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Get To Know...Cattle Decapitation
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In one of the most ironic band names in metal history, the guys in San Diego based band Cattle Decapitation are all vegetarians. The band’s lyrics rally against mistreatment of animals and dabble in death metal lyrics about the genocide of the human race. Once a side project of the metal band The Locust, Cattle Decapitation has recently released their seventh full length record, “The Harvest Floor”, which was released in the Winter.
As lead singer Travis Ryan had just completed a seven hour drive before a show in San Francisco before a show with Norwegian death metal band Mayhem and was in desperate need of food and relaxation, he took some time out to discuss the band’s new record, as well as the appeal of the album covers in death metal.
Here is what you need to know about Cattle Decapitation:
About his first exposure to death metal: “When I was young, it was an album called “The Oath of Black Blood” by this Finnish metal band, Beherit. I had heard about it and looked at every record store for 6 months trying to find this record. Once I found it, the production sounded like crap and you could hardly hear what the lead singer was doing. But when I listened to it more, it sounded like the most gnarly s— I had ever heard and I was hooked after that.”
About his major influences growing up: “Since I was younger, I was always a fan of the genre. I listened to bands like Carcass, Napalm Death, Deicide. I was definitely into old school stuff like Bolt Thrower too. I was into Cannibal Corpse- but I was never trying to emulate what Chris Barnes (original lead singer- Cannibal Corpse) was doing. I wanted to have my own style when I got into it.”
About the evolution of the new record, “The Harvest Floor”: “I think the biggest thing with this new record is that we have a new drummer that played everything on this record. We’ve had a lot of drummers in the past and none never really seemed to fit what we wanted to do. We really didn’t like our first drummer. The next drummer was creative and had interesting techniques, but could only play death metal. I think a death metal drummer should be able to play all types of music. The new drummer allowed us and helped us achieve what we couldn’t do before. He got our creative juices going and we’re much happier with the album for it.”
On feeling complete as a band with the new record: “As a band, I think its our most complete record to date. As a band, we’ve never really had enough time to record an album and get it out. The release of the album took a bit longer than anticipated, due to not wanting to interfere with other releases on the label. But in the end, the record came out great.”
On the graphic nature of the band’s album covers and the covers of the genre as a whole: “One thing I’ve learned is that you have to play games with retail when it comes to album covers. It doesn’t matter what’s on the inside, its what’s on the cover is what really matters to them. We’re not trying to please anybody with our covers. But this cover, we really experimented on it. The new cover is probably our least amount of gore on the cover. If you see the cover, its still probably the most disturbing cover we’ve done and more so than the first album covers we did. But we give the fans the cover full of gore on the inside.”
Cattle Decapitation is on tour with Mayhem and hits Detroit on Saturday, June 13th at the Majestic Theatre. Tickets are $25 and are available at www.ticketmaster.com. Additional info and dates are available at www.cattledecapitation.com.
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