Heavy metal musicians

"No one can deny the talent and spark of energy that Burton left with Metallica and his inspiration and influence to bass players is still strong. His iconic style of speed picking the bass and convulsion like head movements are the essence and model of head banging. Though Metallica have gone on to become arguably the biggest band in heavy metal, the era of Cliff Burton cannot and should not be forgotten, the spirit, speed and musicianship be brought to the band can’t be matched, no offense to Newsted or Trujillo."

"When it comes to Cliff Burton, it's a tale of what could have been. A legend in the making with Metallica, Burton was only 24 when he was killed after the band's tour bus crashed on an icy road in rural Sweden in 1986. In the wake of that tragedy, Burton's legacy continued to live on even as Metallica became one of the biggest bands in the world. The hair-swinging, spaceship-sounding, bass-playing Burton was a major presence on the band's first three albums that remain metal masterpieces. For a true taste of Burton's greatness, listen to his work "(Anesthesia) – Pulling Teeth," "The Call of Ktulu," "For Whom the Bell Tolls," and "Orion.""

"If you'd stop being a Metallica fan because I won't give you my music for free, then fuck you. I don't want you to be a Metallica fan."

"Don't talk it, walk it."

"If there are people that are dumb enough to use Metallica to interrogate prisoners, you're forgetting about all the music that's to the left of us. I can name, you know, 30 Norwegian death metal bands that would make Metallica sound like Simon & Garfunkel."

"Don't download this song Even Lars Ulrich knows it's wrong. (you can just ask him!)"

"He was so far ahead of his time in so many ways, not only in drumming, but business. Playing songs like “Fight Fire with Fire” in '84, “Battery” in '86, and “Blackened” in '88, there's no denying his drumming talent. Playing what's needed for the song, not himself, and not overplaying. His song arrangement and his business acumen are also what sets him apart from many of his peers. I don't think there are as many drummers out there that have influenced as many people to start playing drums as Lars has — and I'm absolutely one of them!"

"My vocation is more in composition, really, than anything else. Building up harmonies, orchestrating the guitar like an army – I think that’s where it’s at, really, for me. I’m talking about actual orchestration in the same way you’d orchestrate a classical piece of music. Instead of using brass and violins, you treat the guitars with synthesizers or other devices; give them different treatments, so that they have enough frequency range and scope and everything to keep the listener as totally committed to it as the player is."

"A riff will come out of.. this whole thing of do you practice at home and all that. Well, I play at home and before I knew where I was, things would be coming out and that's those little sections or riffs or whatever. At that stage it's selection and rejection. It's whether you continue with something or you go, 'No that's too much like something else,' and then you move into something else. If you've got an idea and you think that's quite interesting, then I'd work and build on it at home. "Rock and Roll" was something that came purely out of the ether."

"[When I wrote], I'd be expanding on an idea and then I'd go back and I'd review it. So a lot of it you can hear train wrecks as you're playing through the song -- I'm just working and trying stuff. Then I'd come back, as you say, and extract what appeared to be the shining bits, if you like, as opposed to the bits, and then I'd lace them together. That's how the sequence of the song would arrive."

"The music is lyrical without lyrics. The lyrics are telling a story and they're conveying a situation or a person or a reflection or an observation, and the construction of the music I felt was doing the same sort of thing. It was lyrical in the way it was being played."

"Jimmy Page is one of rock music’s ultimate riff masters, guitar orchestrators and studio revolutionaries. His vast body of work with the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin exhibits the type of wild abandon often associated with Jimi Hendrix, the passion and grit of a seasoned bluesman, and the sensitivity of a folk musician. [...] Page’s landmark use of echo effects in tracks like “How Many More Times” and “You Shook Me,” bizarre tunings in cuts like “Friends” and “Bron-Y-Aur Stomp,” and excursions with a violin bow in songs like “Dazed and Confused” yielded textures that were unparalleled at the time."

"It’s almost unfair that one of the greatest electric warriors of all time, a riffmeister of repute and a rocker almost without parallel, also happened to be a brilliant and thoughtful acoustic player as well. Jimmy Page’s musical magpie act and boundless virtuosity meant he was able to take almost any genre or style and bend it to his will. Much like his electric side, Page’s acoustic playing was unconventional, full of strange angles and unexpected shapes and changes. And yet it somehow always rocked. Simply exceptional."

"It's art, just look at it as art. Yeah, it's disgusting, but that's never gonna happen. Go to the Vatican and look at some of the artwork there. Woah! That's real, representing something that could happen. Monsters are never gonna come ripping out of your body."

"I don’t want people to think I’m the maniac that people think I am, think all of us are. We’re five guys in a band, touring, living our dreams, playing metal. We could sing about politics, but we’d get into way more fights and arguments way more than we do now. We could be a Satanic evil band, you know, or a super religious band, you know, really getting both sides of the coin there. Metalheads don’t give a fuck, we accept everybody."

"I don’t have a problem singing our lyrics with two daughters at home. [...] If one of my daughters went to college and was raped or something, first off, rape songs wouldn’t even be what I was thinking of. I’d be thinking of our other songs. Because I’d be going there to find who did it, and make them pay. But would I then want to play those songs on stage? I don’t know. I’d have to cross that bridge. I can understand how some people would be like, “If it’s happening with you and your daughters, you should feel that uncomfortable with everybody,” and I don’t have a problem with at least listening to people’s opinions about it."

"We’re a death metal band. I got two daughters now, and we’ve got songs like “Fucked with a Knife” and “Stripped, Raped and Strangled.” It’s pretty heavy stuff, and I think a lot of people think we’re insensitive to stuff like that, especially in this day and age when you’re supposed to apologize for everything you do because of someone’s feelings. Look, we’re a death metal band; it’s horror-movie-type stuff. It’s fiction. It’s not real. We’re like Stephen King with music. Sometimes people point to some of the things I say, and sometimes I’m a little harsh with the things I say on stage, but I just hope they put it together that I would never condone anything like that. I have two daughters and I would protect them with my life."

"I’m not going to get on Instagram to bitch about politics. In this day and age you’re either with Trump or against Trump, you’re either with Hillary or against her, you can’t be in the middle, it’s ridiculous to me. I might like tacos but I don’t like pizza,; maybe I like pizza only with pepperoni but no other kind of pizza, but no, that’s not allowed. In politics it seems like it’s like that, and they’re all so negative anyway. In Cannibal Corpse, most people want to paint us as being negative anyway, and we’re not—we’re just five guys in a band who’re into horror movie stuff. We don’t sing about politics; we might all have our own views, we probably all have our own religious views as well, but we just don’t let that creep into this band. It’s not about that. it’s about horror movie stuff. You wanna talk about it on an individual basis, I’m not that well informed. I don’t think that far into that kind of stuff."

"I’m the Corpsegrinder, bro! I ain’t scared of shit. What scares me is old age, ’cause there ain’t no escapin’ that. And you know what scares me? An empty bottle of beer and an empty bottle of whiskey. That’s scary. It’s the only thing I can say and still be tough."

"I saw [the album cover for '] and was like, 'oh my -- damn. That has got to piss some people off.' [...] It's one to have people dying in your [albums], well you start messing with children, and people start getting pissed off."

"I’ve never voted in my life. I’ve never registered to vote, and I’m not going to. You know what, I pay my taxes. I work my ass off and I give my money to things that I don’t agree with. [...] OK, then they would say, “You can change that by voting.” No, because I’m just one vote. What if I don’t agree with all they do? I’m legally bound to pay taxes, I have to do that, so I do. There’s my contribution to politics. Other than that, leave me and my family alone, we’re not hurting anybody. Just that simple. I don’t need to be in it. I have my views on things I’ve seen, and if ever I was that compelled by any candidate, maybe I would register to vote and vote. [...] I just want to go and play music and come home to my kids and my wife. I don’t want to sit here and be in the picket line because they’re being untreated fairly, then you got the other guys on the other side saying, ‘No they’re not.’ You’ve always got the conservative people there, you always have the left-wing people there, and people in the middle, just trying to walk down the street and they can’t, because there’s people blocking the way."

"I guess a [crucial] part of our popularity is that you don’t go in there worrying about listening to me preach that Hillary’s right and Trump’s wrong, or Trump’s right and she’s wrong, because we don’t care about that. As far as our music goes, on stage, we’re just singing about what we sing about. Hopefully everybody’s having a good time, hopefully everybody gets to the show safe, leaves the show safe, and comes back for more. [...] If people can escape with us, then, yeah, you know? And I wouldn’t say don’t listen to bands who are political, like Napalm Death is; there’s definitely those bands, and that’s good. That’s what’s in his heart, and he should do that. If I would make a band that’s talking about politics, I would do a side band. That’s not going to be in Cannibal. This whole world should just start thinking, “Just because you stand a little this way, or stand a little that way, that doesn’t mean we can’t all come together and try to compromise.” Don’t let politics and religion divide you. I don’t want to be conspiracy-esque, but I’m going to say this and it’s going to be conspiracy-esque, but [division is] what I think some people want."

"Kiss the ass of metal, you fucking jerk-offs!"

"The music’s brutal and some of the lyrics reflect that, but we’re not trying to make people aware of anything. All you have to do is watch the news if you want to be aware of all the violence in the world."

"It’s a pain in the ass [...] A woman saw someone wearing one of our shirts, I think she is a schoolteacher, and she just caused this big stink about it. So [now] we can't play anything from the first three records. And it really sucks because kids come up and they want us to play all the old songs — and we would — but they know the deal. We can't play 'Born in a Casket' but can play 'Dismembered and Molested.' Talk about getting lucky, because I can’t see why they wouldn’t want to ban that."

"I thought Barnes was irreplaceable. I had no idea who could take his place, but occasionally, amid the drama and confusion, Rob Barrett would speak up and say, "Let's bring in George." Rob was the easiest to get on board with the decision. I'll stress this: The decision to remove Barnes was ultimately the band's. Alex and the guys knew I didn't think Barnes's performance was up to par, but kicking out a band member was not my territory. I wasn't thinking about George at the time. I worried about getting the album done and didn't see how we would do it without Barnes. I remember the Cannibal guys saying they didn't care if Metal Blade dropped them. They wanted to make one record where they were as happy with the vocals as the music. It took a lot of courage to make that call."

"Did we set out to do something that was so unusual? No. [...] This was very much my concept, which may have helped. Apart from Chris, it was a one-man show. And when you’re virtually working on your own, it can sharpen the vision."

"There were loads of people in the local area up for it, and I could have settled for someone who was OK, but not brilliant. That wasn’t what I wanted. To make Death as good as I believed we could be, I had to have a line-up that kicked ass on all fronts."

"I got fed up with writing about crap monsters. What’s horrific about that sort of thing? The real evil in this world goes on in society. I’d just reached a time in my life as a person and as a musician when I felt angry enough to write about it."

"I’m glad to see that a lot of these metal bands today are incorporating more traditional elements into their music because that’s where it all comes from. I never lost touch with that through the years, but I was very much crucified for it a while back. And I guess it’s good to know that I was doing the right thing."

"I don’t mean to dwell but I can’t help myself [...] Do you remember when Things seemed so eternal?"

"Won’t you join me on the perennial quest Reaching into the dark, retrieving light Search for answers on the perennial quest Where dreams are followed, and time is a test"

"Trapped Inside a life which is not yours Spirits within causing terror, fear and darkness."

"Sharing both pleasure and pain Two hearts, two minds, one soul Seperating mentally An illusion of privacy Together -- they absorb eachother's lies As one -- they will live and they will die A living hell has begun"

"Bodies deformed way beyond belief Cast out from their concerned society"

"Pull the plug -- let me pass away Pull the plug -- don't want to live this way"

"You will not return alive -- left to die Suffering until the end -- left to die"

"Life will never be the same Death can never be explained It's their time to go beyond Empty feeling when they're gone"

"Cannibals practicing the art of butchery Emotions don't exist, pain you can't resist"

"Seizure now sets in Torture will begin Example made from those to see Your freedom turned to misery"

"Decapitated head licking your cunt"

"Ram an axe into your mound [...] Shit onto your guts [...] A stupid cunt we sacrifice"

"A hook right through your tits [...] Pathetic rancid cunt [...] Trying to escape They torture you by cutting off your cock"

"I celebrate a faggot’s death, human disgrace"

"Chuck Shuldiner was a once-in-a-generation type of musician. He filtered his genius through his band, Death, which was, and in many ways, still is the standard bearer for Technical Death Metal. Unlike their peers, Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Deicide, and Obituary, Death wasn’t defined by their brutality. There was an elegant regard for precision and sinewy melody that lived in harmonic minor bliss. His playing was so clean and impressive, yet he never came off as a showboat. Without Chuck Shuldiner, there wouldn’t be bands like The Faceless, Obscura, Arsis, or Necrophagist. The metal world would is much worse place without his presence. RIP."

"[Schuldiner] opened the door for many guitarists to rip open their aggression and put it all into this relentless and chaotic form of metal. Perhaps most impressive, Schuldiner essentially taught himself to play guitar."

"Naming your band Death is either tongue-in-cheek insolence or a proclamation of utter sincerity, and Chuck Schuldiner was not given to flippancy where his music was concerned. Next to his family, music was most important to him, and this clarity drove him. To call his band Death was to equate his life’s purpose with the most unimaginable end to which we all will go: it was predestined and non-negotiable. With Death, Chuck affirmed his life."

"Schuldiner’s guitar playing and ability as a song writer grew immensely since the band formed in the early 1980s in Florida. His stamina and precision in guitar playing was impeccable. But by the late ’80s/early ’90s the primitive, zombie, blood and gore obsessed death metal had evolved to a more progressive style with lyrics delving into the dark side of human nature and suffering. [...] Schuldiner is often included in lists of the best metal guitarists for his innovative and passionate approach to playing death metal music."

"Chuck came to the studio knowing exactly what he wanted to do. His "vision" was fully formed and complete, as he intended to recreate the sound he had in mind for Death. The recording process required no experimenting or trying things out; Chuck's plan was to just get this sound he created on tape. Chuck was an eager and dedicated teenager of 19. Throughpout the project there was just Chuck and his drummer Chris in the studio. The two of them worked hard and were very well-prepared and efficient. My engineer Casey and I watched Chuck and Chris realize their vision. What I find incredible is that what Chuck and Chris accomplished with [Scream Bloody Gore] became the prototype for much of what followed in extreme metal for the next three decades."

"I think he was a perfectionist. He really had a high standard and maybe that made it harder for some people to work with him and meet those demands. And as the band went on, the music just got more complex. It was easy to play that kind of music poorly, but it was very hard to keep up with someone like Chuck."

"Chuck Schuldiner’s legendary perfectionism elevated the genre from dumb-guy heavy metal to truly progressive and inventive art, and the legacy his all-too-early passing left solidified Death’s status among the absolute greats of the genre."

"It blew my mind how Chuck was so talented a guitar player and also so talented at structuring a song. We had rehearsed the music to The Sound of Perseverance so much without vocals and I had no idea how to structure vocals around music that was so complex. When we did the demos and I finally heard Chuck's lyrics and the way he structured them within the music I was just blown away. It was so genius, so creative, and so catchy. He took words and just blended them perfectly with really complex crazy music. Then before we would go on tour he would have to learn to sing along with playing guitar, which was incredible because those guitar riffs are so crazy. Chuck never wrote riffs thinking 'I gotta make this so I can sing it and play it at the same time.' He would just do the lyrics and sing over the demos, and then later figure out how to do it all together at once. He always did it perfectly, it always belw my mind, it was always just like the record."

"Frank and Chuck were very close. That closeness is surely why the devastation Chuck felt at the tragic death of his brother, and the consequences following it, were so great that he never really came to terms with it. He always missed Frank. The death of Frank brought this family very close together and that closeness has continued always. There is always fear involved when a child dies and I watched diligently, afraid it could happen again. Chuck’s father worked and had tennis and other hobbies, so I was more involved with Chuck and his interests, as I was with my other children. As Chuck grew older he would go with me antiquing and he would frequently call me to just go out for a cup of coffee, or to lunch, or the doorbell would ring and there he would be for a visit. He never forgot my birthday or any other special occasion. He was a wonderful son and friend and we were close, as were his sister and nephew. He took us to the beach on weekends when he was home and met his nephew at the bus stop after school to take him to the mall or to play basketball. His sister fought for his life for three years and he acknowledged that in an interview, saying that his sister was a warrior. They were really close friends as well as brother and sister. Is it any wonder that we infinitely love and miss him in so many ways?"

"After losing Frank, he worried so about what it would do to the three of us - Beth, Christopher and myself - to lose him. I promised him we would do the best we could if he were to lose that fight and that is what we are trying to do, keep that promise. Chuck was the one who never gave up, who instilled hope and love in those all around him and he never cursed fate. Chuck’s steadfast hope for the future and his family, friends, and the many fans who wrote to him sustained him."

"It's difficult trying to articulate what it is about this instrumental Death song off Human — essentially arranged and written in the studio — that speaks to me. It doesn't have Chuck's voice in the literal sense, but it contains all the vital harmonic, melodic and rhythmic components that branded Death's sound. But it also has something else. It's reaching for truth, and it holds a majestic beauty that gave Death's songs their greatest potency. What I'm remembering is the beginner mind approach in which this song took shape in the studio. It was driven by instinct and spontaneous creative freedom. Our collective energies united and we swam into the 'Cosmic Sea,' trusting we wouldn't need a life raft. Chuck's story was liberated without words. 'Cosmic Sea' is a journey straight into the heart of Death and, for me, an auditory memory of what an old friend felt like at his best."

"Extreme music, more specifically the death metal sub-genre, would cease to exist without the musical brilliance of Chuck Schuldiner. [...] Within metal, there are few musicians who’ve shown such a profound prowess for technical and melodic guitar playing, all while playing music as extreme as death metal. Chuck Schuldiner was the epitome of this."

"Schuldiner broadened death metal’s horizons, dragging it out of the fetid gore and unworked thrash into something more sophisticated, programming intelligence into its necro physiology, and in the process recruiting some of the most technically gifted musicians the scene has had."

"His music is timeless. It still sounds as fresh as it did when it came out. Plus, Chuck’s style on guitar is unmatched: it’s the perfect mix of melody, technicality and brutality. I’m extremely lucky to have been not just part of the band but also a close friend of Chuck’s. He inspired me, and he continues to inspire me, every day."

""Hacksaw Decapitation," ' (1999) as quoted by Jon Wiederhorn of"

"I'm not a death metal singer that sings one style or one tone throughout an entire album or sings the same way on every album. I really take it song by song and I try to adjust my vocal approach to the nuances of the music and how it feels to me and what I want to accommodate to kind of offset those things that I hear in the music to make it more closer to what I feel its related to vocal tone wise. [...] The guttural thing started for me when I heard certain things in the riff. You know, the [syncopation]. [...] So I wanted to really bring my vocals into that. You know, so [they were] like melted together with [the music]."

"It just felt right to enunciate and pronounce the lyrics more clearly [on The Bleeding] because I felt the music was more clearly pronounced. [...] I think that at that point in time I wanted to prove to myself that I could still sing really heavy [...] but people could understand my lyrics more, because the lyrics [and storylines] are very important to me [...] it’s an artwork to me [...] and I want my art to be heard."

"I just think that it gets really, really boring doing the same vocal approach, like as some vocalists do. Fans appreciate it, I think, but its really boring [to me] as an artist to just sit there and tread water, do the same thing, and not really feel the music in a new fresh way each time. I don't fear that. [...] I want to explore something new."

"I understand when people say, "Oh he doesn't sound like he did on that album or song." Well yeah, that's how it's always been on every album. I've had a different vocal sound and that is purposeful. I wouldn't want it any other way. I don’t like to blanket a specific sound over everything. To me it sounds stupid if it sounds like you had no imagination and you had no understanding of what music is and basically just a robot, just going through the motions. That's never been what I do. I've always kind of wanted to reach out and find more out about music than myself through what I do, what I explore through this strange form of art."

"I was trying to [provoke] thought in some way [with violent lyrics]. Hoping someone would see the twisted dichotomy. To be sickened by it and yet entertained by it. Like watching a horror movie."

"I really wasn't doing it to shock people. I just thought it was exciting and interesting and it went along with what I gained from listening to the music. When those guys wrote, it presented such a violent image to me, I felt like I had to match it with the lyrics. And I was able to pull from my imagination some sick qualities of mankind and put it down to paper. For example, "Entrails Ripped From a Virgin's Cunt" was based on a true story my friend told me and I just kind of twisted the story and filled in the blanks."

"It actually almost got me killed at gunpoint in 1994 before a show in East L.A. Some gang members came on the bus and told me they didn't like my lyrics. One of them had just got out of San Quentin, and he had a .38 stuffed into his belt lining. He said, "We're gonna kill you if you keep writing about this stuff." I just tried to talk to him calmly and say, "Hey, I respect your opinion," but it was pretty scary. Luckily, we had a really good tour manager, who somehow got those guys off the bus."

"I think there's many faces of horror, and you can explore the different types of horror out there."

"If there are [young fans that are violent], [...] I think there's something wrong with them psychologically. I think mostly, the kids are buying this music just for the sheer enjoyment, and you know, listening pleasure. I think they're probably getting more enjoyment out of the music than they are their own lives, some of these kids, so basically it's something to make them happy, not kill each other."

"With 'The Bleeding', those guys as musicians were really wanting to progress the band musically in a way. I could kind of [see] why — I think they were wanting to, in a way, prove themselves as well-skilled musicians. And I thought they always were, because it was always very interesting music, the arrangements and stuff in Cannibal Corpse on the first three albums. But I think they wanted to really hyper focus their skills and weren't able to do that. And I just was along for the ride, man. I can write to anything. It was really challenging to me. And I really liked 'The Bleeding' too. I liked what we were doing with Bob. I didn't want Bob to leave the band, and I didn't want him to be forced out of the band, and neither did . So it kind of was a strange thing with that whole situation."

"I believe [cannabis] was placed here on earth by a higher power, or another being, or an alien being, or something that has a plan for us. [...] It's scientific knowledge that our systems are built around the cannabinoidal system. We need cannabinoids ingested into our bodies to build our immune systems. It's a natural benefit to us as humans. There's alot of things out there scientifically that prove this and show that it is actually a [possible cure] to cancer as well. [...] They say that, you know, basically, uh you know, used cannabis early on, as you, early man and we developed as we uh [...] as we kind of uh [...] I'd say uh I don't know. Give me a hint here, I'm having a kind of a mind warp here Gypsy. [...] But what they say now is that before cannabis was even on this planet other mammals -- other creatures -- had this system built and we developed from those, you know, other animals [...] as man went through the centuries. So it proves that this plant was actually put here for us to find. And we are actually benefitting from it. [...] What we don't need in our systems is [...] beer -- alcohol. We don't need cigarettes. We don't need tobacco. But for some reason, these things are legal to us and shoved down our throats, advertised on the Super Bowl, and we're supposed to consume these things. And they are the [deadliest] things that we consume as human beings in our daily lives and they kill more people on the face of this planet than anything else that we use recreationally. Okay? So why are these items -- alcohol and tobacco --available to us, and we use them and eat 'em up and let them kill us? Why does that happen? That's the hypocrisy [as] to why marijuana and cannabis should be legalized and it is because it does not harm anyone physically. It has been scientifically proven that it helps us and benefits us as humans and we need it in our systems -- Period."

"I came from a time when I was listening to Slayer and Slayer was listening to D.R.I. and all of a sudden all the fans of Slayer saw that Jeff Hanneman had a D.R.I. sticker on his guitar or that Lombardo was wearing a D.R.I. shirt in a picture. And you know what, D.R.I. became one of my favorite bands and I went to see them every time they came to town. And then metal heads and hardcore kids, in 1986, 1987 and 1988, they all started coming together and that formed death metal. All of a sudden people started moshing at a Slayer concert because there were a bunch of D.R.I. fans there, because Slayer had enough respect to wear one of their shirts, and that’s how people started slam dancing and shit. That’s how it all crossed together, and to have this separation in music, in death metal, with all these people with their fucking noses stuck in the air about things and being elitist about things, they should take a step back and look in history and see how it all started."

"They say I have died I still felt alive I won’t believe their lies…"

"Tied tight to the bed Legs spread open Bruised flesh, lacerations Skin stained with blood I'm the only one you love I feel her heart beating my knife deep inside Her crotch is bleeding [...] Stick it in Rip the skin Carve and twist Torn flesh From behind I cut her crotch In her ass I stuck my cock Killing as I cum"

"Eyes bulging from their sockets With every swing of my mallet I smash your fucking head in until brains seep in through the cracks, blood does leak Distorted beauty, catastrophe Steaming slop, splattered all over me"

"One month in the grave, twisted and half-decayed She turned a putrid yellow, I pissed in her maggot filled asshole [...] The smell was unbearable as I unburied her I cum blood from my erection I feel it run down her throat, swallow"

"I've known Barnes probably longer than anybody else in the music business in any regard from this point."

"Chris Barnes wrote plenty of entry-level slasher stuff like "Meat Hook Sodomy", but also entered truly nauseating territory with "Addicted To Vaginal Skin" and "Entrails Ripped From A Virgin’s Cunt". The personification of the victims as female made the songs even more uneasy listening, naturally enough: what was even worse was when children became lyrical targets in the song "Necropedophile". This hadn’t been done before, and the subject is still too much for most sane people. [...] Grim stuff, depending on how seriously you take it."

"He was never writing any of these lyrics from the point of view that the characters in the songs were cool [...] or were people that he related to. I don’t wanna speak for him too much, but he’s not into any of that stuff. It’s just interesting stuff to write about. If you have a movie with evil characters, people understand that the guy who made the movie doesn’t relate to those characters. If you have a horror novel with evil characters in it – like a horror novel that features a rapist or a killer or a molester – you understand that the author doesn’t relate to those characters, and isn’t espousing that type of behaviour. Neither are we. You have horror movies, and you have horror novels. Death metal is a type of horror music, and we’re not saying that any of the characters in our songs are people that we admire."

"I think over a period of time he saw Cannibal Corpse as being his property, and he would do things in his way, never listening to anyone else and never yielding from his viewpoint. [...] He had a way of doing things, and that had worked – until [Vile]. But, quite honestly, when we heard what Chris was doing vocally on the new record, all of us knew we had a serious problem on our hands. [...] The lyrics Chris was coming up with just didn’t seem to fit where the rest of us were taking the songs [...] He was stuck in the old ways, whereas we wanted to progress. We did try to help him out, but Barnes was so stubborn that it was very tough. I remember one of the last conversations that I had with him outside the studio... I said we wanted to be as supportive of him as possible, and he admitted that he was struggling to step up a gear. At that point, we were all committed to getting him through, and making this work. [...] The final straw, though, came when we heard what he’d done on Devoured By Vermin. This was always gonna be the opening song on the album. As such, it had to have an immediate impact, to make a statement about what was to come. But Chris hadn’t risen to the challenge. After hearing what he’d done, Alex Webster bluntly turned on him and said, ‘I’m gonna completely re-write the lyrics.’ That finished Chris. He was devastated. He’d lost control. [...] We just knew Chris had to go – that was the only thing to do. So, we phoned him when he was on the road and said, ‘Dude, you’re out.’ It was as simple as that. None of us could live with what he’d done in the studio, and we knew there was no way he’d change. The problem we had was where to go next."

"Half the reason that we asked Chris to leave was because a lot of the stuff he’d come up with.. If we’d left it on, the album would not have sounded as good. That’s our firm opinion, and we wouldn’t have kicked him out if we hadn’t thought that the album would have sounded as good. So when it came time, we thought ‘well we have to make sure these lyrics are killer’. Not just a killer read, so much as they just sound good with the music [...] I think a lot of the problem was that Chris didn’t practise with the band too much, that he didn’t really pay attention to the riffs, and he would just write stuff that went over the top of it instead of actually working with it. And now that the band is helping write the lyrics, I think that you can hear that they mesh better."

"We had to fight with him to make lines fit in the song. Barnes wrote his lyrics and didn't want help from anyone. We were okay with that, but when he was in the booth, Alex and I started saying to each other, "Man, this doesn't sound right." Then we would suggest to Barnes, "Hey, if you took out this syllable or if you took out 'uh' or 'the,' then the line would fit better." But Barnes pushed back like we were stepping all over him like it was his poetry we were ruining. [...] I'll never forget Alex telling Barnes while he was still in the booth, "Hey, Chris, I'm going to rewrite the lyrics." Barnes did not want to hear that, which was hard for him. He removed the cans [headphones] and left the studio. We'd never said those things, but it needed to be said. Otherwise, the song would have been ruined. That was the last day in the studio with Barnes."

"Oh, it was a problem with new stuff I was writing. I walked into practice and had re-recorded it and changed notes here and there for three or four songs that I had. It was stupid at the time. But he's, like, 'Hey, I changed the notes so I get writing credit.' And I'm, like, 'That's not how the songs go, though.' And 's like, 'It is now.' [Laughs] So I literally walked out and ghosted them. [Laughs] Later on, it was like, 'Hey, dude, you're out.'""

"We were just kind of writing the record, and we were going over the songs. Me and Glen, we were, like, 'We wanna redo the songs.' It's like we had completed them — about nine or twelve, whatever how many songs. They were all right, but we weren't really psyched about them. So we decided to rewrite them. And Jack didn't really like it. And he kind of left one day and just never came back. So that was that. He's not on [the new album]. I haven't talked to the guy in almost a year."

"I use drum triggers on the kicks, but not on the other drums–otherwise you just sound unnatural, like a machine. [...] For the blast beats, timing is all important. Practice slowly and build up to full speed so you can insert fills and rolls. Keep your lower extremities loose, too. Kick back, breathe properly, and let the sticks do the work."

"If anything, moving your limbs as a drummer keeps them lubricated. Look at Buddy Rich: He was whaling the hell out of his drums until he was an old man. Although it wasn’t metal music, he was doing blasts on the snare–he was a blastmaster!"

"I was always a metal head. [...] My influences back then were Clive Burr with Iron Maiden and Tommy Aldridge, who did amazing things with Ozzy Osbourne. And then when music started getting a little more extreme, I enjoyed Dan Beehler of Exciter, Gene Hoglan of Dark Angel, and, of course, Dave Lombardo of Slayer."

"Stuff [in the world] is just amazing. Whether somebody created it, I just don't know, maybe somebody did. Maybe it just worked out that way. Even if there is a God he don't give a shit. People think he's keeping track of everyone's individual lives but that's ridiculous. People have ideas implanted into their f---ing brains so early that, of course, they say, 'Oh, it's a lake of fire, it's eternal pain, it's being up to your neck in piss.' I personally think that when you're dead you're just moss in the ground. It's a sad reality but you're just a corpse and you're going to turn to dust."

"We were just kind of writing the record, and we were going over the songs. Me and Glen, we were, like, 'We wanna redo the songs.' It's like we had completed them — about nine or twelve, whatever how many songs. They were all right, but we weren't really psyched about them. So we decided to rewrite them. And Jack didn't really like it. And he kind of left one day and just never came back. So that was that. He's not on [the new album]. I haven't talked to the guy in almost a year."

"The whole point of Satanic music is to blaspheme against the Church. [...] I don't believe in or worship a devil. Life is short enough without having to waste it doing this whole organized praying, hoping, wishing-type thing on some superior being."

"I don't know ANY secrets about playing guitar, and there's no fairy dust that you can sprinkle on your guitar to make you good or great. To master an instrument requires suffering. It is also a process, not something that can ever be finished... If you REALLY want to play great, there's only one way — work. It's like trying to take down a mountain with a toothbrush — you can never finish, just scrape a little more every day."

"I think alot of these stupid fucks who are so up in arms about bands like Deicide [...] It's stupid. If they want to like really worry about evil and shit like that they shouldn't be worrying about a metal band, they should be worrying about child molesters and fuckin' Darfur and things like that."

"The thing is, I hardly know anyone that I share a view about religion on. Every person's different, and Glen absolutely fucking hates Christianity. Who am I to tell him what to think and what to do? I'm just as fucked up as anybody else. The thing with the death threats starting was because of this: when we were supposed to play in Chile, the fucking douchebags that worked for the promoter plastered the poster — the one that had a picture of Jesus with a bullet-hole in his head — all over the city when they had specifically been told not to do that. They put it on churches and everywhere else and so the mayor got pissed off and he had the show cancelled. Then in the hotel, some girl came up to me and asked me for an interview. I asked her who it was for and she told met that it was for some webzine, which later turned out to be a major newspaper. She asked me how I felt about that, and what I said was that I was pissed off that those idiots did that and got our show cancelled. Not that they made the flyer look like that. And in the article, they twisted it around and misquoted me. She also asked me what I thought about some fan who had murdered a priest in Chile last year. Now, I'm not a very patient person, and I have a really low tolerance for stupidity. I was like: 'What the fuck kind of question is that?' Of course I don't condone some asshole murdering a priest. Then suddenly a bunch of people started sending me all sorts of messages on MySpace, threatening to kill me, and a lot of those people are probably pretty serious. Personally I'm not afraid and I'm not intimidated, and all those people can fuck off. I'll tell you this though, a couple of months ago we were playing with Vital and [Dave] Suzuki came running up to me on stage and grabbed me, just to kind of fuck with me. I didn't see who it was at first, and when it happened, I thought it was some guy who was coming up to stab me. So that was funny, but it freaked me out. Then when the cops pepper-sprayed me in Texas, the first thing I saw was someone holding something to my face and I thought I was about to get shot. That freaked me out a little bit. But, you know, I'm not worried about those people. If somebody wants to shoot me, they can shoot me."

"I'm not going to tell people that what they believe is wrong at all. I'll drink and I'll party more than ten fucking black metal bands put together. I'm definitely not a choir-boy. I have my own thoughts on religion, but at the end of the day, I just want to play my guitar and play metal and have a good time. The rest of that shit is none of anybody's business. What I'll never do though — I'll work at McDonald's before I pretend to be someone I'm not just so that people accept me. I guess that attitude is what's caused a lot of the problems in my life. But there are two kinds of people in this world. One kind — and Glen is one of them — aren't afraid to be themselves. There's another kind that, for some reason, that offends them, and that pisses me off. I will be myself, and I don't really give a fuck what anyone says. I know who my friends are, and that's all I need. The funny thing is that these metal kids are constantly ripping on me on Blabbermouth, and I'm really close friends with a lot of the bands whose T-shirts they're wearing. I'm not going to pretend to be some dark and angry and evil person so that people think I'm metal. I have all of that in me, but the most important thing is that I play my guitar, and you either like it or you don't. I really don't care one way or another."

"We kept giving [him] chances because we’re nice guys. Well, not so much me. I was the one totally against him coming back and forth like that. It was more like [drummer] Steve [Asheim] and [guitarist] Jack [Owen], who are friends with the guy, wanted to keep giving him chances. I’m not the type of guy to give chances. I just kind of went along with it reluctantly. Finally, there was an issue in Europe on one of the tours and I chucked his ass off the bus and called it a day. [...] Man, without going into great detail, let’s just say the guy’s a trainwreck and leave it at that."

"Ralphie was a character. He was a crazy person. He always liked to party. He maybe partied too hard. That's a [price] you sometimes have to pay when you party too hard in life. I was very sad last year that he wasn't in a band anymore; he wasn't in an active band anymore because he was such a great player. His background was always more the '70s stuff like and . He loved all of those '70s players, but he brought this stuff into death metal. He was one of the first really skilled lead players in death metal back in the day. He was always funny, also, and had a very black humor. Every time we played in Florida, he came to the shows and brought his great humor and great entertainment to the shows. It was very sad for me to see; I think the fact the tragic ending had to do with everything involved in his music business. When you kind of don't play in a band anymore and you're used to it and you stay home all the time, and you see all your friends touring and you don't, and you're such a passionate musician as him. That was really something that killed him also in a mental way. I was talking to him often and he was always hopeful for a new project. It never really happened. It's very sad because Ralphie was one of a kind. He was one of the guys you met, you meet him once, you'll never forget him."

"My heart is broken, but I know he loved me unconditionally and will always be with me [...] It is the same with all of us, he will be with you everyone, everyday and his love will surround us now and forever."

"Unless you’re an experimental metal band by nature, people don’t really want that experimentation, I don’t think. They want us to try and out-do what we’ve done – I don’t think people want us to stand still and put out the same album again and again but I think what they want is something stylistically consistent and hopefully even a little better than the last album. When bands go too far away from their style it’s generally not well received in the metal community. Consistency is a big part of our genre."

"With Cannibal Corpse, it’s always a ‘song first’ kind of thing for me. Some of the side projects I’ve done have allowed me to stretch out a little bit more [in terms of style], but Cannibal is really about being a big, heavy rhythm machine, and stepping out too much might detract from that."

"The shed we rented smelled like rat shit and it was hotter than f–k. We had an air conditioner that didn’t do shit and we’d be totally soaked by the time we were done practicing. But we were determined."

"This kind of music helps people get through negative things. I mean, you're taking something negative and turning it into something positive by making it into music -- instead of actually going out and doing something violent. There's plenty of ways to turn things around, and that is what death metal did for me. [...] It got me through alot of negative things in my life -- it was always there for me."

"If you really saw someone get their brains bashed in right in front of you, I think it would have a pretty dramatic impact [...] you'd react to it, no matter how many movies you've watched or how much gore metal you've listened to [...] even though we've got crazy entertainment now, our social realities are actually a bit more civilized than they were back then [...] we're not hanging people or whipping them in the street and I think that's positive improvement for any society."

"I couldn’t hear the bass in a lot of the thrash [metal] I was listening to. It seemed like the bass was doing exactly what the rhythm guitar was doing, so that’s what I tried to do. I think that shaped my righthand technique, having to learn how to play the really fast stuff with three fingers. I didn’t realize a lot of these guys were cutting things in half [playing half the notes] or doing something a little different. I’ve always played fingerstyle since we got Cannibal going, just trying to keep up with the guitar players. In thrash, there’s not as much of a bass–drummer connection as there is a bass–guitar connection—at least I didn’t see it that way in the beginning. [...] When I started, I played fingerstyle with two fingers, and not very fast. I could get going to a respectable speed, but not something crazy like Jeff Berlin or Juan Alderete. But then we did a show with Cynic and Malevolent Creation. Cynic’s bass player, Tony Choy, played with three fingers, and Malevolent Creation’s bassist plucked with four. I said, “I have to be able to keep up, and I’m not going to use a pick. I have to be able to figure out how to do it with my fingers. [...] Around that same time, I was listening to Sadus a lot, which is the band that Steve DiGiorgio originally came from. I could tell the bass was played fingerstyle, and it was really fast. I managed to track down Steve’s phone number, so I called him up and asked, “Dude, how do you do that?” He explained his technique, which was going from the ring finger to the middle to the index back to the middle—there’s your four notes. I was very grateful, and we’ve been friends ever since. I tried to learn that way and got it down, but as I would start to drift off in doing muscle-memory practice, my technique would start to fall into a different technique. That was the one that I described in the book, where it ends up being a 12-note cycle. You’re basically playing a triplet pattern, but it ends up feeling like straight 16th-notes. So Steve’s tip helped get me started, but I ended up developing my own thing."

"[Learning music theory] can spur your creativity. I’ve found that the guys who don’t know as much theory tend to write things in 4/4 most of the time. The guys who know theory are the ones who end up experimenting more and having music that sounds a little more out there, which I like. The more you know, the more you can mess around."

"People who don’t know this music think it’s just a bunch of noise and it’s really easy to play. That’s totally untrue. You may not like it, but death metal is really complex. You have to have a really fine-tuned ear to appreciate it and a lot of the guys in these bands are incredible musicians."

"Even though we record to Pro Tools with a click track, I think we’ve learned how to use it in a way where everything still sounds organic. I feel like we managed to capture an old school death metal vibe. It doesn’t sound like one of those modern metal productions where everything is overly precise."

"The part is all on the C# string [E tuned down a minor 3rd], so it’s really easy to keep it going. Things get a little trickier when you start skipping strings. I didn’t think it was necessary for the part to make it harder than it needed to be, so I kept it all on the C# string so I could pedal along nicely. I kept it at a tempo where I can comfortably play 16th-notes, which is 172 beats per minute. It’s still fast, but once I start getting past 180 BPM, it gets tough."

"We saw that a lot of bands in Florida seemed to have more of a darker, anti-religion thing going on, so we decided to do the gore thing with the art and lyrics."

"It got to the point where it entered global politics. That's something I never imagined, and I never heard [Senator] actually say these words, but he said this about us: "[Cannibal Corpse] is deplorable. They have a song about having sex with a severed head." I wish I could have heard him say that shit. I'd love that sound bite."

"Most Western music is people singing from the heart — singing to a girlfriend, so a lot of people are freaked out by our songs [...] But our lyrics are just stories. They’re just written to be as gross and disgusting as we could make them. At night we’d get a case of beer and watch gory horror movies. [...] We just play extreme music so we figured we needed extreme lyrics."

"We do not mind writing hooks, as long as they are super heavy hooks, you know what I mean? We want the songs to be memorable, as long as there is no sacrifice in the level of heaviness. [...] And those two things should not have to be exclusive. I think you can have really catchy things that are all really heavy. I mean if we can manage to write some lyrics that are going to make you want to remember them and sing along to them each time they come around, then mission accomplished I think right?"

"His wife’s head breaks his jaw Bruised flesh becoming raw"

"Awake, I’m being disembowelled Rotation pulling out the guts Tortured by this tool Intestines on the spool"

"Alex has always been 100 percent tech, using his finger trying to get all five going. He was driven as a musician. I've never met anyone as driven as Alex when it comes to trying to learn an instrument. That's for real, man. He was always trying to outdo guys he thought were amazing. He pushed himself. On Tomb, Alex became more vocal, as far as being a songwriter and being involved in the recording process. He really got on Scott Burn's nerves. He wanted the bass turned up. Scott walked out of the room a couple of times. Alex was pushing Scott to the limit as far as how loud the bass should go. That went on into the next album, The Bleeding, too."

"I really look up to Alex when I’m mixing an album. I just love the way his bass sounds."

"(on O'Brein's returning to performing) Having not been onstage for a while, he wondered, 'Are these people going to want me around?' We were, like, 'Come on, Pat. You're Pat O'Brien. These people want to see you.' I can appreciate how he felt about it after all he had been through. I could imagine there was an intimidation factor about it. We got up there and he said, 'I think I'm going to lay low in the back, get up and play and be done.' As soon as we got onstage and people saw him, the place went nuts. I said to the crowd, 'Hey, look, you all know Pat, right? Show Pat some love.' And they went nuts. They adore this man. Who wouldn't? If you ever met him, he's one of the nicest people you'd ever meet. He's one of the greatest at what he does, too. Then he started taking pictures with people and talking [after the gig]. He had a big smile on his face. That was so worth it. Here was a guy who needed a good break in his life and we needed help from him to get the show done. It couldn't have been any more perfect."

"He definitely brings a more technical side, as far as playing goes. He usually writes the crazier songs and the more technical-sounding songs and probably technically hard-to-play songs. [...] I know, usually, vocal-wise, they definitely are [the most challenging to perform]. [...] His songs are usually fast, but when he slows down, it's pretty much heavier than fuck, heavier than anything you're going to hear."

"When you don't have the original singer, then you are the official cover band. You wanna make yourself look even more stupid than you already do, by all means, go ahead. [...] We've done wondrous things since their departure — we don't have the problems of canceled tours and missed performances and things like that. This thing runs smooth, everybody gets along, everybody's happy, there's no ill will. It's just like a bad... When you're in a bad marriage, it just ain't working out. So people have to go on their way."

"Those two are a couple of idiots, man. I hate Eric and Brian Hoffman more than anything in this world, and I will not rest until I put shit straight with the fans. Up 'til now, everybody thinks I kicked them out of the band, but nobody kicked anybody out. They quit on their own, and I wanna set the record straight in regard to those two fuckin' pricks. [...] It's real simple: Eric Hoffman has a fucking steroid problem, and he's bi-polar. Brian married some young broad who's running his life for him. What initially happened is that when our publishing deal ended with Roadrunner, and our new deal started with Earache, we put them on notice that our publishing was no longer gonan be split four ways — it's gonna be based on who writes what. That's the industry standard. Brian writes one song for the album, Eric writes two songs and they wanna get paid for all the songs Steve [Asheim, drums] wrote. That's not fuckin' fair. And I wrote all the lyrics, so I'm entitled to 50% of the publishing. Why should I give those two money? They've been losing thousands of dollars for me and Steve for ten years now. If it was one of those things where they showed up and did their jobs, we wouldn't have a fucking problem. That's why the deal we signed [with Roadrunner] in '90 was set up like that. Back then, everybody wrote and contributed and it was a fuckin' group effort. But now me and Steve are the Lennon and McCartney of the band, doing all the writing, and those two wanna get paid for our hard work. Fuck that. [...] When they got their first publishing checks and didn't get paid for all the songs me and Steve wrote, they fucking quit. And now we gotta deal with Eric threatening Steve, driving to his house and screaming outside his window at 10:30 at night, making threatening phone calls, talking shit on Blabbermouth about Steve's dad dying, and all this other bullshit. Eric knows better than to come over here, though — he knows I shoot first and ask questions later."

"Slipknot: ‘Oh we’re going to take you guys out man, we’re going to take you guys out dude.’ Yeah, blow me. That’s what I say to you. F—ing blow me Corey Taylor and all you f-gs. OK. ‘Oh we’re going to take Deicide out on tour with us and blah blah blah.’ Blowing air up our asses, back in the day. You know what, you never did a f—ing thing for us. You introduced us at a show once. Great, thanks. How about a f—ing tour? How about f—ing helping us out a little bit? I mean we’ve only been doing this for several years. You guys were like, ‘Dude you were what got me started.’ Well you know what, return the f—ing favor. You know what I mean?"

"Religion is a three-legged dog, and it’s on its way out. I think people know how to treat each other, and don’t need a book full of bullshit to tell them how to do it."

"When I was eight years old and forced against my will to participate in the Christmas play at the church my mother was a Sunday school teacher at, I was singing at the front of the church thinking, ‘How did I get myself into this shit?’"

"I was always referred to as ‘the evil little bastard’ in my family. I just fell into it, and it’s the persona I’ve had ever since I was a little kid, through school and through everything else. I don’t even really know why, but do I get off on raising eyebrows and ruffling feathers? Fuck yeah, I do! Fifty-six years old and I still love getting a reaction out of folks. Most kids rebel, and I wanted to fight the powers."

"I think I was only 22 when I burned the inverted cross into my forehead. The spirit moved me, man! To this day, I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking, but I knew that I had been christened Catholic as a child, and I felt that the best way to take care of that would be my symbolic way of taking that Catholic mark off of my skin. I’ve always been that kid in the picture who’s got that twisted look and the smile on his face, and when I got to an age where I could start being me, I just started being me. Now that my two sons are both grown and off in the world, I find myself back to being that guy again, the guy that branded the cross on his forehead."

"The way I look at is “who cares?” [laughter]. Who gives a fuck anymore? Does anybody even read the lyrics anymore? It’s like they’ll release the first SoundScan numbers and it’ll be like 2900 copies sold the first week, but there are like 50,000 downloads. Does anybody even read the packaging anymore? I was going to put in the album this time, “If anybody’s reading this, thanks for not ripping me off!"

"[Religion is] beaten into me, so I can’t sing about anything else. If I try to sing about other things, I draw a complete blank. I let the universe speak through me, and if I have to force it, it just won’t come."

"Neil Peart, I’ve seen an interview with him, and he felt uncomfortable in those situations, and I just feel the same way, man. I just don’t like being put in those positions where I’m sitting at a table and people are gawking at me like I’m in the Jim Rose Circus or something. I guess I’m just too real and too deep for that kind of shit. To me, I think it’s — pardon the expression — I think it’s a poser kind of thing. That’s for posers. And Steve’s like, ‘I feel the same way. I feel like I wanna climb out of my skin when I’m in those situations.’ And like I say, I’m just not into that kind of thing. ‘Cause I’m up there, if I’m wrangled into these things, I’m thinking to myself as I’m up there and everybody’s saying all the compliments and everything, and I think to myself, ‘Man, if they can only see me when I’m outside mowing my grass, washing the car and cleaning the bathroom. If they could only see me now.’ So that’s kind of how it makes me feel uncomfortable, ’cause I don’t think of myself like a rock star or anything like that. I just don’t put myself in that [frame of mind]. I can’t. I really don’t. I can’t relate. [...] I was having this conversation with the guys in the band the other day, ’cause we were talking about meet-and-greets and doing that kind of stuff. And I’m just not a fan of the whole charging fans for a signature. I give a fan a signature out of kindness of my heart, not because I wanna make money off of them. The fact that they’re a fan and they listen to our material… I know things are different — most people get [music] for free now — but I still can’t come to terms with that, to charge somebody for my signature, especially a fan… And it makes me feel kind of weird."

"Well, people don't understand that the album cover that we did, it was done with Photoshop and with some A.I., but it's a more modern version. It's like Legion — when I did the Legion album cover, computers were still fucking new. Nobody knew anything about three-dimensional artwork or any shit like that. And I was the first person to even fucking fuck with that when I designed the Legion album cover. Now I've been in the computers and all that shit since they all came about. So I may be ahead of a lot of people when it comes to computers. I have two iMacs and MacBook Pro and iPad Pro. So I'm a little versed with the whole computer age and in Photoshop and all that stuff and that. [...] I like to do something different and provocative. And I know the whole A.I. thing, everybody's [up in arms about it]… But it was meant to stir. People don't understand. It's a modernization of… It's a sign of the time that we're in. People just can't — their first [reaction] is, like, 'Oh, he's trying to put all of us artists out of work. And I'll be stuck drawing penises in men's bathrooms for the rest of my life.' So everybody's up in arms and thinking that this is the end of the fucking world. And it's really ridiculous, man. It's just a form of art and expression. So I think people should just really stop being ridiculous and accept it for what it is, man. It's a sign of the times. [...] But here's the thing, how hypocritical it is, because my art was being stolen [illegally downloaded] and stepped all over in the '90s. Metallica had seen it come and they tried to stop it. But all these wannabe mercenaries for artists and all these idiots out there, they were the same people right there stealing my art back then. So where were all you guys at to defend my art being stolen and taken advantage of? [...] So, all I did was just did an album cover, really, that just focused on the whole modernization of the modern time and, really, it's just a reflection of the age that we're in right now. I can't spend my days trying to explain this. I have a saying: I don't try to convince stupid is dumb and I don't try to convince dumb is stupid. So I just let it do its thing and piss people off. I have a great time with it. It's hilarious. Yeah, it is what it is, man. It's meant to stir the shit paddle, and that's what I do."

"I didn’t think playing shows with rotting meat as part of our set-up was gonna cause that much of a shitstorm. Within three shows of that stuff I had the authorities bearing down on me, so it was a very short-lived moment in Deicide history."

"As a parent, it really weirds me out when people bring their children and babies to the show. They’re like, ‘Sign my baby’s forehead!’ I’ve pretty much seen it all; from chicks squatting and pissing backstage to whipping out their tampon and throwing it at me."

"There should be a law that prevents you from getting married until after you’re 38! When we’re young, especially men, it’s in our blood to fuck up, and that means that when you get older you start to look back and go, ‘What the fuck was I thinking?"

"Years ago I had a fight with a redneck, and we were going until we were both basically so beat up that we couldn’t stand up any more. It was like nobody could win; we just kept beating each other until we both hobbled off! I’d just moved down to South Georgia from New York, and the biggest redneck in the bar decided to pick a fight – he was digging and digging at me until he could get a response, and he got one!"

""Dead by Dawn," as quoted by Jon Wiederhorn of"

"For Glen Benton, an artist whose public persona and music will forever be intertwined, [Deicide's self-titled album] was a bold statement that he was doing more than playing some unholy caricature."

"Glen Benton is a fucking character, and his unwavering dedication to shitting all over Christianity and everything its iron grip has wrought upon the world is not always the smartest or most nuanced approach, but you can’t argue he gets his point across."

"After what happened when Glen Benton fucking took scars royalties for 20 years and all Deicide merchandise, I will find you and hunt you down like the animal you are. I have no label and did my last album for the fans out of my own savings and will do it again with without label. I now pronounce curse on his hair piece Glen Michael Benton you will be history soon and Steve will hire new singer. Also remember this, I am Deicide. You are a disgusting individual that doesn’t care about anyone but [themself]. Glen your Amon, not now, you’re not good enough. I drew the logo [and] came up with the name. Unbelievable. I am Amon. Suck it Glen, we will meet again."

"He's just filled with disgust for Christian hypocrisy and things of that nature. He draws from personal experience, anger and resentment for his lyrical subject matter."

"We do various things to prepare to go into battle, and it involves some meditation and other practices that we feel like expressing from time to time. We've always been a very spiritual band, and we remain that way."

"It wasn’t about having or being part of a scene. [...] We believed in ourselves and our craft. We pulled ' out of thin air. That’s the result of us living on an island all by ourselves. We came up with something for ourselves that we wanted to do. It was about writing good songs, not about playing fast. Yeah, we like playing fast, and we happened to have a drummer who is capable of very high-speed coordination, so why not take advantage of it?"

"Some people have missed the point, sexualizing the violence or being gross for the sake of it [..] Whatever we were doing with , there was definitely some thought behind it. [...] But it’s easy to be shocking, isn’t it? It’s easy to say horrible things. I’d like to say we did it with a sense of humor."

"That playing [on Heartwork] had that magic rarely heard anymore."

"I first got into extreme metal through trading tapes and reading fanzines. When I was fourteen, I went with one of my neighbours, Shamaatae, to sit in on a rehearsal with his new band. That band was Grotesque and seeing them rehearse was incredibly cool. The intensity and speed of the music being played at maximum volume impressed me like very little had up until that point. My favourite song quickly became 'Blood Runs From The Altar', from their second demo The Black Gate Is Closed. I was already a huge J.R.R. Tolkien fan, so this was just perfection to me."

"[Lyrical possibilities within death metal are] endless, you know. The limits are just.. [nonexistent]. There's all [kinds of] new ways to talk about maming and killing and torturing."

"The kids in Europe were disappointed about [Bob Rusay's departure], 'cause [they were like], 'What happened to Bob?! He was the brutal-ist!' So I kind of had my work cut out for me, you know?"

"The sound we created was a mix of what we liked [...] And the whole punk thing, but playing it fast, which really wasn’t what metal was about back then."

"I don’t think they had a political agenda. I know that some of them are very extreme in their political agenda today, but they were young boys. I think they stopped thinking as individuals and started thinking more as a group, to impress each other, and to shock. They were in this bubble where, finally, you get immune: you take one step further, and then another, and before you know it, it’s not a big deal to kill a man."

"It isn’t every day that you get to see a corpse, so you have to make the most out of it."

"We don’t want any [...] groupies. We’re into destruction and suffering. When people hear our music, we want them to commit suicide."

"[Euronymous] became too high on himself, like: ‘I’m the leader.’ [...] He thought he could control the whole Norwegian metal scene. I know for a fact that there were a lot of people talking about getting [him] out of the scene. And by that I mean getting rid of him."

"These kids were killing people and burning churches, but then they were also doing photo shoots in cemeteries, trying to look scary. Euronymous was playing a part and playing the game, and then people took to it and thought he was for real."

"My friend kills himself, and then my best friend finds the body, and instead of having a reaction of sorrow and grief, he reacted differently and took photos of the body. [...] I was like, ‘You have to get rid of those photos or I will never see you again.’"

"The late Euronymous, who co-founded Mayhem in 1984, is remembered as one of the movement’s most important architects. Not only is this fabled figure credited with inventing the black metal style of tremolo picking, but he kindly passed on his knowledge of the craft to others."

"Our purpose is to spread fear and evil."

"The cops came to my parents’ place late at night, just to go through my room. I was 17. They were trying to find something that connected me to something. They left empty-handed, but they’d found some strange imagery on CDs and were nodding to each other like: ‘Jackpot.’"

"Mayhem has death and destruction in its past. And you can let yourself become a part of that thing and ride the waves of it, seeking extremities."

"I was very influenced by mid-‘70s music. I loved Uriah Heap and Status Quo. Those were the reasons that I picked up the guitar. I was very inspired by the guitar playing within glam rock like Sweet, Slade, and T. Rex, Later there was Michael Schenker, who has such amazing melodic sense, along with Randy Rhoads and Steve Vai."

"When I first heard the music, I thought it was great because I had always been interested in darker, dramatic music with horror elements. I liked and was inspired by that neoclassical style, so I thought, ‘Oh, wow, this seems like a perfect combination of all those things."

"I’ve always been a Marshall guy. Back then, I needed a bit of a boost, and I generally leaned on my Ibanez Tube Screamer [TS808], which I still think is one of the best pedals ever made. So, the Tube Screamer and the Marshall amps were just a great combination. And then, of course, you had to have good-sounding speakers, which I used a bunch of. I was always looking for a good lead tone; I wanted that warm feeling that could still cut through but had a lot of sustain, which is important when you play a lot of melodies."

"Given his ability to kick your teeth in and leave you smiling, it’s easy to lump LaRocque in with other ‘80s shredders. But his drenched-in-melodicism licks were outliers, and hinged on tone above all else. LaRocque could shred with the best, but he came from a different place, eschewing theory and relying purely on instinct."

"Most heavy metal is not very melodic in nature. It’s often minor in tone so you can use a lot of minor thirds in your lead breaks. That automatically sounds classical. Leslie West was one of my favorites because he used classical ideas with feeling. He was melodic but mean."

"Rhoads infused the explosive, fleet-fingered, yet largely blues-based guitar style of Eddie Van Halen with classical music–inspired melodies and runs and an advanced knowledge of music theory. His playing on Blizzard of Ozz classics like Crazy Train, Mr. Crowley and I Don’t Know raised the bar for guitar shredders in the Eighties and beyond."

"Few guitarist in contemporary music have made such a monumental impact over such short a period of time like Randy Rhodes has. [...] With albums Blizzard Of Ozz and Diary of a Madman, Randy Rhodes’s legacy has become one of the most respected and influential of any guitarist in the metal genre."

"Rhoads brought a new level of virtuosity to metal guitar. [...] Carefully trained by his music teacher mom, Rhoads had a flair for modal improvisation, tapped arpeggios and meticulously doubled leads, and set the stage for the Eighties shred boom."

"There was this chemistry between me and Adrian that went beyond the music."

"Murray is known for his smooth play, especially when it comes to transition and chord progressions. [...] Though he may not play with the fury of his bandmates, Murray is one of the best melodic guitar players in the metal genre."

"[Murray and Adrian Smith] are the OG’s of the twin axe attack (and thus to blame for inadvertently causing melodic death metal)."

"Wielding some of the tightest rhythm playing along with some the most otherworldly lead playing that has ever graced heavy music, Pantera guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott is undoubtedly one of the most talented and influential heavy metal guitarists. [...] Dimebag brought a new level to heavy songwriting and shreddy guitar playing throughout the ‘90s and early 2000s. Infusing his love for blues, KISS, Van Halen and Slayer [his music] helped to pioneer the drop-tuned groovey guitar style that the vast majority of modern metal scene has sworn by."

"No one deserves to die the way that Dimebag died. It all occurred on that fateful night in Columbus, Ohio at the Alrosa Villa club on December 8, 2004. Darrell was onstage playing with his band at the time, Damageplan, when a murderous, psychopathic ex Marine jumped on stage and the gunfire erupted. The motive for the rampage was resentment over the breakup of the great, Pantera. Darrel was shot close range and killed, but there were other victims that night, including 23-year-old fan Nathan Bray, Damageplan crew member Jeff “Mayhem” Thompson, 40, and club employee Erin A. Halk, 29. Dimebag’s brother, and Damageplan drummer Vinnie Paul was also shot and injured in the horrific events. The terrifying ordeal ended when SWAT team officers stormed the club, and killed the shooter after a standoff. This brutal, and very graphic scene can be seen on VH1’s series Behind The Music. Of course, the shooter’s death failed to bring any solace to Dimebag’s family friends and legions of fans. Many mourn his loss to this day, including so many other of his peers and colleagues in heavy metal and hard rock. This was such a senseless death, and December 8, 2004 was truly one of the darkest days in metal’s history."

"Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi is without question the greatest metal guitarist of all time. There would simply be no metal without Iommi’s monumental riffs, beastly tone, and more importantly his revolutionary approach to the guitar. [...] Iommi’s sonic brilliance speaks for itself, and the fact the vast majority of the metal scene has remained unwavering in their admiration for him not only cements him as the godfather of metal, but it further establishes him as the greatest heavy metal guitarist of all time."

"I spent many Saturday nights in grade school and high school watching MTV's Headbanger's Ball. I was very fortunate that my parents had one of those old, massive, ugly giant satellite dishes that took up half our front yard and also made a great bird's nest and lightning rod. Because we had MTV and also Canada's Much Music channel since the early 1980s, I was able to discover many of my favorite bands through these TV channels, including Death. I remember the first time I saw the video for "Lack of Comprehension" and I was completely blown away. This song was the perfect mix of brutality and melody. Sean Reinert's drumming also blew my mind. As a drummer, I was fascinated by his playing and I immediately wanted to learn more about Death. I also couldn't believe that this song had brutal, guttural vocals, but was also very melodic and catchy — to me it sounded like the perfect mix of a band like Iron Maiden, and a band like Possessed. I immediately tried to learn the drum parts for this song and I have to humbly say that it took me about three years to do so. Almost every day from the time I purchased the Human album in 1992 until I joined Death in 1997, I practiced drums to the Human album because I loved the music and drumming so much. Fortunately, when I auditioned for Death in July of 1997 I knew the Human album like the back of my hand and the first song Chuck Schuldiner and I played together was "Lack of Comprehension." Chuck was very impressed that I knew the whole Human album and many other Death songs and this led to me joining my favorite band in the world and making friends with the most talented musician I've ever met and one of my heroes, Chuck Schuldiner. I miss Chuck so much and think of him every day and pretty much still listen to Death every day. When fans ask what drumming performance of mine that I'm most proud of, I always say The Sound of Perseverance album by Death. It is the highest honor as a metal fan and a dear friend of Chuck's Schuldiner's to say that I got to be in Death, my favorite band in the world."

"I have heard Slayer's first and a few from bands such as Sodom, Destruction, Wimphammer / Celtic Compost, and I think they all suck. I don't even listen to black metal, death metal, satanic metal, or thrash metal at all. It's mostly crap."

"As the darkness creeps over the Northern mountains of Norway and the silence reach the woods I awake and rise"

"Finger on the trigger Back against the wall [...] So, you thought you could escape without a fight That we would lose the scent of your despair"

"It's not often that an artist’s solo career outshines the output of their primary band, but as controversial as it might be to say, that’s what Emperor co-founder Ihsahn has done in the eyes of many prog fans. To be fair, he's released twice as many full-length records as Emperor, and listeners looking for a purer black metal ride will probably prefer what they’ve done. Yet, those who’re interested in a significantly more progressive/avant-garde and wide-ranging palette will find Ihsahn to be among the greatest modern prog metal acts period. Rather than become uninspired and predictable, Ihsahn has becomes more of a visionary as the years pass."

"It may sound crazy now, but at the time we couldn't find band members around here to save our lives. The quest for at least a bass player turned up blanks. I guess you can say we didn't fit in with what the Bay Area was churning out, being a total death metal band in a strictly thrash environment. Fuck it, we couldn't let that stop us, so we didn't."

"Burning from the inside out Bloody foam spews from your mouth Smell the putrid stench of flesh As it burns you to your death [...] The rancid smell of burning hair Screaming in excruciating pain Blood boils over, warping veins Burnt skull collapses onto melting brains Spontaneous death, up in flames Twisting and writhing as life burns away Until nothing is left but charred remains"

"Here I sit surrounded by white My arms wrapped around my back real tight What did I do that was so wrong that I had to pay I don't think anyone's gonna miss her anyway I just couldn't take any more shit So with the swing of my knife her stomach was split Putrid guts and bile all over the floor Couldn't help but laugh at this vision of gore Severed flesh began to expel blood Stench of defecation as I cut Shoved my hand into the gaping slice As you tried to emit gurgling cries Intenstines on the ground Guts removed Disembowel Twitching violently Dying in agony Blood comes flowing forth Eyes no longer see"

"My parents were academics and not thrilled about me joining a thrash metal band. They were older than most of my friends’ parents so didn’t even have that rock’n’roll background. Their wishes for me were to get a PhD, just like them. There were a few points that convinced them I hadn’t made a terrible choice, though. The first was when Testament supported Judas Priest at the Oakland Coliseum [in 1990], which showed that this was more than just a neighbourhood band. They were also happy when I started writing columns for guitar magazines, because they always respected writing."

"In high school, if you were playing any kind of music that wasn't dance, or just something that was really different—you know, rock, metal or hard rock, anything like that—then you needed to look like it. You needed to look like a bad dude, and we just looked like normal dudes....It wasn't about trying to impress everybody, because we looked at those types of people as weenies trying to do that stuff ... We just wore our normal stuff and we didn't really think about it. It just kind of happened that way and I think because we were searching for an extreme style, coupled with this no image, who-cares-what-we-look-like thing, then I think we fit in to that new movement that we discovered a little ways later, the whole Bay Area thrash scene."

"Chris just called me and said, “Hey, we need an emergency bass player. Do you want come jam?” So, I learned the songs, practiced with them a few times, and knocked out the album. I had history with Chris and a long history with Eric Cutler. We really knew each other. It was all smooth. I consider myself lucky to have been a part of Autopsy and all the history around them."

"His guitar tone is both beefy and filth-ridden, setting a bar in 2004 that many hardcore bands have still been attempting to clear over the last 20 years."

"Ben Koller is an absolute unit. Remember the first time you heard “Dark Horse”? The “holy shit” moment still resonates on every subsequent listen, as the quickfire drumming kicks off perhaps the strongest A-side of Converge’s career thus far."

"I can tell you where it's from. There was this guy called Tim Stevenson. He had a forum called Tandjent Forum. He was an old-school fan. Me and Fredrik [Thordendal] were really drunk after a show, and we were talking to Tim. Fredrik was trying to explain his guitar tone. Tim asked, 'Where do you get that chug from? What is it that makes it so special?' Fredrik said, 'You gotta make it go DJENT! DJENT! DJENT!' He was slurring and spitting all over the place."

"What was happening down in Gothenburg and Stockholm didn’t affect us at all. [In Umeå], there weren’t that many bands trying to do stuff that was extreme. And, if you’re isolated, if you’re an inquisitive and experimental person, and you meet up with other people who have the same passion, it forces its own bubble. We didn’t get exposed to whatever cool band played at the pub the other night."

"Meshuggah is probably one of the heaviest and most brutal bands of all time. A lot of that is due to Mårten Hagström and his huge sound and riffs. It's really scary what comes out of his 8-string Ibanez."

"The founder and leader of Bay Area thrash stalwarts Exodus, Holt isn't always listed among the metal greats. Perhaps because Exodus never enjoyed the consistent mainstream success like other bands of its ilk -- notably its buddies from Metallica. Still, Holt is one of the most severe metal guitarists around (especially when it comes to his solo work)."

"When it comes to the driving lead force amid the longtime triple-guitar assault within [Iron Maiden], Smith is the king above kings. Complete with his usual headband, Smith is a groover — meaning his playing has a undeniably blues feel to it. While it's never really been about speed with Smith, when it comes to legendary solo work ("Heaven Can Wait", "Powerslave), he continues to bring it at a level that others only wish they could pull off."

"Adrian Smith incorporates all the classic metal guitar player's techniques: alternate picking, legato, hammer-ons, and pull-offs, sweep picking, slide playing and more. What separates him from the rest of the pack is that he uses all of these techniques in a musical context with no exaggeration. He is heavily influenced by blues, so he uses the pentatonic scale a lot, but he also enjoys ripping a fast phrase in a Phyrigian mode from time to time."

"[Murray and Adrian Smith] are the OG’s of the twin axe attack (and thus to blame for inadvertently causing melodic death metal)."

"One of my philosophies about playing drums is if you really break it down, there's probably only about 10 or 12 percent of the people in this world that are actually musicians that understand what goes into making a song. The other people are just listeners and they feel the groove and they feel the beat and that's what makes them move and that's what makes them go, 'That's a fuckin' kick-ass song.' As a drummer, I always approach things as, 'I want to play just enough to keep other drummers interested, but not enough to go over the average listener's head.' That's where I think a lot of these guys today are just, 'I'm the drummer, man. Check it out. Here's my lick. I just learned this new drum lick. I'm just gonna blast all over the place.' It's like, 'Man, you've got to let the song breathe.'"

"The late, great Vinnie Paul was the man who put the groove in Pantera’s crushing, captivating “power groove” brand of swaggering heavy metal. As hard as the Texan firebrands’ music hits, it always has swing, and Paul’s unique talent behind the kit was one of the group’s great secrets. That he was also a big part of their songwriting and record production only adds to his bona fides."

"How to improve melody... I get this question a lot. I think people kind of make something too complicated out of that. There's a lot of rules. You can [read] books about the melodies... But [if] you have great songs all around; if you have a nice chord progression, you can just follow [it] and play the notes of the chords, and it's gonna work. Then, sometimes, you deviate and come back, but you don't need to think much about it. [...] You can also just pay attention to melodies... and play melodies. Get the guitar, and play melodies. I think guitar players, in general, at least from my generation, learn scales, the pentatonics, the shapes of the modes, the triads, this and that, and we don't play a lot of melodies. So that's something that I was paying more attention to later [in my career]... I just try to play the melody. No fancy arpeggios, no nothing. Just a singable melody."

"Start looking around, and then just learn how to play the melodies from songs you like. It can be traditional songs from your country, pop songs, modern, whatever — melodies from songs you like. Classical music, right? You can play exactly the same melody in so many different ways. That's what creates this emotion, mainly when you play instrumental music. But [also] in any music, of course, because the singer will do the same. In classical music, this is mandatory to develop that sense of how to interpret the melody. Because you're playing songs [where] you cannot change any note, but the only thing you can change is how you interpret those notes, right? So we can learn a lot from classical players."

"The speed and aggression [in Slayer's music] came from Hanneman’s love for hardcore punk such as Minor Threat, TSOL, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, the Germs and more. This influence had an impact on [the band's] primitive sound which was the blueprint for all thrash metal bands to follow. Hanneman played and wrote music on every single Slayer album and is responsible for so many classic hits."

"It’s fun to watch these guys live and see their virtually identical soloing styles. Jeff Hanneman, with atonal runs going up and down the neck, finished with a whammy bar dump! Kerry King, with atonal runs going up and down the neck, finished with a whammy bar dump! These guys were made to be in a band together – because they would sound terrible in any other band."

"Even though [Hanneman] was at the heart of the [Slayer's] creative force musically and lyrically, he shed away from the public eye mostly and usually avoided interviews, leaving the talking to Kerry King of Tom Araya."

"Look, I can get into anything I write about. I can write about serial killers; I can be a fucking Satanist. I’m not a Satanist, I’m an atheist, but I write the best satanic lyrics on the fucking planet. And it’s great entertainment. And religion is the funnest thing to make fun of. [...] I remember back in 1990 during the Clash Of The Titans tour [with Anthrax, Megadeth and an unknown Alice In Chains], we had this religious talk-show guy Bob Larson out doing a special story on us for Spin magazine. Me and Jeff [Hanneman, fellow Slayer guitarist] have always been very similar in how we think about religion and atheism. So we’d listen to this guy – as I believe you should; you should always hear people out. But whenever I tried to question his beliefs, he’d go on the defensive and say: ‘It’s because the Bible says so.’ So then I’d ask: ‘Who the fuck wrote the Bible?’ Because to me it’s like a fairy tale that has been translated many times. And that’s when I realised these people are just fanatics. That’s when the seed got planted in my head to write about them. Because they really are out of their fucking minds."

"It’s fun to watch these guys live and see their virtually identical soloing styles. Jeff Hanneman, with atonal runs going up and down the neck, finished with a whammy bar dump! Kerry King, with atonal runs going up and down the neck, finished with a whammy bar dump! These guys were made to be in a band together – because they would sound terrible in any other band."

"As far as where we’re going in the future, I think we’ve gone as far as we can with the ‘gods of speed’ thing. We’re starting to get into slower stuff, going for longer songs, as opposed to the blast aspect. Also, the noisy, industrial stuff is coming more to the forefront. If you’re familiar with our latest album [Harmony Corruption], I think you’ve got a good idea as to our new direction. We’re getting into real painful noise; I just want to annoy people at the moment."

"An import from Sweden, Yngwie J. Malmsteen specializes in what many regard as “Bach and Roll,” or neoclassical rock—a style of music that features furiously fast scalar and arpeggiated sequences reminiscent of the Bach and Paganini virtuoso organ and violin works written in the 18th century. [...] Yngwie’s staggering virtuosity, as exemplified on the track “Far Beyond the Sun,” inspired countless guitarists to refine their alternate-picking and sweep-picking chops. Some even went as far as to scallop their fretboards, carving out the wood between the frets in a crescent, as Malmsteen does, to facilitate playing with a lighter touch. The mass appeal that Yngwie achieved among guitarists in the mid-to-late Eighties opened up the market for other burning shredders like Vinnie Moore, Tony MacAlpine, Paul Gilbert and Jason Becker, among others."

"When it comes to rock icons, there is certainly a place for Phil Lynott. In addition to his talents as a brilliant singer/songwriter and rightfully praised for his role as frontman of Thin Lizzy, it’s often forgotten just how good of a bass player Lynott was during his career. He earned acclaim for his pick work on the instrument and those hard-charged solos made popular during the band's exhilarating live sets."

"When it comes to characters within the world of music, Primus' Les Claypool is among the best. Quirky and eccentric, Claypool is one of the more versatile bassists. He slaps, taps, and wails while having a good time. Perhaps Claypool's shining moment is still his performance on the Primus classic "Jerry Was A Race Car Driver." In a well-told story, Claypool auditioned to be Metallica’s bass player following the aforementioned Cliff Burton’s death. However, the band thought he was simply too good for the job, and Claypool knew he would not be able to showcase his true talent."

"Vinny is amazing. His style is very much like Bonham, and he has the coolest fills."

"When it’s time to turn up the volume, Black Sabbath’s Vinny Appice is your man. Appice has developed a reputation as a hard-hitter who has contributed to some of the most noteworthy songs in the metal genre through his work in both Black Sabbath along with his time in Dio. His sound is instantly recognizable and contagious."

"Bill Ward's incredible work in Black Sabbath features the best mixture of jazz and rock drumming out there. He has been defined as the mastermind behind the unholy birth of heavy metal drumming."

"He sings, he writes songs, but above all Brann Dailor fucking drums. Like a many-limbed and many-brained beast, he drums."

"As the singer, guitarist and spokesman for progressive metal powerhouse Gojira, Mario’s big brother Joe gets most of the attention, but the younger Duplantier is earning an increasing share of the spotlight as fans become more aware of his jaw-dropping skills. Simply put, Mario can do it all — from extreme-metal blasts to jazzy fills to huge stomping beats that rule the mosh pit. All that and he’s a talented visual artist whose work has adorned Gojira album covers and merch."

"Tool’s Danny Carey has long been revered as one of the world’s great drummers, but with the prog-metal titans’ 2019 comeback triumph Fear Inoculum and the psychedelic live shows that have followed, he’s made a case for being the group’s true frontman and, certainly, the rightful heir to the mighty Neil Peart’s throne. In his hands, percussion isn’t just a musical undertaking — it’s a vehicle for opening the doors of perception."

"Really, we could just refer you to the drum fill in Slayer’s “Angel of Death” and rest the case at that. But the so-called “Godfather of Double Bass” has so much more to offer. Endlessly innovative and tirelessly prolific, the Cuban-American virtuoso has played with everyone from Suicidal Tendencies, Testament and the Misfits to more avant-leaning rock bands such as Fantômas and Mr. Bungle — which doesn’t even cover his totally left-field collaborations with classical musician Lorenzo Arruga and fine artist Matthew Barney. Lombardo is the master and your clear pick as No. 1."

"Without a doubt the best metal drummer on the planet! His speed and footwork completely set him apart from all other drummers from early Slayer to present day. I’ve been lucky to witness him playing close up, and nobody else comes close to his drumming. In my opinion, he is the kingpin of the way metal drummers play today."

"Dave Lombardo is my biggest influence, of course. If it wasn't for him, I probably wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. He's the king of thrash, double bass and all that, so as a teenager, hearing him play in the mid-'80s, obviously I wasn't playing at that point yet — I [was] just starting out — so that really solidified me wanting to play the way I play today, what he was doing and still is doing."

"What can I say about Joey that hasn’t already been said? He reinvented metal drumming for the modern era and brought with him an energy that I have yet to see anyone match, ever. Like someone threw a drum set down a stairwell and it magically sounded good as fuck. His style was so unique, you just know exactly when you are listening to him play. Nothing makes me wanna run through some drywall more than Joey’s drumming. RIP to another goat."

"We won’t know the full impact of a band like Avenged Sevenfold and a player like Synyster Gates for several years, but this is a band that moves the needle with young people in a way most of the players on the list just don’t have the ability to do. No other band on Rock radio is as unafraid as A7X to flex their chops. They helped open doors that huge gateway bands like Black Veil Brides and Asking Alexandria continue to expand. They are one of the biggest metal bands around the globe, and their image may turn you off, but Synyster is a world-class musician who has trained in Classical and Jazz. His style is somewhere between other list selections John Petrucci, Slash, and Marty Friedman, but he does have a special commodity that is truly his own. Slash inspired me to pick up a guitar, and without a doubt, thousands of kids decide to pick one up everyday because of Avenged Sevenfold and Synyster Gates. That should be commended and respected."