Musicians From Baltimore

"For as long as I can remember, the guitar and music itself is the thing that has gotten me through everything. Whatever it is I'm thinking about, or worrying about, or feeling good about -- anything -- the music has just been there. It's sort of like a model for the way things could actually work somehow. The music itself, just being immersed in the melody and the harmony and the rhythm of it, is so extraordinary, but then I think also all the people I've known... As soon as I started to play, it caused this circle of people to be there where everything was cool somehow."

"Drifting in and out, you see the road you’re on It came rolling down the cheek Say just what you need in between, it’s never as it seems"

"If you built yourself a myth You'd know just what to give What comes after this Momentary bliss Consequence of what you do to me"

"Can’t keep hanging on To all that’s dead and gone If you built yourself a myth You'd know just what to give Materialize Or let the ashes fly."

"Tender is the night For a broken heart Who will dry your eyes When it falls apart"

"Risks can be really small moments. You know, it's like a small little pivot and there you went. You know, and you just let go. You did the past, you did the things, but you let them go. And putting out a record is that."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."