Metal Anarchy

During a recent appearance on Suicide Silence guitarist Chris Garza’s “The Garza Podcast,” ex-Cannibal Corpse vocalist Chris Barnes shared his thoughts on the band’s current frontman George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher. Barnes says he doesn’t have a problem with Fisher, but he still feels like he doesn’t perform the band’s old material correctly.

Barnes said the following when asked if he has Fisher blocked on social media:

“I haven’t had him blocked. In fact, on Instagram, I follow him. And I don’t know if he follows me, but at one point I confronted him because I saw a video on YouTube where during a live performance, he’s poked at me pretty good. And I wrote him ’cause I was, like, ‘Look, man, I never have said anything nasty about you at all. I don’t know why you’re doing this on stage about me.’ And I said, ‘We met and I thought everything was cool that one time. And listen, I’ll give you my phone number.’ … I said, ‘If you wanna talk on the phone, I’ll give you my phone number. We can talk it over.’ And I sent him the link to the YouTube video, and magically it disappeared after that. But he never responded to me. He saw the message, ’cause it said ‘seen.’ But he wouldn’t talk to me about it.”

He went on to say that he is not a fan of Fisher’s take on the group’s older songs:

“I don’t think he sings my songs very well. I don’t. I think he walks through ’em. And on this [current Six Feet Under] tour, I poked back at him a little bit just because I felt like it was funny. But it was all in good humor.”

He continued:

“I saw a couple interviews with him where he said that he believed that my songs that I wrote are more his now. And that really upsets me. Because they’ll never be his. He’s a karaoke singer when it comes to my songs. He is. Those aren’t his songs. He says they’re his songs because he’s sung them more times than I have. He didn’t write ’em. He doesn’t get publishing checks from ’em. Those are my songs. Those lyrics are from my brain. And for him to insult me that way, I take that really serious. And I think that that’s so ignorant and just so — just wrong. I think it’s wrong that he even signs the CDs or the album covers that he didn’t perform on. I don’t sign [Cannibal Corpse’s 1998 album] ‘Gallery Of Suicide’. Why would I? I wasn’t on it. So, hey, if he wants to settle it, like get in a race car on a track, see who can drive better. [Laughs] But I know he doesn’t know how to drive, so I’d probably win that race too.”

He also added the following after Garza suggested getting in a room together and working things out:

“Listen, man, I tried to. I tried to. I’ve got no problem with him. Like I said, when I met him, I thought everything was cool, because we got into a room. We were at an Iron Maiden concert in one of the boxes. [Metal Blade Records founder Brian] Slagel kind of got us all together in the same room, and I was talking to him. I was having a good time talking about video games. I’m a ‘Call Of Duty’ guy; he’s a ‘Warcraft’ guy — two different types of games.

I respect that he’s been a great vocalist for the band for many years. I just don’t like being poked at. I’ve never done anything to the guy… I have respect for him. It’s just I wish people had a little more respect from that camp for me, but they have their reasons not to, so. I mean, I reached out to Alex [Webster] the other day. Me and Jack [Owen] thought it would be cool to have him come up when we played Portland to play bass on ‘Stripped[, Raped And Strangled]’ and ‘Hammer [Smashed Face]’. But he passed. We knew he wasn’t gonna do it, but I told him, I said, ‘Those songs are so important to us all, I thought you might want to.’

I don’t know what grudge they’re holding against me, but they just don’t like me. So, it’s okay. Like I said, I’m happier, and I’ve been happier in Six Feet Under than with those guys. I mean, those songs that I wrote with them, they are really important to me. That’s why we still do a couple of ’em.”

[via Blabbermouth]