# Chris Barnes (musician)

Chris Barnes (born December 29, 1967) is an American death metal vocalist who is the frontman of Six Feet Under. He is noted for his low guttural vocals and explicitly violent lyrics.
Barnes was the co-founder and original lead vocalist and lyricist of Cannibal Corpse, staying with the band from 1988 to 1995. He later founded the Florida death metal band Six Feet Under, for whom he also provided lead vocals. In addition, he has also appeared on Torture Killer's second album Swarm! Barnes designed the original Cannibal Corpse logo, the Six Feet Under logo and the artwork for the band's 1997 album Warpath.

## Early life and education

Barnes first met bandmate Paul Mazurkiewicz when the former moved to the neighborhood with his mother. According to Barnes, the two were not friends at first. Barnes recalled being struck in the groin by Mazurkeiwicz while playing street football during an altercation between the two. The two began smoking marijuana and listening to heavy metal together soon thereafter.
Barnes graduated high school in 1986.

## Musical career
### Cannibal Corpse

Barnes started his career at the age of 19. His first band was a death/thrash band called Tirant Sin, which was formed in 1986 in his hometown of Buffalo, New York. Other members of Tirant Sin included Paul Mazurkiewicz (drums), Bob Rusay, Cam V and Joe Morelli (guitars) and Rich Ziegler (bass guitar). In 1986, Barnes left Tirant Sin to join another New York-based death/thrash metal band named Leviathan that recorded the four-track demo "Legions of the Undead" in 1987, re-released on the 2005 Six Feet Under box set A Decade in the Grave.
Tirant Sin recorded three demos, all privately released: "Desecration of the Graves" in February 1987, "Chaotic Destruction" in fall 1987 with Dennis John on vocals, and "Mutant Supremacy" in 1988. Barnes appeared only on the third demo, when he re-joined Tirant Sin in January 1988.
After Tirant Sin, Barnes co-founded Cannibal Corpse. Barnes wrote all of the lyrics on the albums Butchered at Birth, Tomb of the Mutilated, and The Bleeding and wrote the lyrics on Eaten Back to Life with the rest of the band helping. The band relocated to Tampa, Florida in 1995. Barnes stated in a 2025 interview that the move was ratified without his knowledge, and he was not given a say in the decision.
Barnes became notorious for his explicitly violent lyrics. He said, "I was always interested in horror and stuff like that, and gore, and I read a lot of the stuff on serial killings."
Barnes left Cannibal Corpse in 1995 during the recording sessions for Vile due to creative and personal differences with the rest of the band. He said, "I just didn't like being around them, because I was being ridiculed, and I just didn't feel comfortable being in the same room with people that weren't very nice to me personally. And I was part of that too, so we had all of our own type of differences, personally, and I don't think it was gonna be able to be worked out. You know, mutual respect goes a far way when it comes to being in close quarters with people." His final vocal recordings with the band were for the "Created to Kill" sessions which were later re-recorded by his replacement George Fisher for the Vile album. The "Created to Kill" demo featuring Barnes was eventually released as part of the 15 Year Killing Spree box set released in 2003.
Barnes commented, "I'm very proud of everything I did. I stand by it, and it's really held the test of time as far as good death metal goes. I think that it will continue to be thought of as one of the purest moments of death metal history, those first [Cannibal Corpse] records I was involved with." He later said, "being booted out of Cannibal Corpse was pretty memorable but in a good way. I didn't feel I was able to write the way I wanted to so it was a good transition for me."
In response to questions from fans regarding a possible reunion between Barnes and Cannibal Corpse, Alex Webster ruled out the possibility, saying "we have no plans to do anything with Chris Barnes ever again. It's not something any of us are interested in doing." "It's nothing against him, but we prefer to move forward rather than live in the past." Webster also stated that although he and Barnes had been cordial when the two have encountered each other at festivals, Cannibal Corpse would also not likely participate in a tour with Six Feet Under either, saying "you do your thing, we'll do ours." Barnes himself commented: "I don't have any animosity towards those guys at all, and I don't think they do towards me. It's just that… It would be too confusing for things [if we were to tour together], I think, from their perspective." However, Jack Owen has stated his belief that Barnes would be capable of cordiality towards George Fisher should the two bands ever tour together.

### Six Feet Under

Barnes' departure from Cannibal Corpse allowed him to devote his full attention to the band Six Feet Under, which had been his side project since 1993. The group initially featured members from Obituary. The group's first album Haunted was released in 1995. The group's second album Warpath was released in 1997. The group's third album Maximum Violence was released in 1999. The group's fourth album Graveyard Classics was released in 2000. They released True Carnage in 2001. They released Double Dead in 2002. Bringer of Blood was released in 2003. In 2005, Six Feet Under released 13, their sixth full-length album, produced by Barnes. In the same year, Six Feet Under released A Decade in the Grave, a box set highlighting the previous ten years of Six Feet Under.
Barnes joined the Finnish death metal band Torture Killer in fall 2005. Barnes appeared on the band's second album Swarm!, which was released on February 24, 2006. However, he left the band in January 2008.
Six Feet Under released the album Commandment on April 17, 2007.
On November 11, 2008, Six Feet Under released another album, Death Rituals. It saw the band returning to Morrisound Studios in Tampa, Florida, with Chris Carroll producing and mixing by Toby Wright (Slayer, Korn, In Flames, Fear Factory, etc.) and the return of old friend Bill Metoyer, who recorded the band's album Warpath, who helped out with recording of the drums.
On January 16, 2009, a message appeared on Six Feet Under's website saying "Just wanted to let all of our fans know that we are currently in the studio working on Graveyard Classics 3. We are about 60% finished with tracking. Everything is going great and we are having a lot of fun laying these new songs down. more info and track listing to come!!"
In November 2011, Rob Arnold and Matt DeVries posted statements saying they had left Chimaira to play in Six Feet Under full-time. However, in 2012, DeVries moved on to Fear Factory, replacing longtime bass guitarist Byron Stroud. The vacant position was subsequently filled by the ex-Brain Drill 7-string bass guitarist, Jeff Hughell.
The band's ninth studio album, Undead, was released on May 22, 2012. Rob Arnold was later replaced by Ola Englund. The band stated that Arnold would remain a central writing partner and collaborator on future Six Feet Under releases.
Six Feet Under's tenth album Unborn was released on March 19, 2013, and their eleventh record Crypt of the Devil was released May 5, 2015. Nightmares of the Decomposed followed in 2020. Killing for Revenge followed in 2024.

## Artistry
### Vocals

Will Hodgkinson of The Times said that Barnes "took metal vocals from the scary to the ridiculous," and his tone has been favorably described as "hideous." On early Cannibal Corpse releases, he employed a thrash metal vocal style, which Alex Webster called "a different type of death metal singing," and compared to the likes of Kreator and The Accused. By the band's second album Butchered at Birth, his vocals were drastically lower. Barnes has stated that he developed his guttural vocal style as an attempt to blend into the music, or "become another instrument", as the band composed increasingly darker and more aggressive songs. Many within the death metal scene believe Barnes to be among the first to employ the deeper guttural style in their growls, along with Chuck Schuldiner.
Though his vocals on Butchered and Tomb of the Mutilated were characterized as an indecipherable "gurgle," beginning with The Bleeding, publications noted an increase in clarity in his enunciation. He said, "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." Following his tenure with Cannibal Corpse, Barnes became widely known for his "eee" squeal on Six Feet Under releases, which would become his trademark. According to Will Hodgkinson of The Times, Barnes' squeal "brings to mind pigs in slaughterhouses awaiting their fate."
Although his vocal performances on later Six Feet Under releases have been called "a shell of his Corpse glory," Barnes has defended the evolution in vocal styles throughout his career as simply due to stylistic choice and personal preference. He assessed, "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[s]. 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]." He added, "I just think that it gets really, really boring doing the same vocal approach [...] and not really feel the music in a new fresh way each time. I don't fear that. [...] I want to explore something new."

### Lyrics

   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.
Publications have called Barnes a "deranged lyrical genius," and Dark Angel drummer Gene Hoglan has credited Barnes as one of the "progenitors of the gore style." Graham Hartmann of Loudwire said, "lyrically, he was a deranged, murderous savage with a vivid imagination for extinguishing life, possessing an unquenchable bloodlust." Barnes' lyrics generally follow a fictional, narrative format, heavily drawing influence from horror fiction and true crime. On his lyrical content on the first four Cannibal Corpse albums, he said: "It wasn't meaningless jargon written down to fast music. I've always taken pride in writing a storyline. It is brutally sickening, but there's always a story in my lyrics." On shock value, he said, "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." He is also quoted saying, "To just shock someone doesn't really work, but trying to write something that [evokes] an emotion, like fear, is what interests me. I put it out there raw. I felt it complemented the music, 'cause it was so far out there on so many levels." "Entrails Ripped From a Virgin's Cunt" from Tomb of the Mutilated is considered one of his more extreme lyrical pieces, with publications calling the line "mutilated with a machete" one of the song's "more upbeat, uplifting moments." Joe Davita of Loudwire joked, "We never claimed that Chris Barnes was a well-adjusted man."

## Personal politics and views

Barnes is a proponent of marijuana legalization. He is quoted in an interview saying, "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. [...] 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." Barnes' father grew and sold weed, and he recalled feeling like his "world opened up" upon smoking marijuana for the first time, smoking roach clips lifted from his father's ash trays.
Barnes has been openly critical about the current state of modern death metal, going as far to say he "despises" what the genre has become. However, Six Feet Under bandmate Jack Owen stated in a 2024 interview that Barnes has since adopted a more amicable stance on the genre's development.
Barnes has called some of the survivors of the 2018 Parkland school shooting "crisis actors" and the coronavirus a "false flag".

## Legacy and controversy

Will Hodgkinson of The Times named Barnes as one of the best voices in heavy metal, and noted that there exist "entire YouTube compilations dedicated to [his] signature “eee” squeal." Additionally, Barnes is recognized as "one of the first real guttural death metal vocalists."
Barnes said the controversy surrounding his lyrics on early Cannibal Corpse releases nearly got him shot and killed when gang members stormed the band's tour bus before a 1994 concert in Los Angeles. He recalled, "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 [caliber] 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."
There was controversy surrounding Barnes and late Anal Cunt vocalist Seth Putnam. According to Putnam, he heckled Barnes during a Six Feet Under set, which lead to an altercation between the two. Ultimately, Six Feet Under's roadies ganged up on Putnam while Barnes fled to his tour bus. Putnam released the song "Chris Barnes Is a Pussy" as retaliation to the incident. Despite the feud, Putnam stated that "Murdered in the Basement" was his favorite song by Six Feet Under.

## Discography

Six Feet Under
* Haunted (1995)
* Alive and Dead (1996)
* Warpath (1997)
* Maximum Violence (1999)
* Graveyard Classics (2000)
* True Carnage (2001)
* Double Dead Redux (live) (2003)
* Bringer of Blood (2003)
* Graveyard Classics 2 (2004)
* 13 (2005)
* A Decade in the Grave (box set) (2005)
* Commandment (2007)
* Death Rituals (2008)
* Graveyard Classics 3 (2010)
* Undead (2012)
* Unborn (2013)
* Crypt of the Devil (2015)
* Graveyard Classics IV: The Number of the Priest (2016)
* Torment (2017)
* Unburied (2018)
* Nightmares of the Decomposed (2020)
* Killing for Revenge (2024)
Cannibal Corpse
* Cannibal Corpse demo (1989)
* Eaten Back to Life (1990)
* Butchered at Birth (1991)
* Tomb of the Mutilated (1992)
* Hammer Smashed Face EP (1993)
* The Bleeding (1994)
* Created to Kill (Vile demo) (1995)
* 15 Year Killing Spree box set (2003)
* Centuries of Torment: The First 20 Years video (2008)
* The Unreleased 1994 Deathboard Recording (Live) (2019)
Torture Killer
* Swarm! (2006)
* Phobia (2013) Backing vocals on "Written in Blood"
IHATE
* IHATE (2014)
Cannabis Corpse
* From Wisdom to Baked (2014) Backing vocals on "Individual Pot Patterns"
Gorguts
* Considered Dead (1991) Backing vocals on "Bodily Corrupted", "Rottenatomy" & "Hematological Allergy"
Skribbal
* Black Eyed Children (2021)
Opening introduction on "The Retribution"
Incite
* Built to Destroy (2019) Backing vocals on "Poisoned by Power"