of the Underground
The following article was originally posted at MTV.com:
When ultra-violent death-metallers Cannibal Corpse take the stage, it’s almost always to close out a gig. Bassist Alex Webster said the band is and always has been a headlining outfit.
So this summer should be interesting, considering the Corpse aren’t topping the bill for the second annual Sounds of the Underground Tour — As I Lay Dying are instead.
“It’s the first time we’ve ever been able to do a festival tour in the United States, and we’ve had very few opportunities to do tours where we weren’t the headliner,” Webster explained. “I don’t know if a lot of bigger bands didn’t want to take a band like us on the road with them or what, but … this is the first time in 10 years we’re doing something with bands that are more popular than us.”
He said the Brooklyn, New York, band’s thrilled to be part of Sounds, because he feels the gig’s going to expose Cannibal Corpse to thousands of metal fans who’ve been too timid to check them out.
“We really feel like we haven’t ever had the chance to play to an audience that is not mostly our own,” he said. “We’ve done lots and lots of headlining tours, but very few opening tours, and never an opening tour of this size. We’re in the middle of this package, and so, if an average Cannibal Corpse headlining show’s in the hundreds of people and the average Sounds show’s going to be in the thousands of people, we’re obviously meeting a lot more people each night than we would on our own headlining run.
“I can’t wait to see what people think,” he continued. “If there’s certain people who don’t like what we do, and they’re forced to watch us anyway, that’s always kind of entertaining too. When we toured with the Misfits and Anthrax, there was always a handful of people out there going, ‘What the f— is this sh–?’ We’re very confident and proud of what we do, so we don’t care if some people react negatively to it. If anything it makes us laugh. Some of these fans could be interested in us, if they have a chance to see us and get to know what we’re like live.”
In late March, Cannibal Corpse released Kill, their 10th studio LP. The album debuted at #170 on the Billboard albums chart, selling more than 6,000 copies in its first week. It was the second time in the band’s career that one of its albums breached the mostly pop-friendly list; in 1996, Vile opened at #151, with more than 6,100 copies sold. And it’s all due to the fans, Webster said.
“We don’t have a huge following, but we have a strong following of dedicated fans,” he said. “That’s the difference between us and a lot of bands that kind of come and go. We have a dedicated fanbase that has been with us for a long, long time. Whereas I think a lot of bands that are more popular than us [are] kind of fleeting. They’re popular for a couple of years, and [their] fans … move on to the next big thing. We’ve had a slow and steady career.”
After SOTU, Cannibal Corpse plan to launch a U.S. headlining run — the kickoff will most likely take place in early November. Webster said next month the band will film a clip for “Death Walking Terror.” Well, probably. When you’re in Cannibal Corpse, selecting the right song can be tricky.
“Every one of our songs has some kind of violent or dark imagery in it, but we have to look for songs that are a little less graphic,” he said. “We only have a couple of songs on each record where the lyrics aren’t more or less R-rated for violence. We have to carefully choose what songs we do videos for, because otherwise it won’t make it passed the censors. The song ‘Murder Worship,’ I think all of us would have liked to have done a video for that. But there’s no way, with the decapitated heads and all.”
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