Everything about Cannibal Corpse screams vile, bloody murder. From their deviant album art to their explicit, entrails ripping "Meat Hook Sodomy," the essence of their being has manifested itself like maggots in a sea of viscera. With 20 years of torture under their belts, the cannibal quintet stands tall, smiling as they unintentionally send core-shaking shivers down the spines of out-of-touch parents and the Religious Right.
Perhaps most frightening about the death metal gods is that fact that they're normal, dare we say nice guys with an undying allegiance to their birth grounds. Setting aside the flesh-fueled storytelling that's paved the path for an infamous career, drummer and co-founder Paul Mazurkiewicz took the time to dig up the memories that killed an ordinary childhood and re-animated a timeless career.
Now residing comfortably within the confines of Tampa, Fla., Mazurkiewicz is no son of the south and is quick to say so. Once a modest polish kid looking for some adventure, Mazurkiewicz's roots lie right here in Western New York.
"It was awesome (growing up in Buffalo). I thought it was great. I had a fairly good childhood in a fairly stable environment, pretty much south of the city. I kind of grew up, more of my teenage years, in Orchard Park. I had a great time, my fondest memories. No matter where I lived, no matter where I'm at, Buffalo's always going to be home."
At 11, Mazurkiewicz set his first foot onto the live music scene and kicked off a 30-year music craze bolstered by the blast of a certain "lovegun."
"My first concert actually was in '79 seeing KISS on the Dynasty tour at the Aud. I've just recently seen all these pictures of 'The Aud' being demolished and all that and what memories that brings back. It's kind of sad in a sense, I mean it obviously has to get done, but that was a big place for me, seeing shows when I just started getting into music. I probably saw about 50 concerts in about five years in the early '80s at the Aud.
"So that was a very memorable place for me, seeing my first shows and of course the bigger shows that would come through until I got a little older and I was able to know that there was a local scene and bands playing at smaller places like bars. I remember going to see some shows in the latter years when I was a teenager at say, the Sky Room, which had a few names I guess at that point - the Salty Dog Saloon, the Sky Room, the Red Room - I can't remember, there were so many different names for that place. My first like local band was a band called Zillion, back in the day in the late '80s."
Eventually making a name for himself and slaughtering stages across the city and eventually, the world, a few local venues have managed to stick with the Corpse.
"I really like that Town Ballroom. We've only played there the one time and that was a couple of years back and I think that was a great place. We ended up playing the Showplace Theater over the years quite a few times and its okay for what it is, but I really like the Town Ballroom. Unfortunately, we haven't really gotten to play too many of these newer places. Over the years, a lot of them have closed down.
"I guess since the inception of our band, when we'd go on the road playing places like, I mean we played the Sky Room in the day, and then there was the Scrap Yard and there was the River Rock, of course, where we had our very first show. They were all fun to play, but I like that Town Ballroom a lot."
Feeding off the intimacy, Cannibal Corpse and their deadly genre rock the masses, but prefer to do so up-close and in your face.
"It's cool playing in smaller places, that's for sure for our kind of music. That's how death metal was formed - playing in small packed houses with the fans right in front of your face and just feeding off the energy."
Though these venues provide life changing live experiences for both a wanton crowd and their musical fixes, a lot of them managed to fall by the wayside.
"When classics go, it's unfortunate. When you get a good one and it is around for a little bit, you hate to see them go. And obviously with the state of the economy, its not the greatest, but more than ever I think there's a lot of need for places to play for a lot of extreme kind of bands these days that are really doing well, you know?"
Going strong or a frame of what once was, Mazurkiewicz and the rest of Cannibal Corpse look back at Buffalo and the venues they came up through as the pivotal stepping stones to the national stage in which they now reside. Though far from the biggest name to come from the Nickel City, Mazurkiewicz has nothing but positives to say about Buffalo's eclectic successes.
"I think it's awesome. If anything can come out of Buffalo, that's gonna be a positive with the way Buffalo gets perceived in the world, or in the nation. It's always a bad wrap for the most part when something's happening and Buffalo's mentioned. It's usually, unfortunately, not a good thing. So, for actual quality bands that can do something and make a mark in music and in the world and whatever it's awesome, I think its great."
Buffalo's darling Goo Goo Dolls have seen success millions over what Cannibal Corpse has raked in, but oddly enough, the Corpse aided them in the process. That's right; Cannibal Corpse and the Goo Goo Dolls have played shows together.
"It's kind of weird and ironic how things pan out, but I remember back in the day where we actually played with the Goo Goo Dolls. Back in the late '80s, early '90s, we played a couple of shows with them. It was very bizarre. We were really good friends with Artie Kwitchoff, who was helping them back in the day and he was a big promoter in the local scene and he still is actually today. I know he still has a lot of involvement with the Town Ballroom, I think he might even be a part owner, I'm not sure.
"But anyways, it's just surreal and bizarre when you look back and go 'we actually played with the Goo Goo Dolls.' I mean, when you think about it in today's contexts, it seems like it wouldn't make any sense with the bands being so much farther apart in musical style than ever. But back then, when they were more like kind of a punky band and we were starting out, we did play with them. It's very surreal to even think that that happened."
Finding unforeseen success in a genre that's anything but radio friendly, Cannibal Corpse have managed to make a living off of brutality in both lyrical and musical form. With topics ranging from knife copulation to bloody ejaculation, it would seem like nothing is lyrically off limits.
"I mean, you know, were a gore-horror-metal band. We don't really dabble into religion or politics or anything. I think that would probably be the most things that were limits in a sense. Our music, of course, is very extreme and we want it to be very brutal. I guess if were talking music in that sense, we would never have, say keyboards, or 'okay, now were gonna go into this breakdown Queen guitar part' or anything like that. That would definitely be off limits for Cannibal.
"And like I said, just maybe some subject matter because were not a political band. We're really not a band to tell anybody how to do anything or live their lives. So, religion I think and politics are a very touchy subject. We're just a gore band that writes horror fiction basically to music."
Playing the heaviest of the heavy for 20 years, it would seem that the trail of the dead left in Corpses wake would be beginning to tail off. As Mazurkiewicz will have it, the end is far from near.
"Everything obviously has to come to an end eventually. We're all getting up there in age. We've been around for 20 years. We feel better than we ever have, physically. Music wise, we arguably just released our best release - our 11th CD in - so there's no end in sight. We really love what we do and we want to do it with conviction. We don't want to fool ourselves or anybody else. If the time is to end it then well know, I think, but we want to do it on our own terms and do it as Cannibal Corpse. Luckily, there's no end in sight and we just want to keep doing what we started to do 20 years ago, which was playing brutal death metal."
Soaring to new heights within the death metal genre, Cannibal Corpse has accomplished just about everything one could imagine for a band in their niche. Actually, for Mazurkiewicz, there's just one thing left to check off.
"To us, the dream is coming true in a couple of months. Our big thing is Slayer has been our influence and most death metal bands and most bands if you were around, starting a band, playing music in a heavy sense back in the mid '80s or whatever, obviously Slayer were a huge influence on a lot of people and we were no exception.
"The fact that were doing this Mayhem Festival up in the summer playing with Slayer, Marilyn Manson, I mean to us that's just a dream come true where we're actually on a tour with Slayer as opposed to just say playing a show, a festival here, a festival there, which we've done in the past. I think that has always been a goal of ours, and something we were hoping would eventually happen and it finally is. So after that, I think we can die happy."
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
