Thursday, March 22, 2012

Interview with Paul Mazurkiewicz from Cannibal Corpse Pt. 2

I hope everyone enjoyed part 1 of the interview; here's the final part. Make sure to grab to "Torture" if you still haven't picked it up!

SFM: Moving onto touring, I know you guys have a US tour coming up, and Malevolent Creation recently said they’re not going to be doing tours in the US anymore because they find the conditions aren’t as good as in Europe or South America. Are you guys finding the US to be a little bit more difficult than other countries?

Paul: I don’t believe so. I think we’ve always had great shows in the States. I can understand, to some extent, what they’re talking about. It’s just a different culture, different places you’re playing, different countries; they do things differently in certain countries. In the States, a lot of venues don’t have great backstages or showers in the venues, or things like that. It seems like almost any club in Europe are equipped for that kind of thing. As far as shows go for us, I think they’re great. We do great in the States. We sell a lot of records, we have some great shows, the fans are coming out, and we’ve always done well in the States and we do great in Europe too. For us, we love playing both places and we will continue to play the States.

SFM: Torture being your twelfth album, how are you guys planning on putting new songs into the setlist? Are you going to change things up each night or each tour?

Paul: We’ll definitely play a bunch of new stuff. We might change it more tour-wise. We like to get into the groove of a set and play the same songs, especially if they’re the new ones. I can see on this upcoming tour us doing between four and six new songs possibly, and depending on how many we decide to do, we might say “we’ll do four on this tour, and then on the next tour lets drop two and do a different two or add another two”, but we will of course be doing a bunch of new stuff, and hopefully like you said, in the beginning keep it consistent per tour of doing the same new songs, just to get the groove that way. It’s always a little different playing these new songs live for the first time and we just did it with “Demented Aggression” and “Scourge of Iron”, in Europe on this last tour, and they went over great, but what a weird feeling – it’s a great feeling – but we’ve played a song how many thousands of times on stage and you have every confidence in the world, and then all of a sudden you’re playing a song brand new, first-time ever live, and everything’s a little different. It’s not like you’re playing it in the studio or your practice facility; now you’re hearing it in a live setting and things are always a little different, so it’s always very exciting, but at the same time it’s a little nerve-wracking to finally get those songs out of the way and worked into the live set, and to have that comfort that you would with older songs like “I Cum Blood”, “Stripped, Raped, and Strangled”, and “Hammer” [Smashed Face], songs that you can play in your sleep. We’ll be doing a bunch of new ones, that’s for sure.

SFM: Speaking of the older songs, are you guys planning on bringing back any rare tracks like you did with “Scattered Remains, Splattered Brains”?

Paul: Not at this point right now. Not for this upcoming tour; we’re going to have a bunch of tours coming up for the cycle, so we’ll see what we end up bringing back or doing something we haven’t done in a while. As of right now, we don’t have anything that we’re feeling that we’re going to pull out of a hat like we did with “Scattered Remains, Splattered Brains”, so we’ve got plenty of tours to go, we’d really like to concentrate on the new album, and maybe we’ll get one or two more obscure ones in there somewhere down the line.

SFM: Speaking of those tours, you have the US tours, some European festivals, then Summer Slaughter, Heavy TO, and Heavy MTL, are there any plans to make another live CD at one of those shows?

Paul: Not right now. Things end up getting recorded here and there and maybe things can be used for other uses. We just released “Global Evisceration” DVD, which has the two live shows on there, and Centuries of Torment isn’t that old right now, so I think we might hold off for a little bit on any live recordings at this point, but like I said, things end up getting done here and there. We’re going have things at our disposal for possible bonus tracks and things like that, but as of right now there [are] no plans for any live releases.

SFM: I was just going to ask, between Centuries of Torment and Global Evisceration, doesn’t it seem like you always have a camera on you now?

Paul: A lot of times; obviously we bring our own here and there to try and film as much as we can and you can get a lot of footage documented. Of course, those two [dvd’s] specifically were done for those reasons, and of course [there was] the studio footage. It’s just the way it is nowadays, to have that kind of stuff out there; the fans enjoy it and it’s been to document the happenings of the band. With today’s technology and the way things are going, it’s not hard to do that.

SFM: Given the recent attention in the US about piracy, how do you respond to people who say that buying CDs just goes to the label and as long as you see the band on tour it’s ok?

Paul: Everyone’s going to do what they’re going to do; I’ve never been a fan of it. I grew up in the era of [when] you went and bought your albums; you tape-traded with some people. You can maybe compare it to that as well, but I still think, for the most part, metal fans are going to buy the record. I think it affects all kinds of genres and all music. I think when it comes down to it, for metal anyways, it does seem like still want to buy the product. There’s always going to be a couple sour apples; people are going to do what they’re going to do, but for the most part, a band like us, or other heavy metal bands, wouldn’t be selling as good as they would be if no one was buying the records. Look at what Lamb of God just did, that’s crazy to me. What did they sell, 53,000? Number 2? In this day and age, that’s not supposed to happen. In metal, it defies that. That’s the good thing with us; there’s always going to be some detractors, but for the most part, those people are few and far between. The true metal fans, which there are a lot of them out there, and a lot of Cannibal Corpse fans are going to go buy the product; they’re going to want to hold something in their hands, see the artwork, read the lyrics, and all that kind of stuff.              

SFM: Going back to Torture, this is definitely the most violent album cover you guys have had in a while. Were you using the slip case to get around any censorship problems you might have?

Paul: Yeah, of course, Metal Blade, they want to get the album in the stores, and if we’re going to be able to be in Best Buy, and if they’re not going to accept it with the cover it is, you got to get around it. You want the album to get out at the major outlets, and to be available to the masses. That’s the most important thing. If we can get away with that, as opposed to just having a censored cover where you get no other artwork, you got to do that if you have to. If we can do what we just did, and put a slip cover on it like that, and if [people] don’t know what it looks like already, you get a nice shocking surprise, I would think. Of course, it’s going to be done for those reasons: to be able to into the outlets and chains that will accept it, and I think it’s a good way to get around it. I think it’s ok, better than like you said, just having a censored version, where nowhere in that packaging are you going to find anything of graphic nature. The fact that we can still have it in there, and getting it into these changes, it’s ok I think.

SFM: We’re running out of time here, any last words for the fans?

Paul: We appreciate the support for Cannibal Corpse and death metal, if it wasn’t for the fans we wouldn’t be here and we’ll see everybody on tour this summer.