ERIC CUTLER Doesn't Think AUTOPSY Has Evolved: 'We're The Same Scumbags We Have Always Been'

"Metal Magdalene With Jet" show on Metal Messiah Radio recently conducted an interview with guitarist Eric Cutler of veteran death metallers AUTOPSY. You can listen to the entire chat below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On how he got to know AUTOPSY drummer Chris Reifert:

Eric: "Chuck [Schuldiner] from DEATH and Chris lived in the house behind me in some apartments, actually. And Steve DiGiorgio of SADUS, who played with AUTOPSY for a bit, he introduced us one day. I started hanging out with both of those guys. It was only maybe a month later that Chuck decided to move back to Florida. By that point, me and Chris had become friends. Chris didn't want to move to Florida [with Schuldiner]. We just decided we were going to start a band here and come up with some music and a name. We just wanted to play something fucking filthy and sick. That's how it started."

On the band's early days:

Eric: "Originally, it was just me and Chris. We started writing songs and just jamming in the bedroom at his parents' house and at my parents' house and just wherever we could, really. Once we decided the music we were going to do, which was just something heavy and something that nobody was playing that we wanted to hear. We just started forming it at that time. We recruited a friend of mine, Eric Eigard on bass and started playing parties. It kind of morphed a little bit and Eric left the band. It got to a point where just playing parties every weekend, that was our rehearsals. We recorded a demo in '87, the first demo. Right after, we got Danny Coralles in the band who was in the California BLOODBATH at the time. It just kind of morphed from there. We didn't really have a plan. We just decided to do what we wanted to do."

On the band's breakup after 1995's "Shitfun" studio album:

Eric: "We did a disastrous U.S. tour and it was planned really bad, the shows were scattered about, a lot of travel between them, there was no promotion. I made the stupid mistake to manage the tour and play every night, also. It just fucking burned me out after, I don't know, a couple of weeks, I was kind of done with everything. I decided by then I was just going to quit before we even got back and told everybody. Probably about halfway through the tour, I told everybody I was done, I was just burnt and didn't want to do it anymore. Of course, I changed my mind a couple of months after we got back. I was like, 'What the fuck was I thinking?' By the point we got home, it was all kind of done. Everybody was doing their own thing. We had 'Shitfun' still ready to record, so we went and did that. Then, it was it. Chris and Danny were already planning to do ABSCESS. Once we got home from the tour, we did the 'Shitfun' record and called it quits."

On AUTOPSY's 2009 reunion:

Eric: "We've been getting offers to play shows and do tours ever since we broke up. The guys from Maryland Deathfest were really honest in trying to get us to come out and play Maryland. We turned them down a few times and finally, they got kind of serious and we just talked about it. We said 'Well, if it comes to that. Maybe we should just do it and check it out and see where it goes from there.' That's how it all started again."

On their new "Puncturing The Grotesque" mini-LP:

Eric: "Everything we do is another phase of the band. We don't plan anything. We don't try to write a certain way. It's just where we're at at each given time whenever we release something. We feel good about the music like we do everything else. We never come out and say 'This is the best thing we ever did.' It is what it is and we like it and hopefully other people will, too."

On whether AUTOPSY has evolved:

Eric: "Oh fuck, we haven't. We're the same scumbags we always have been, personally and musically. Same shit. [Laughs]"

On whether he misses the early days of the death metal scene when letter writing and tape trading was prevalent:

Eric: "I really don't think about that, how I feel about something then versus now. There was a whole different time then. I was writing letters. There were no e-mails. You traded tapes. So, it was really cool back then. Now it's cool too because you can just pull up anything you want to check out and listen to it. It's really different, but I don't have a strong opinion on it. It is what it is. We're going to grow and shit changes over time."

"Puncturing The Grotesque" was released on December 15 via Peaceville and contains seven tracks of blistering sickness.