CANNIBAL CORPSE's ALEX WEBSTER: 'Out Of The Thrash Bands, Death Metal Owes The Most To SLAYER'

During an appearance on the latest episode of the "100 Songs That Define Heavy Metal" podcast, hosted by Metal Blade Records CEO Brian Slagel, CANNIBAL CORPSE bassist Alex Webster spoke about his early musical influences and how he ended up getting into heavier music. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, when I was really young, single-digit age or whatever, I listened to '50s rock, like Chuck Berry and Elvis [Presley], stuff like that, records my dad had lying around from when he was a teenager, that kind of stuff, the '50s rock. But, yeah, I got into just regular rock, like THE POLICE and stuff like that. And then pretty much around my early teens, that was when metal came in, and then it was bands like ACCEPT and IRON MAIDEN, those two really in particular. And then METALLICA, all the thrash bands, METALLICA, SLAYER, KREATOR, all those bands, MEGADETH, all that stuff. And it just kind of builds up. Metalheads are always looking for the next heavier thing, or the next step forward, and everybody sort of adds to that. So I would say out of the thrash bands, death metal owes the most to SLAYER. They were the band that had those kind of lyrics. I feel like if you're looking at a family tree, then a lot of death metal comes from the SLAYER branch, in a way. And there's other bands too, for sure — VENOM, stuff like that. But for us, SLAYER is probably the biggest influence of the thrash bands, for sure — SLAYER, KREATOR, DARK ANGEL, bands like that."

Regarding how the death metal-growling vocal style came about, Alex said: "I really would love it if some of the original death metal and growling kind of thrash metal singers would get together and maybe do a roundtable on the origins of this style of singing or something like that, because I think it kind of starts maybe with Lemmy [MOTÖRHEAD], who was still singing — Lemmy and Cronos [VENOM]; they were singing, but it was getting into a growl, but there were still melodies going on there. And then you get Jeff [Becerra] from POSSESSED, Chuck [Schuldiner] from DEATH, Kam Lee from MASSACRE, people like that, doing something deeper, more guttural. And then it just goes on and on to [where] everybody ended up being pretty guttural and not really having any kind of a melody. There was a point where it was still singing, where you're carrying a tune, and then it just really became more of a rhythmic growl. And that, I think it kind of started with some of the really early death metal, of course, like the bands I mentioned, and then also thrash, like Mille [Petrozza] from KREATOR was a big inspiration for us as well."

Asked if it was his intention to form a death metal band at that time or if it was "just kind of the way it went", Alex said: "When we made CANNIBAL CORPSE, that was the plan. That was 1988, so there were already death metal bands out there that we liked. We had the MORBID ANGEL demo, we loved DEATH. KREATOR 'Pleasure To Kill', to me that album is sort of — at least at that time, it was very close to being death metal. Same thing with some of the SODOM albums. So when we made CANNIBAL CORPSE, it was pretty clear that we were gonna go in that direction. The band that [ex-CANNIBAL CORPSE guitarist] Jack [Owen] and I were in before was more of a crossover kind of band where it was sort of a mixture of KREATOR and D.R.I., that kind of a thing. To make a long story short, we had a lot of different sounds, but we were a crossover band, that band BEYOND DEATH that Jack and I were in before CANNIBAL CORPSE. But, yeah, when we made CANNIBAL CORPSE, we were already pretty inspired by bands like DEATH and MORBID ANGEL, so we were ready to kind of get going in that direction. And it still took us a little bit of time. But I'd say by the time [CANNIBAL CORPSE's 1990 debut album] 'Eaten Back To Life' came out, we were there — you could hear, for sure, that we had thrash roots, but it was death metal right out of the gate."

This past summer/fall, CANNIBAL CORPSE recruited Brandon Ellis to stand in for CANNIBAL CORPSE guitarist Rob Barrett on the Florida death metal veterans' U.S. tour. The trek, featuring support from MUNICIPAL WASTE, FULL OF HELL and FULCI, kicked off on September 15 in Nashville, Tennessee and concluded on October 22 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Ellis announced his departure from THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER in February.

Brandon, who made his name in fellow American death metallers ARSIS before replacing Ryan Knight in THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER in 2016, contributed to three albums during his near-decade stint in the latter group. Two of those featured the band's original vocalist Trevor Strnad, who passed in 2022.

CANNIBAL CORPSE's sixteenth studio album, "Chaos Horrific", was released in September 2023 via Metal Blade Records.

Since 1988, CANNIBAL CORPSE have been at the forefront of death metal, shaping and defining the genre. In 2021, they raised the stakes again with "Violence Unimagined". And in 2023, the band's thirty-fifth anniversary, they returned with its successor, the equally monstrous "Chaos Horrific", starting a new chapter in their storied legacy.

CANNIBAL CORPSE guitarist/producer Erik Rutan has now helmed six of the band's albums, starting with 2006's "Kill". This is Rutan's second release as a full-fledged member, since officially joining in 2020.

"Chaos Horrific" was recorded at Rutan's Mana Studio in Florida.