CORPSEGRINDER’s Advice In Life: ‘Just Headbang And Yell At People!’

George Corpsegrinder Fisher

CANNIBAL CORPSE frontman George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher has recently spoke to Metal Hammer about his early beginnings as a singer, his influences, Florida death metal and more.

“When I was learning how to sing I was just in my room listening to records. I had a piece of wood — a support board from under my bed — so I’d take that and use it as my ‘guitar’! Ha ha! My friends called it the ‘Rickenboarder’, instead of the Rickenbacker,” George said. “Me and my brother shared a room in our house, and on the walls I’d tape all the lyrics sheets from my records, put the album on and just go! I wanted to sound like whoever I was listening to. I pretty much sang every single day. People always ask me about technique, but I basically pounded my voice into submission!”

“I went and saw DEATH play, and it changed everything for me. It was right before Leprosy came out [in 1988] and there were, like, 50 people at this show. It was a short stage and I was standing right in front of Chuck [Schuldiner]. I could have literally walked right up to him and said, ‘Hey, what’s up?’ I’d already heard DEATH records, but the way he could scream live made me go, ‘This is the way I want to sing.’ The long, high screams that people know me for in CANNIBAL CORPSE, the biggest part of that is Chuck Schuldiner.”

If Florida death metal felt game changing, Fisher said: “Think about this: MORBID ANGEL are still around, DEICIDE are still around, OBITUARY are still around, CANNIBAL CORPSE are still around, Florida death metal’s still going! But when I first came to Florida in 1990, I wasn’t thinking about it like that. I wasn’t thinking, ‘Wow, this is something special.’ It hadn’t really hit yet. It was just about doing a band, making music and playing shows. I wasn’t thinking about how magical it all was because me and my band, Monstrosity, were just trying to be players in the game. But, by ’93, it was on everyone’s mind. That’s when Monstrosity relocated to Tampa and started meeting big bands like CANNIBAL CORPSE.”

On leaving MONSTROSITY to join CANNIBAL CORPSE, George comments: “When I went from Monstrosity to Cannibal, the crowd size went out the window — I jumped from playing to 1,000 people to 5,000. When we went to Europe together for the first time, it was crazy. But I still did the same thing as I did in MONSTROSITY. I just headbanged and sang. That’s all I did and I took that into CANNIBAL. I probably talk more onstage now but, in the end, I still headbang and yell at people! Ha ha!”

CANNIBAL CORPSE has released their fifteenth studio album, Violence Unimagined, on April 16th via Metal Blade Records. You can check the album on Amazon here.