Cannibal Corpse

Cannibal Corpse is an American death metal band formed in Buffalo, New York, in 1988, now based in Tampa, Florida.
The band has released sixteen studio albums, two box sets, four video albums, and two live albums. The band has had little radio or television exposure throughout its existence, although a cult following began to build with the releases of their early albums, including Butchered at Birth (1991) and Tomb of the Mutilated (1992). As of 2015, they achieved worldwide sales of two million units for combined sales of all their albums. In April 2021, Cannibal Corpse received their best "first week" sales of all-time and first Top 10 on the Billboard Top Album Sales Chart as Violence Unimagined entered at No. 6 with 14,000 copies sold.
Cannibal Corpse has seen several lineup changes throughout its run, with bassist Alex Webster and drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz being the only constant members. The band's current lineup includes Mazurkiewicz, Webster, vocalist George Fisher, and guitarists Rob Barrett and Erik Rutan.
Cannibal Corpse was formed in December 1988 when members from recently disbanded Buffalo-area death metal bands Beyond Death (Alex Webster and Jack Owen) and Tirant Sin (Paul Mazurkiewicz, Chris Barnes, Bob Rusay) started jamming and writing music together. Bassist Alex Webster recalls "when we got going, there were only a few other bands that you’d really call death metal". Mazurkiewicz, Barnes and Rusay knew each other from high school, and met Webster and Owen while attending area shows.
Bassist Alex Webster came up with the name Cannibal Corpse. The band played its first show at Buffalo's River Rock Cafe in March 1989, shortly after recording a five-song self-titled demo tape, which is now commonly known as A Skull Full of Maggots. The band's first live performance was opening for thrash metal band Dark Angel. The band signed to Metal Blade Records in July 1989. Mike Faley at Metal Blade wanted to sign the band immediately after reading the song titles in their tracklist. He heard the demo tape after having had it sent to him by the manager of the record store in which Barnes was working. Metal Blade president Brian Slagel recalled, "I thought it was really interesting and cool. Plus, 'A Skull Full of Maggots' is one of the greatest song titles ever." Mazurkiewicz said, "It was unbelievable; it was a dream come true. When we signed the contract with Metal Blade, we were only a band for eight months. And here we are having to finish off writing material and record a record."
The band's debut album, Eaten Back to Life, was released in August 1990. The band played several local area shows to support the album. Inspired by and seeking the new commercial and recording opportunities of the emerging Florida death metal scene, the band relocated to Tampa. The band released its second album Butchered at Birth on July 1, 1991. Webster recalled, "We went over to Europe in ’91 for Butchered At Birth and saw this great reaction from all these people on the other side of the ocean. We were like, ‘Wow, all these people know who we are!’ We were getting two or three hundred people a night at these shows, which was really great for a band with only two albums out. It was a great surprise.” The band members quit their day jobs and dropped out of college during this time.
Friction arose between the band members while touring in support of Butchered at Birth. According to Webster, Barnes was managing a tour by himself for the first time, and there were uncertainties regarding how the tour's finances were being handled. The band privately dissolved and split into two separate camps during this time. Owen claimed to have been "in the middle" of the situation. Mazurkiewicz and Webster moved into an apartment just four doors down from the band's practice space, and composed the music to "Hammer Smashed Face" as a means to vent their frustrations with Barnes.
In 1992, the band toured with Obituary, Malevolent Creation and Agnostic Front. Cannibal Corpse and Malevolent Creation shared a tour bus during this tour, and the latter of which future Cannibal Corpse guitarist Rob Barrett was playing with. According to Barrett, "We were like one big family, and I am pretty sure that is why I got the call to join with them the next year."
The band released their third album Tomb of the Mutilated on September 22, 1992, which was said to have showcased "some of the sickest album art and song titles of all time." Vincent Jeffries of AllMusic said, "the band's attention-getting tactics worked perfectly and record sales soared. Cannibal Corpse then became one of the biggest names in the death metal genre -- just as the group's discs and live performances were being banned all over the world." In February 1993, founding guitarist Bob Rusay was fired from the group and was replaced by Malevolent Creation guitarist Rob Barrett, which the band emphasized as "definitely a professional decision and nothing personal." The band has stated that Rusay, whose musical background was in punk rock, was having trouble adapting to the band's increasingly technical songwriting style. Webster fired Rusay over a phonecall while the latter was attending a party in celebration of the Buffalo Bills winning the Conference Championship Game (Webster was not a sports fan and was unaware of the poor timing of the band's decision). Webster recounted that Rusay hung up on him. Barnes has since stated that he and Owen did not agree with the decision to relieve Rusay of his duties, and expressed regret for having not called him afterward. However, by Webster's account, the decision to dismiss Rusay was unanimous. The band has stated that Rusay has made no effort to contact them since his firing, and that he subsequently withdrew from the music scene afterwards. Despite his dismissal from the band, Mazurkiewicz commended Rusay in the Centuries of Torment documentary, calling him a "monumental" musician and saying "it would be cool to see him." Barnes credited Rusay for having composed some of the most important songs of the band's early career. Rusay has since become a golf instructor. Robert Pasbani of Metal Injection said, "More power to Bob. Once leaving the band, he pursued his other passion and made a career out of it."
The band fired Rusay weeks before they were scheduled to leave for a US tour. Rusay's replacement, Rob Barrett, learned the entire setlist in two weeks prior to the tour. In an interview at Milwaukee Metalfest in 1993, Barrett commented, "The kids in Europe were disappointed about [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?"
Cannibal Corpse had a cameo appearance in the 1994 Jim Carrey film Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, performing an abridged version of their song "Hammer Smashed Face".
The band released their fourth studio album The Bleeding on April 12, 1994. According to Paul Mazurkiewicz, “The Bleeding had begun a process of change in the band. We were developing musically, and the aim was to really take things to the next level. I believe this was obvious with the music that the four of us were coming up with at the time.”
After The Bleeding's touring cycle had concluded, Barrett convinced the rest of the band to relocate to Florida. Barnes stated in a 2025 interview that he was not given a say in this decision.
In 1995, during recording sessions for their fifth album Vile, singer Chris Barnes was dismissed from the band while on tour with Six Feet Under, which was at the time his side project. Barnes and the rest of the band members have since stated the split was due to creative and personal differences within the group that had been mounting for years. The band members have since admitted some semblance of jealousy towards Barnes on their part, partially due to media attention regarding his vocals and lyrical content, which often eclipsed attention towards the band's instrumentation and songwriting. Barnes stated "things just kept getting weirder and weirder between us at that point," and has gone as far as to allude to a "fist fight" with another band member that occurred during this time. In 2025, he said, "There was always tension on a personal level in that band when I was in the band, and probably mostly my fault [laughs], so I'll be the first to admit it."
Barnes was replaced by Monstrosity singer George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher. According to Paul Mazurkiewicz, "George was the only person we ever considered. We believed he could do what we wanted. If he had declined, or hadn’t have worked out, I’m not sure what would have happened. It may have been the end of Cannibal Corpse. It was as serious as that." Webster commented, "I feel that certain people at our record label [Metal Blade] were making it sound like our careers would be over without Chris. And if the only good thing about our band was Chris Barnes, then we weren’t much of a band then, were we?" Mazurkiewicz said, “I’ll admit that Brian Slagel, the head of [Metal Blade Records], wasn’t at all pleased. That was understandable. For any band to fire their vocalist is a really risky step. But we had complete faith in what George had done, and thankfully the fans’ reaction was almost totally positive."
According to producer Scott Burns, "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."
The band released their fifth album Vile in 1996. Mazurkiewicz said, "At first I think everybody was a little reluctant. [...] They loved Barnes, but we knew we were bettering the band and were just like, 'Wait until you hear it.' And I think, for the most part, everybody shut up after that. As soon as we put the album out, we went out on the road, and it was 'Barnes who?' at that point."
Barnes went on to perform with the band Six Feet Under as his main project and later, Torture Killer. Barnes designed the original Cannibal Corpse logo, which was changed following his dismissal from the band. There has been speculation regarding whether Barnes had legal ownership rights to the logo. Cannibal Corpse drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz clarified, "He didn’t legally own it, [...] but Chris did draw the thing in the first place. We needed a logo when the band started out, and he came up with something suitable. But once we’d fired him, then he started asking for payment on all CDs and merchandise we sold that carried his logo. Therefore, we decided to come up with a new one for the Vile release, which also marked a new era for us. So, it really did the job on two levels."
In February 1997 Rob Barrett left Cannibal Corpse due to musical differences and rejoined his previous bands Malevolent Creation, Solstice, and HatePlow. Pat O'Brien, who first appeared on Cannibal Corpse's 1998 release Gallery of Suicide, replaced Barrett on guitar. Founding guitarist Jack Owen left Cannibal Corpse in 2004 to spend more time on his second band, Adrift, and also joined Deicide in late 2004. Jeremy Turner of Origin substituted on guitar for the band's 2004 tour in support of their album The Wretched Spawn. Barrett re-joined the band for a concert at the Northwest Deathfest in Washington in 2005.
Kill was released in 2006, and was considered a turning point in the band's career. Writing for the follow-up to Kill began in November 2007, as indicated in an interview with bassist Alex Webster. Evisceration Plague, Cannibal Corpse's eleventh studio album, was released February 3, 2009, to a highly positive response from fans. They also released a live DVD in 2011 entitled Global Evisceration.
Cannibal Corpse released its twelfth studio album, Torture, in March 2012. Two early bands of the members reunited for one respective benefit concert each for Tony Lorenzo of the group Sons Of Azrael in January 2012.
In February 2014, Cannibal Corpse announced that they had begun recording their thirteenth album, A Skeletal Domain, which was released on September 16. "Sadistic Embodiment" was released as a single in July. All the song titles of the forthcoming album were announced on the same day. The same month, Metal Blade announced the publication of the band's authorized biography Bible Of Butchery, written by the British author Joel McIver.
In an August 2016 interview, drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz stated that Cannibal Corpse would likely begin recording a new album in 2017. In September 2017, the band announced their fourteenth studio album Red Before Black, which was released on November 3.
On December 10, 2018, guitarist Pat O'Brien was arrested for assault and battery; his bail was set at $50,000. On the eve of the news of his arrest, Cannibal Corpse was announced as one of the supporting acts for Slayer's final North American tour, which would take place in the spring of 2019 and also be supported by Lamb of God and Amon Amarth. On January 18, 2019, Cannibal Corpse announced that Hate Eternal frontman and former Morbid Angel guitarist Erik Rutan would fill-in for O'Brien on their future tours.
Cannibal Corpse entered the studio in June 2020 to begin recording their fifteenth studio album. On February 1, 2021, the band announced that the album, Violence Unimagined, would be released on April 16. They released a music video for the song "Inhumane Harvest" from the album in February. The music video was largely inspired by the Saw movie franchise. The band also announced that live guitarist Erik Rutan has officially joined the band full-time, in spite of that it is currently uncertain as to whether or not lead guitarist O'Brien will return to the group following his 2018 legal troubles.
By January 2023, Cannibal Corpse had begun working on their sixteenth studio album, which was listed by Revolver magazine as one of the "55 Most Anticipated Albums" of the year. On June 22, 2023, the band released a new single "Blood Blind" and announced their next record, Chaos Horrific, would be released on September 22, 2023.
Cannibal Corpse is ultimately a death metal band. Various publications have also classified the band as brutal death metal, old school death metal and speed metal.
The band's sound is characterized by what is described as a "wall of sound", and its songwriting is described as "brutally aggressive but melodic." Guitarist Rob Barrett said "You can be melodic without having it sound happy or triumphant. We try to go for the more uglier sounding stuff." Many of the band's melodies make use of atonality. Guitarist Pat O'Brien said, “alot of stuff that we have to put solos over is not in a particular key, or doesn’t fit in a particular scale pattern. [...] It’s totally free, it’s almost like jazz in a lot of ways, because you can get as crazy and as out there as you want. [...] That’s why I like it. It’s not limited.” He also stated the band uses scales that "sound evil," such as the diminished and Hungarian minor scales. The band's early releases are recognized for their rawness, and have been described as being "live sounding." Bassist Alex Webster commented, "I guess there’s little things I’d consider mistakes on [the early albums], but that captures something -- It gives them that live feel." A great deal of the band's early material was composed by original guitarist Bob Rusay, including tracks such as "Skull Full of Maggots," "Post-Mortal Ejaculaton," and "Beyond the Cemetery." His musical background was in punk rock, and his writing style was described by his bandmates as abrasive, unorthodox, and "offbeat." The guitar tone on early Cannibal Corpse releases, such as Butchered at Birth, has been characterized as a "beehive-wall of white noise." The band's later releases are generally considered to be more rhythmically and melodically complex, which was partially the result of Alex Webster's desire to explore the "technical side of music," beginning with Tomb of the Mutilated. According to Joel McIver of MusicRadar, "behind the horrible song titles, lyrics and artwork lies a band of unexpected subtlety and skill."
The band's early releases are described as "a progressively over-the-top approach to gore-themed death metal that pushed the envelope in every imaginable way, from cover art to song titles to the music itself." In reviews of early albums, critics have made note of the unintelligible, "thundering," "grunting" death growls of vocalist Chris Barnes, who was called "one of the best growlers in the business". Founding guitarist Jack Owen described the band's first four albums: "Eaten is thrashy, Butchered is overwritten but in a good way, Tomb is abrasive and violent, and then The Bleeding was like 'okay slow it down and concentrate." He also said, "You can hear everyone’s writing style in their own songs." The writing process for the band's early releases were largely collaborative efforts. However, by the time of the writing for Tomb of the Mutilated, the band members began composing more material on their own, and beginning with Vile, songwriting credits began being attributed to individual band members.
Despite the increasing technical proficiency and polish on the band's albums, their overall style has remained relatively unchanged, "in other words, zero chance of [any] stylistic experimentation -- [they] like things just the way they are," according to Greg Prato of AllMusic. According to former guitarist Pat O'Brien, "There are certain areas where we're not going to be able to go where other bands have gone. But we don't want to; we're Cannibal Corpse and we're just gonna do what we do." In an interview with Invisible Oranges, Webster explained, "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." In an interview with Guitar World, he said, "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." Mazurkiewicz is quoted saying, “A key to our longevity, you know, [is probably] the fact that the fans know what they’re going to get, we’re a band that the fans can count on. [...] I always hated when bands [...] changed their style, something happened. You’re so into the sound of a band and then all of a sudden, ‘wait, what happened? Why did they have to go in that direction? What’d they do?’ And you were let down big time. We never wanted to be that band, you know?”
The band's songwriting makes use of hooks in its lyrics, and vocal cadences and guitar riffs. VICE News assessed that the band's third album, Tomb of the Mutilated "sounds like death metal as pop—the genre stripped to its basics." Webster said, "We do not mind writing hooks, as long as they are super heavy hooks. [...] 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?"
Chris Barnes' vocals on early Cannibal Corpse albums have been described as "indecipherable growls," while opting for a more intelligible style on The Bleeding. Barnes' vocals were generally characterized by a slower, groovier delivery style, while current vocalist George Fisher is noted for his highly intelligible, rapid-fire vocal delivery on later Cannibal Corpse releases, such as Vile and Kill.
According to Guitar World, "Webster’s galloping three-finger technique unlocks speed and accuracy that other bassists can only dream of; remarkably, he achieves great attack and clarity without the need for a pick."
The band's lyrics and song titles draw heavily on horror fiction, horror films and true crime. In the early years of the Florida death metal scene, the group was considered one of the most shocking and "least subtle" for its transgression of taste with its depiction of torture, murder, and mutilation, often in highly sexual, misogynistic and sadistic terms. According to Alex Webster, "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." The band's lyrics are described as "parading a revolting fascination with the human body," drawing comparisons to British extreme metal band Carcass, albeit "with a vividly cinematic perspective." Loudwire wrote, "Cannibal Corpse have so much gore in their songs that it's hard to think of any other band so hyper-focused on tales of people getting killed in gruesome ways." George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher stated that the band does not sing about religion or politics, and described the band's songs as "short stories" that could be converted into horror films. He said, "We like gruesome, scary movies, and we want the lyrics to be like that."
The lyrics of original vocalist Chris Barnes have been described as "ludicrously over the top." Examples of macabre song titles from the band's early releases include “Entrails Ripped From a Virgin’s Cunt,” “Fucked With a Knife,” "Addicted to Vaginal Skin," "Meat Hook Sodomy" and “Post Mortal Ejaculation.” According to sociologist Natalie J. Purcell, "the lyrics of these songs contain terrifying lines describing morbid urges to slaughter and sexually exploit others, particularly the weak. Perhaps these songs are especially disturbing because they relate such tales from the perspective of the perpetrator." In his review of The Bleeding, Jason Birchmeier of AllMusic explained, "it's worth noting for novices that this stuff isn't for the lighthearted and shouldn't be taken too seriously, even if songs titles like "She Was Asking for It" perhaps go too far, even for this genre." Webster explained, "We’re not trying to make a happy story; we’re trying to make a negative, frightening story, and that requires sometimes very disturbing imagery. Chris never wanted to limit [himself], and he didn’t. You can see it in the lyrics that he wrote. He had no limits and some of it is really disturbing for that reason, but it’s what he felt he needed to do."
The band has stated that many of their song titles are made first, with the lyrical pieces being written around them. Guitarist Rob Barrett has expressed his belief that the lyrical possibilities in death metal are "endless," and that limitations within the artform are nonexistent, joking, "There's all [sorts of] new ways to talk about maming and killing and torturing."
The members of the band were originally inspired by thrash metal bands like Metallica, Slayer, Testament, Dark Angel, S.O.D., Sadus, Sodom, Kreator, D.R.I. and Sacrifice, and early death metal bands such as Deicide, Possessed, Autopsy, Napalm Death, Morbid Angel and Death. Both former vocalist Chris Barnes and current vocalist George Fisher have cited late Death vocalist Chuck Schuldiner as a major influence in their development as vocalists. Jack Owen also stated that he was influenced by Bay Area thrash bands such as Exodus in the beginning, and also stated that the band was influenced by Napalm Death and Sepultura. Webster has stated that the band was fond of early black metal bands such as Venom and Bathory in its early days as well, and Owen cited Celtic Frost as an early influence. Drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz said, "Nothing inspired me other than what we were doing. We were narrow-minded in those days. If it wasn't death metal, we weren't listening to it." On Tomb of the Mutilated, the band began drawing more technical and progressive influences from Florida death metal acts such as Atheist and Cynic. On the Hammer Smashed Face EP, the band paid tribute to English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, covering the song "Zero the Hero" from their 1983 album Born Again.
Alex Distefano of OC Weekly said Cannibal Corpse are "hands down, the undisputed kings of death metal." Quentin Thane Singer of Forbes said Cannibal Corpse are "by and large the face of the death metal sub-genre" and "one of metal’s most notorious and celebrated bands." Cannibal Corpse has been called "one of metal's goriest, most vile outfits." MusicRadar included the band on the site's list of the "scariest" bands or artists. Greg Prato of AllMusic said, "For the most part, as far as the genre of death metal goes, there is Cannibal Corpse, and there is a bunch of copycats." Bands known for emulating the band's sound during the 1990s have been dubbed "Cannibal Clones" by some publications. According to Chris Dick of Decibel, "I used to get alot of demos back then and 9 out of 10 bands clearly had listened to Tomb of the Mutilated." Cannibal Corpse has been cited as an influence by extreme metal and heavy metal bands of numerous subgenres, including The Black Dahlia Murder, Disgorge, Whitechapel, All Shall Perish, Suicide Silence, Carnifex, Slipknot, As I Lay Dying, All That Remains and Escape the Fate.
According to Jon Weiderhorn of Loudwire, Cannibal Corpse was influential in the development of the "even more extreme" style of death metal, goregrind.
Cannibal Corpse's lyrics, song titles, album covers and merchandise artwork frequently feature transgressive and macabre imagery, including depictions of extreme violence. Throughout their career, the band has consistently defended the violent imagery in their work as simply artistic expression that is clearly fictional. Joel McIver of The Quietus wrote, "Almost as depressing as the song themes is the regularity with which the members of Cannibal Corpse have been forced to explain that a) no, they don’t take their violent lyrics seriously, b) no, they don’t advise that anyone tries these things at home and c) no, they themselves are not violent or in any way generally extreme as human beings." Bassist Alex Webster commented, "most Western music is people singing from the heart — singing to a girlfriend, so a lot of people are freaked out by our songs". The band's album covers are watercolor paintings (most often done by comic book artist Vincent Locke) that draw heavily on horror fiction and horror films, and are highly controversial. At various points points in the band's career, several countries, such as Germany and Russia, have banned the group from performing within their borders, or have banned the sale and display of original Cannibal Corpse album covers.
Webster recalled, "It got to the point where it entered global politics. That's something I never imagined, and I never heard [Senator] Joe Lieberman 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." Vocalist George Fisher recalled, "people were bitching us out on TV but it was like ‘cool, you’re not hurting us and you’re telling millions of people who we are’ – good job." Original vocalist Chris Barnes, who wrote the lyrics to the band's first four albums, said: "I never did anything for controversy. That was more a nuisance. I wanted to just write something that was exciting to me. Controversy was secondary." According to Metal Blade Records president Brian Slagel, "there were times in Europe that were really scary, to the point where the local government said if they played their songs then [they] would arrest them immediately."
Current vocalist George Fisher has explained that death metal is best understood as "art" and claims that far more violent art can be found at the Vatican, pointing out that such depictions are arguably more transgressive because they actually happened. On the same topic, George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher stated the band does not sing about religion or politics, and that the band's songs are simply "short stories" that could be converted into horror films. He said: "Really, that's all it is. We like gruesome, scary movies, and we want the lyrics to be like that. Yeah, it's about killing people, but it's not promoting it at all. Basically these are fictional stories, and that's it. And anyone who gets upset about it is ridiculous." Webster also said, "It's not like we're maniacs. People from outside the death metal scene get a little spooked sometimes because they just don't understand we're just doing this for entertainment. It's really ugly entertainment, but if we enjoy it, and it's harmless, why not?"
In response to accusations that his band's lyrics desensitize people to violence, Alex Webster argued death metal fans enjoy the music only because they know the violence depicted in its lyrics is not real: "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". He also believes the violent lyrics can have positive value, saying "it's good to have anger music as a release."
George Fisher has dismissed the notion that extreme music "[undermines] the youth," sarcastically saying, "yeah, because we want people to get arrested and not come to our shows. We want regular jobs – great plan!” He further explained, "there's nothing ever serious. We're not thinking of anybody in particular that we're trying to kill, or harm or anything." When pressed on his personal feelings in regard to performing some of Barnes' more extreme lyrics, being the father of two daughters, he assessed, "If one of my daughters went to college and was raped or something [...] 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."
In May 1995, then-US Senator Bob Dole accused Cannibal Corpse—along with hip hop acts including the Geto Boys and 2 Live Crew—of undermining the national character of the United States. A year later, the band came under fire again, this time as part of a campaign by William Bennett, Senator Joe Lieberman, then-Senator Sam Nunn, and National Congress of Black Women chair C. Delores Tucker to get major record labels—including Time Warner, Sony, Thorn-EMI, PolyGram and Bertelsmann—to "dump 20 recording groups [...] responsible for the most offensive lyrics".
As of October 23, 1996, the sale of any Cannibal Corpse audio recording then available was banned in Australia and all copies of such had been removed from music shops. At the time, the Australian Recording Industry Association and the Australian Music Retailers Association were implementing a system for identifying potentially offensive records, known as the "labelling code of practice".
All ten of Cannibal Corpse's albums, the live album Live Cannibalism, the boxed set 15 Year Killing Spree, the EP Worm Infested, and the single "Hammer Smashed Face" were re-released in Australia between 2006 and 2007, finally classified by ARIA and allowed for sale in Australia. However, they are all "restricted" and only sold to those over 18 years of age. Some are sold in "censored" and "uncensored" editions, which denotes the change of cover art. Despite this, when displayed in some stores, even the "uncensored" editions are censored manually.
After discussion of banning them from touring, Australian comedy act The Chaser did a lounge music version of their song "Rancid Amputation" on their show The Chaser's War on Everything, arguing that being able to perform the same song as lounge music on television proves that the music, and not the lyrics, is the problem.
In Germany, numerous albums have been indexed by the Federal Agency for Child and Youth Protection in the Media, which means that these albums may only be offered and sold to adults and must disappear from regular retail outlets.
The indexed songs may only be played in front of an adult audience and the organizer must ensure that no minors attend the event by means of an age check.
Some albums have even been confiscated by the courts and may no longer even be sold to adults.
In a 2004 interview, George Fisher attempted to recall what originally provoked the ban: "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'."
In a 2019 interview with Christa Jenal, the teacher behind the numerous banning proceedings, spoke about the band: "I have been dealing with the potential for brutalization in society for decades. In this context, I came across the band around 25 years ago because, as a teacher, I saw pupils wearing T-shirts depicting babies on grappling hooks. They were freely available on the market at the time. I've been educating people ever since. Cannibal Corpse is not the only band, but I see it as symptomatic of how far things can go when state institutions turn a blind eye.
Six of the eight planned shows from the band's 2014 Russian tour were canceled after protests from local Orthodox activists. A month before the tour, religious activist Dimitry Tsorionov said Cannibal Corpse's music was punishable under Russian law because it "incites religious division." He commented unfavorably on the lyrics, saying they promoted "death, violence, as well as various kinds of sexual perversion." The gig in Nizhny Novgorod was stopped halfway through the set, after police conducted a search for drugs at the venue. The concert in Saint Petersburg was canceled at the last minute because of unspecified "technical reasons", OMON arrived shortly after and arrested eighteen concertgoers. Cannibal Corpse members stated that Russian authorities threatened to detain the members if they performed because they did not have the correct work visas.
Timeline
Recording timeline