Interview with George 'Corpsegrinder' Fisher
February 29th, 2004
by John Haseltine
With the release of their latest disk,’ The Wretched Spawn ‘, Cannibal corpse are currently out on the road in support of it. I had the pleasure of catching George before the show and he gladly answered a few questions. After waking him up off the tour bus, we headed to the stairwell behind the stage at The House Of Blues in Chicago. Parking two floors down on a wall heater, the following conversion ensued.
(JH) The new album ‘The Wretched Spawn’ was just released on the 24th. How did the recording process go?
(GF) Ah, cool. We had a great time. You know we used Neil again. Actually, I believe he’s going to be at the show tonight.
(JH) Really?
(GF) Yeah , he lives in this area. It went good. We’re really happy with it. Uhmm , everyone seems to like it . Fan wise. And that’s a really big thing, besides ourselves.
(JH) I got it on Tuesday and it kills.
(GF) Yeah. Cool. Awesome. Yeah so we’re really happy with it. I don’t know how well it’s doing sales wise at this point. We’ve been selling a lot. We’re selling it on tour, so, and that’s been selling good. So by that reaction, that’s good for it. The album. For us.
(JH) How does this album differ/compare to the last for you?
(GF) I don’t know , some , it’s another album you know. It’s kinda hard. You know I’ve done five album with these guys now, which is more than even Chris did. I don’t know. There were some frustrating moments for me. Doing the vocals. But I’m sure it’s like that with anybody. And there were some great times. Well they all were great, but on this one there were some songs that were a little more complicated, I think , for me to do. I think that could be the only difference. We, I think probably have a better sound. Just because of working with Neil for a second time around. We know how he works, he knows what we’re doing. Nobody’s trying to change anybody, but everyone has their ideas and since we already worked with him before, that helped a lot. You know everyone goes in knowing what to expect, cause we didn’t know what to expect last time. Well Pat kinda did. Pat’s worked with him before. Comparison wise, I feel it’s just a better production. I think the songs are better. I think overall it was just a great experience because we all worked with Neil before and that’s really a big thing with a producer. I mean, you can say we know what we’re doing. Obviously he know’s what he’s doing, but just having worked before made all the world. All the difference in the world.
(JH) Kind of like a reunion with an old friend?
(GF) Yes, it’s like hey how’s it going? We know what’s gonna happen. I mean for me it’s great to work with him doing vocals. I can be really a pain in the ass. Screaming, yelling and wanting to smash everything in the fucking studio and he’s like, great, okay , you ready to do the next part? Like nothing happened. It’s cool that way. The way he puts up with me cause I am a pain in the ass when I’m doing vocals.
(JH) This is the first time you’ve done an all digital recording. Are you pleased with the end results?
(GF) Oh yeah. I think it sounds killer. The drums sound totally killer. The guitars you know, these guys know what they want. Everybody pretty much knows what they want when they go in. I mean , for me, I can’t even say what I want. I don’t do anything basically. As far as the voice goes, I just go in and sing. There’s not really any effects on the voice. Maybe a delay on a scream or something like that. But everybody knows what they want to do. Digital wise, christ , I don’t even understand all that shit. It’s crazy. It’s a lot different then what we’re used to doing it. Maybe I should pay more attention, but when I’m in the studio I’m like, let’s just get the fucking vocals done, come on , I want to get my shit done. I think that’s probably like everybody.
(JH) You guys pushed for a more technical sound on this one?
(GF) I don’t know about a more technical sound. I mean these guys are really, they really work hard to write stuff that’s not so technical , but musically sound. Well I guess that would qualify as technical. But I mean if you listen to Jack’s songs, they’re more straight forward. They’re not loaded with a lot of arpeggios or any crazy shit like that. Anything that would maybe someone would refer to as technical. Alex writes sort of a mix cause Pat writes the really crazy shit. Pat writes all of the intense riffs. Jack writes more straight forward and Alex , I think is sort of a mix. But everybody prides themselves on,everybody has to play the stuff so, everybody prides themselves on being able to execute them when it’s time to play them live or when rehearsing them to go on tour. And that’s one thing that doesn’t happen a lot. You know death metal bands don’t really get any credit for being able to play. Most people just think that it’s noise. It’s not. There’s a lot of music going on there. Just from being the singer, I watch these guys play it. Live I can’t concentrate on it but in practice I watch and I’m amazed. And just touring with other bands in this music that are a lot more sound musically than people will ever give them credit for. That’s what we try to show on the dvd, is here’s what’s happening so people can watch it and actually see. Well our fans already respect us, but for anyone who doesn’t know. Like if you were to show it to your mom. If she for any reason had any kind of musical background, she would say ,well it kinda sounds like noise, but I respect them. That’s what it is. Just give us some fucking respect. And I mean not just us. There’s many bands , on this tour even. We got a lot of great bands. Watch Vile. There fucking sick man. I’ll tell you no on gets the respect they deserve in this music.
(JH) The Wretched Spawn comes with a making of dvd. What was it like having the cameras around in the studio?
(GF) Annoying. Well no that’s kinda harsh. But you know there were times when you were just having a conversation and instantly they want to turn the cameras on and start filming you. And I’m not blaming anyone in particular, but I mean, I know I got a little bit like, alright look man. Do you want to film me taking a crap or what man. Is that the total access you really need? Shower,crap,shave,shit,shower. Is that what you really want? But it was for a good reason. It gives people, the fans see you in a different light than normally. Of course you can see us on tour. Talk to us by the bus about metal or what not, but when you see us just living our lives, it’s for a good reason. As much as sometimes you’re just like, come on man, you know, go away, it was all worth it. It’s worth it for the fans who want to see it and are like, wow, I never knew that. Like with me and the whole bratwurst scene when I’m cooking bratwurst,people in Denver are probably freaking out cause I’m wearing a Broncos jersey. Well I think now maybe a lot of people may know that cause when we were in Colorado when the album came out last Tuesday we were in Denver and people were chanting, Elway,Elway cause I was wearing an Elway jersey. And so you know.
(JH) Well I won’t tell you I’m a Raiders fan then.
(GF) ARGHHH!!!
(JH) Hey now, I was born and raised out there and have been a dedicated fan since I was this tall.(Hand by my knee.) Even when they suck.
(GF) Well I’ve got one thing to say to you and that is that I feel sorry for you.
(Laughing)
(JH) Yeah , yeah.
(GF) I haven’t even been able to watch any sports. I don’t even know what the deal is with Clayton Portis yet. Wether they traded him yet or not.
(JH) So do you think putting the dvd in with the cd will help to improve sales? Or will it be something else for someone to download?
(GF) I think it’s definitely an incentive to go out and buy it. I mean you get a dvd with it. It’s got stuff your obviously not going to see. And sure someone will put it somewhere and be able to download it. And I’m sure someone else will put it on some file to where everyone will be able to download it. I don’t think we’re doing it on all the albums. I think it’s only on a number of albums for the first run of pressing that will have the dvd. Everyone is doing it now and I think it’s good because it gives people something extra. Another incentive to go out and buy it. As long as people are happy with it then we’re happy with it. We’re happy with it anyways , but the end result for anything we do, be it a live show. You know we’ll come off stage after a show saying ah that show sucked. Feeling that we did not play our best. Yet the crowd loved us. And that’s really all that matters. As long as they’re happy with us, we’re happy. And so, hopefully it is to push someone to go out and buy it sooner than normal. There’s been all kinds of gimmicks . Digi-packs , all these different things, but I think this is probably the best thing anyone has come up with. To include on an album a making of. I would definitely would do it again. As much as I said before that it was a pain in the ass at times, with the cameras around. But yeah, definitely.
(JH) You recently shot a video for ‘Decency Defied’, (coming out soon) how do that go?
(GF) It was great. We filmed it in St. Petersburg at this club called Venom. And then the club closed down like a week later. They were having a lot of shows , but they weren’t getting a good enough return on them. We did it in a day pretty much. A lot of the stuff was filmed away from the parts we were in. That the bands is in. We just filmed there in the club. We went in, set up and played. We played 8 or 9 times. We played Decency Defied, they played it over the pa system. They already compiled some stock shit and what not. It turned out good. We’re still going through the process of approving everything to get it sent. I think they actually sent a copy to MTV , just to make sure they were happy with it, because the first copy that we got was so fucking violent, that there’s no way they would allow it. So if we do another dvd we’re definitely going to put a copy of it on there. I think it’s fucking sick. If we do it the way, the original version we had. People will be like ,oh yeah that’s killer. The version we have now is still okay but it’s not as vicious. There’s a lot more gore in the other one. Which everyone will love.
(JH) You’ve come in at the top of the Nielson sound scan ratings and hit the million record mark last fall, congratulations.
(GF) Thanks.
(JH) What do you attribute that to?
(GF) Fans. It’s the fans. When I talk to people after the show and they talk about how we sold all those records, I always make sure they know. And in every interview. You know we work hard, those guys work really hard writing the music and playing the shows and putting our bodies through things they probably shouldn’t go through. But in the end, it’s all up to the fans. If they’re not buying the albums, then we’re not this big selling band. I think it’s sort of a circle. It goes hand in hand. We , hopefully we put out the best show that we can. Kick everybody’s ass, and likewise they go and buy the albums and what not. It’s really, it’s not just, it would be selfish for us to take all the credit. This music itself deserves a lot of credit. All the bands that are playing it now and hopefully there are a lot of other bands selling as many records. We sold the most. But ther are a lot of other bands who have sold a million records. I think Morbid Angel is on that list. Ah, that’s a testament to the fans of death metal. So we can’t hog all the glory. I would never want to do that. I definitely have to give credit to all the people out there that, you know they’re out there that come to every show, banging their heads, slamming or whatever. Or even just watching the show. That’s why we’re here. And also because we love it. I think it’s sort of like, and this may sound a little lame , but we walk hand in hand. They’re with us, they support us and we’ll always be there for them. To kick their ass. Sign whatever, hanging out. That’s why as much as I’d love to sell 500,000,000 records, it would be a lot harder if we were playing giant arenas every night. We wouldn’t be able to have the same contact with the people that we do now. Cause if we were Metallica sized, we could go to a restaurant without being mobbed. I don’t know how that feels. I don’t know if I want to know how that feels. I guess it would feel okay if I was weighted down with a lot of money in my pockets. But still, this music is underground. It’s as personal as it can get. The raipur we have with the fans. I can’t say enough that it is because of the fans that we did all that and we thank them every night.
(JH) So you’re banned from playing any songs off the first three albums in Germany. How does that work? Do they have someone monitoring the shows?
(GF) It’s crazy. What happened is there was this woman that, I think she’s a school teacher or something, she say somewhere a Butchered At Birth shirt and freaked out. Went through all the right channels and uncovered some old laws that were some violence laws. Germany’s been cracking down on a lot of violence in literature. It’s kinda Nazi-ish. I don’t really like to say that about the whole government, cause of course, it ain’t the fans or the mass majority of people who live there. But it just seems like they’re cutting and censoring so much stuff, that it’s kind of like the book burnings that were going on or what not. We can’t play the songs. We signed something saying we wouldn’t play those songs or they would fine us a shit load of money or even possible jail time. I just tell the fans, hey man look, they always say hey man they’ll never know. You can play it. Which could possibly be true. But if we take that chance. If we don’t go to jail and lets say we just pay the fines. Then they can really crack us and say okay that’s fine, now you can never come back to play. You’re not allowed to play in Germany period. So I tell them, at least we can play some of the songs. It sucks. It really fucking sucks for the fans. I mean we want to play the old songs. And at first they thought it was a ban of me or the other guys not wanting to play anything that Barnes was on. But we’re like no. we play those songs everywhere else. Everywhere else. We play at least one song off every album. Everywhere. It’s the government. I tell them to just goto whoever it is you have to go through for the proper channels. This woman obviously got something done by bitching and complaining to the right people. So if she can do it, surely you can reverse it. Maybe? Just try. I don’t know who they have to go through. I don’t know how their government works. Who they have to gripe to. Senators , I don’t know what the fucking deal is with Germany. You know, I barely know what the deal is here.
(JH) What about the complete bans in Korea, New Zealand, Australia? Those still in effect?
(GF) We’ve played in Korea, so that was cool. Australia, it’s just really hard. I’m not sure what the situation in New Zealand is, buy I do think we’re cool to play in Australia again. I think we have to try and like, maybe we’re going to play Thailand soon. So maybe we can play Thailand, Japan,Korea and than Australia. We’re definitely looking into it. They went to Australia before I got into the band, and I would love to go. We actually, in Seattle, had some kid fly in from Australia just to see the show. And then when we played in Kansas, this is crazy. It happens every once in awhile. People are flying insane amounts of distance on this tour. These two guys were like, we’ve flown for 40 hours from Mexico City just to see you guys.
(JH) Were they in a balloon?
(GF) Yeah no shit. That is a long time. But I was like cool man. This one guy came from Austria. This other guy came from Australia, not on vacation or business and we just happened to be playing, but specifically just to see us play. We got him in free and everything. He was like , hey mates I’m from Australia. So I was like , hey we gotta get him on the guest list. To just fucking fly that far just to see us. That’s gratification . There’s no way you’ve gotta pay to get in. So you know now we’ll have all kinds of people from all these countries like we’ll have 500 people from fucking Germany come here to see us. And well it’s like we can’t get everybody in for free, but hey...
(JH) Have you always been into death metal?
(GF) Uhmm, yeah. I listen to, well the first band I heard that really got me into music was Black Sabbath. I’m 34 now so that was probably, I was around 8. In ‘78 I was just a little punk. I didn’t know what was going on. But I heard them. Then of course it went from Black Sabbath to Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Accept. Yeah, you know and then you got, from there it went to Celtic Frost, Possessed, Venom. All those bands. And so forth to Autopsy, Morbid Angel, Deicide. The first band I was in was called Corpsegrinder. We were pretty much death metal with some hardcore thrown in. Yeah there’s a demo and on one song I tried to sing hardcore and it’s the worst pile of crap you’ll ever hear. But since death metal became the music that it is , yeah I’ve been listening to it. It seemed like back then you called everything thrash or death. It mixed. It didn’t have a specific category. Now it’s pretty obvious that you have to have it that cause there’s a big difference between death, thrash or power metal and heavy metal. Still it’s all metal. So I listen to the whole spectrum pretty much. Definitely death metal is a big part of it.
(JH) What was the first death metal show for you?
(GF) Death metal show? Now that’s kind of hard. (Long pause) I really don’t know.
(JH) Ha, stumped ya.
(GF) Yeah. I’ve seen so many shows when I was younger, it’s hard to remember what band I saw that was death metal. Probably, probably the band that was pure death metal was I saw Death. A long time ago. Christ, that was like 1987 or something like that. That would probably be the first one. Then I saw Morbid Angel around ‘89 or so. I think in Philadelphia cause I’m from Baltimore originally. Used to have to go Philadelphia, Delaware to see shows. I really didn’t really start going to shows till I was a little bit older. My mother was real supportive and let me listen to whatever I wanted to listen to you know. There were a lot of shows I wanted to go to. I wanted to see Iron Maiden & Twisted Sister on the Powerslave tour. We were like, yeah we’re going to buy tickets, yeah. But we couldn’t get a ride. We were like 13 or 14. Our parents were going to give us the money to buy the tickets, but we couldn’t get a ride.
(JH) It was a killer show. I still have the concert shirt tucked away in a drawer.
(GF) (laughing)Yeah, fuck you.
(JH) have you ever been asked to lighten up on any album/song?
(GF) Not really. It wouldn’t matter anyways. We aren’t easing up forno one. You know if the record label ever asked, they’d just have to drop us. I mean Metal Blade would never do that. They’re really good to us. We wouldn’t do it. No. No. No. I mean that is what most people would call a sellout and that’s not we’re about. This band has become as successful as it has because of the fans and because we have a no compromise rule that is effect constantly.
(JH) I , as well as everyone else, truly appreciate that. So, any side projects going on with any of you?
(GF) I sang some on a split cd with a band called Dark Faith. The bands I sang with is called Paths Of Possession. The bass player played in Withered Earth from Rochester and Richard Bernell used to play with Morbid Angel. He plays guitar. We have another guitar player too. Jay, he used to play with these guys before with the bass player singing. We did like a six song demo. I’ve been selling them here on tour. It’s a four song demo. We took two songs off of it. There’s another band on it called Dark Faith from Florida. So I’ve been doing that with those guys. Not really a lot. There looking for a drummer right now. There’s not a lot of time. Especially now that this is the first tour for the album and we’re going to be totally fucking busy for the rest of the year. Hopefully we’ll be able to do an album once everything has calmed down with Cannibal. They’re writing songs now without me so, yeah it’s called Paths Of Possession.
(JH) You ever get tired of answering the Chris Barnes questions? Hearing rumors of a reunion and such?
(GF) I’ve never heard any rumors of a reunion. And I’ll tell you right now ,it ain’t going to happen.
(JH) You read it in magazines/interviews. On the web and stuff. I’ve seen it.
(GF) I know. People have always got to make some shit up. I’m just telling you now that from the bands prospective, you know we saw him. We played in Dallas, and he played like two streets down from us on the same night. And we saw Chris. We all hung out at the after our respective shows were over. But no, there won’t be a reunion. Those guys had a strange relationship. Now it’s a lot better. Everyone is on talking terms now and the guys in the band want to keep it that way. Chris was talking to us about doing a tour together. I can’t say it won’t ever happen, but, everyone in the band is not wanting to do it cause they don’t want to deal with anything. Any strain. Break open old wounds or whatever.
(JH) Yeah like I said I had seen it somewhere before.
(GF) Yeah. Well, I , shit that means they would boot me.(laughing) No really.
(JH) What kinds of things keep you busy when you’re not on tour?
(GF) Not getting sick.
(JH) Anyone have a job? Or is the band.
(GF) No , we pretty much live off the band. We’re very fortunate to be able to do that. Not many death metal bands get to do that. Each of us has our own hobbies. Alex does jujitsu and stuff. I work out. My wife and I have a personal trainer. I been working out with him trying to bulk up. Play video games. That’s what I do on tour too. Fishing. Pretty much just stupid shit. Like I said , we’re really lucky we don’t have to work regular jobs. I have a lot of time to pursue many hobbies. Some may not be what some may think are the best things to be doing, but I don’t care. I’ll spend 10 hours a day playing Final Fantasy. As long as I get my workout in I don’t feel guilty.
(JH) Ever get a chance to hang out/ site see the cities you play?
(GF) Sometimes. Actually we’re off tomorrow so we’ll be hanging around. Usually when we have a day off we spend it driving, but we’re playing Detroit on Tuesday and that’s just a few hours from here. So tomorrow everyone will be checking out the city. Woody the tour manager for Hypocrisy wants to go check out record stores. So I’m gonna go do that.
(JH)Any big festivals this year?
(GF) Yes we’re playing Wacken. I think it’s possible we’re gonna play Wolde Rock with Twisted Sister. Which to me. Oh, I can’t wait to see Twisted Sister. I never got to see them.
(JH) Cannibal Corpse is into it’s 15th year. Will we see 15 more?
(GF) As long as the bodies are willing and the minds are. A kid just asked me the other day, how many more albums you got in ya? Well we can definitely record a ton more records. It’s the touring that’s the hard part. I don’t want to say the recording process is easy, but it is the easiest part. Touring is physically demanding. At the pace we set for ourselves . If I’m not out there spinning my head, people are going to wonder what the hell is going on. If I can’t do that than it will be time. I’d love to have 15 more years. 6 or 7 more albums. It would be great to do 20 records. I mean what band could say they’ve done 20 death metal albums. That would be unprecedented I imagine.
(JH) Anything you’d like to add?
(GF) Thanks for the interview. Thanks to all the fans who come out to see the shows and buy the records. I can never say thanks to the fans enough. We’ve got over 900 pre-sold for tonight so, thanks.
