Cattle Decapitation
Wywiad przeprowadził Bart Donarski
CATTLE DECAPITATION is not actually a new band. These guys have been around for a while, spreading aural extremities, visual abominations and verbal onslaughts. Their newest album "To Serve Man" has just been released through Metal Blade. With the helping-hand of their new label CATTLE DECAPITATION can go further then we all think. Is a new grind god getting into shape? Hope so.First and foremost, is this O.K. for grind band to be released by majors? I’m not trying to find fault with Cattle Decapitation particularly, although it’s a bit odd that big labels start signing and taking an interest in grind/death lately. Hope it’s not just a temporary acting.
Travis: "As long as we’re not compensating our style for the label or for $, it’s fine to me. Staying "indie" for the sake of gaining "indie points" is as lame as selling out. We also don’t pay any attention to whatever kind of scene people are labeling our music as."
Candidly speaking, I haven’t heard of you formerly. Nevertheless, this what’s been served on your new album showcases you ‘re one of the best bands within the genre. Do you think the scene is going stronger recently?
"Yes, a lot of the bands are getting more extreme. It’s really refreshing."
Do you actually care of the scene? You seem to be a bit strayed from.
"No, I don’t really give a shit. None of us give a shit about "scenes"."
I read you decided to chill out on playing so many shows in the Southern California. Then, how many shows you must play monthly, to be that exhausted? As I know you signed to Metal Blade, for you wanted to tour more often. Now you cannot handle it? Isn’t life a strange thing at times?
"Ha, ha... nothing like that. We’ve been playing too many shows. It’s probably getting kind of old to the same people that keep coming out. That’s cool and all, but we’d rather leave for a while then come back and destroy them. We’re just waiting for tour now."
"To Serve Man" has been already banned in Germany. Even though it’s rather obvious, I’m curious did you tell Wes Bencsoter how the artwork should look like, or it was his own idea? Weren’t you pleased with works of Nelson Garrido?
"I gave that idea to Wes after clearing it with the rest of the guys. He threw in a couple ideas. He’s the best. Nelson Garrido is GREAT, but hard to communicate with. He doesn’t speak English and lives in Venezuela."
Lots of grind bands make that disturbing covers, lyrics or shows just to repulse others and nothing but. Cattle Decapitation acts differently in the issue, I believe. Most important for you seem to be the strict attitude you declare. Are music, lyrics and design just means to express you ideology, something in addition?
"Yeah, they’re disturbing images of course, but not gratuitous, really. They’re definitely not immature and childish either like a lot of other bands. It’s just nice to do something different within a realm where a lot of the bands’ imagery is the same for a change."
Some describe your music as "in vein of Carcass". Total bullshit to me! How do you look upon it?
"THANK YOU. We feel this is bullshit as well and people just aren’t listening or breaking through the surface. Plus people are so narrow-minded, they feel they have to identify everything with something else. Fuck em."
The music you play is damn extreme, yet not senselessly fast and brutal. Bone-breaking riffing is combined with ear-piercing solos and audible terror of vocalist is accompanied by excellent arrangements. It’s not a secret that good ideas on the scene are really hard to come by these days. Is your aim to be original, in a sense? All in all you once said that it’s "previous sound with today’s new school of death metal".
"We’re not trying to be so original, it just comes out this way. We have a lot of different influences and we come from all different areas of the gamut."
Two of you are also known of The Locust. The band seemed to be huge. Wasn’t it a hard nut to crack to start with a new band again? What made you do it?
"Gabe and Dave started this band way back in 96. Dave was in the locust and Gabe joined that band later and is still in it. That’s why he had to leave our band, they were getting too huge, with too many priorities. And we had our own shit to take care of."
Are you linguist or something? Your lyrics are fraught with many strange prefixes and suffixes.
"Ha, ha… thanks. I have a big vocabulary I guess."
Have you gained a medical education on anatomy or forensic pathology? It’s tough for me to understand your lyrics at times.
"Yeah I took many of those classes in college and high school. It’s all from memory though. I only have a couple books left from school that I’ll check back to and make sure I’m right."
Cattle Decapitation released a/o two albums before "To Serve Man". Do they differ from the new one musically?
"Oh yeah, they’re a lot different. Much shorter songs. More grind-like."
You have contributed to many projects apart from Cattle Decapitation. Do they still exist?
"Yeah, but not really. They’re still being released and we haven’t done shows in a while. Me and Troy are in a noise band called Uum. I did an ambient project called 5.5.2000 that has a couple releases of our final material coming out. Dave does only Cattle, and Josh used to be in this band when he lived in Chicago. They have a bunch of releases."
Doctors and scientists say animal proteins are necessary to human existence as they provide different types of things then vegetable ones do. Isn’t man just a predator and that’s all about? Is man supposed to eat grass?
"Sure, but there aren’t too many people in the civilized world that actually have to go out and kill for their food. There are alternatives. I know we have evolved that way, but we don’t have to. And I don’t eat grass, and neither do any of the rest of the band. We smoke it though..."
At the end of the day, you do not preach about it, you’re not activists’ agenda or something like that. Am I right?
"Yeah, we’re not activists, really, but we don’t eat meat and we definitely don’t advocate eating it. We give information on our site and in our album for people that choose to look into it. I do know of many people already that have given up meat from eating our previous lyrics. Mission accomplished."
What types of crowds gather on your gigs? I guess there are not elder ladies and anile widows, but is this actually a metal audience?
"We’re starting to get more metal kids at our shows, but primarily a lot of punks, hardcore kids, scenesters and grindcore folks."
Any last commentary to the all flesh-eaters?
"Eat human."
Bart Donarski
mp3 file: metalblade.de/mp3/CattleDecapitation-testman.mp3
