Rockezine.com interview with Cattle Decapitation on Sep 05, 2004

with Travis Ryan on Sep 05, 2004

Cattle Decapitation, the most extreme vegetarians I know recently released another slab of brutal deathmetal with grind influences. Once again the quest against bio-industry and enviromental polution rages on. Time to ask Travis Ryan (vocalist) a few questions. A mere two months after sending the questions to Metal Blade they are already answered and ready to be read by you.
		"Humanure" is my first introduction to Cattle Decapitation. Did I miss something with the previous releases or is this the most essential and important release for you? Travis: This is the most important release so far. We did away with our old drummer who actually started this band so yeah, we have something to prove here. We think in hindsight that To Serve Man sucked and we got rid of the problem and it was time to redeem ourselves.
		In your bio, the style C.D. plays is described as: "something as ferocious as Cannibal Corpse, something as gutturally disgusting as Carcass, something offensively disturbing as Autopsy, and something as politically charged as Napalm Death.".
		I can really agree on this but is this description by you or by Metal Blade? And if so, do you agree on this? Metal Blade did that of course. I would never compare myself to someone else. I`d rather not even talk about the band, but of course, you have to do interviews and stuff. Fuck people.
		To my knowledge Bil Metoyer, who produced “Humanure” , has not a lot of experience with grindcore bands.
		Of course he’s a famous name in the scene for doing work with Six Feet Under, Slayer and W.A.S.P. but what was the reason for asking him to do the job? I know! It was a gamble, but one we`re glad we took! He`s amazing. He told us later that he thought he was supposed to do “To Serve Man”. He really wanted to do our stuff, which we thought was cool and we all got along perfectly! There was not one problem. Not one blow up. In fact he played mediator sometimes when we were about to kill each other.
		Whatever the reason he did a great job on “Humanure”. Are you satisfied as well? I don`t want to record with anyone else ever again.
		How and why did you record almost every vocal part twice? It can’t be reproduced live I guess so how do you resolve this? Fuck it. I don`t care. I`ve always done it like this. I love that sound. I may lay off on it on the next record because I`m finding all sorts of crazy things I can do with my voice the more experienced I get in the studio and in the live situation.
		Speaking of playing live, are there any plans to come over to Europe in the near future? Fuck, I hope so. I`m dying to get over there. We need to see if SPV will take it with the new cover that`s being implemented.
		“Humanure”, or more accurate its cover has been banned in various countries already. Did this really surprise you?
No, the cow shits out some humans!		Of course judging by the title “Humanure” the cover depicts a shitting cow but at a glance it also looks like a disembowelled cow, or is this my sick mind portraying this? No, the cow shits out some humans! I`m not really surprised. Conservatism seems to be taking over everywhere. Now it`s practically banned in the states! A few huge chains have refused to carry it. (Recently C.D. and Metal Blade decided to change the cover of “Humanure” to be able to sell the record in more stores and to avoid banning, RvdB)
		Are the shocking covers a tool to get more publicity or is its genuine artistic expression? Or maybe a bit of both? Hahaha. no, we`d never use a cover to get more publicity. I take them very seriously since I usually come up with the layouts and design of albums. It`s death metal, so of course there will be some sort of sinister elements on there.
		If you want to spread the message of vegetarianism, do you think gore grind/death metal is the right genre to occupy?
		I mean the average metalhead I know loves huge quantities of meat, and wears leather boots, jackets and pants. They don’t have any interest whatsoever in environmental issues and such. I know. Fuck em! I don`t care what they think about what we`re saying. I never thought Nuclear Assault were pussies for writing songs about reading a good book and doing something for yourself, so why should people even disregard us because of the subject matter!? That`s just stupid. It`s all about music! And I just feel it`s a cool topic to throw into death metal. Even Carcass did it in their own little way.
		Is every member of C.D. a fanatic vegetarian and is it required to be so in order to play in C.D.? Haha. I don`t know yet. We haven`t been confronted with that situation yet. It`s just happened to be this way so far. And we`re not exactly fanatics. We definitely get pissed off when we order food or something and they put meat in it, that`s for sure. But yeah, we`re all vegetarians.
		C.D. was originally by two members of the noisecore(?) band The Locust. What was the reason to form C.D.? They wanted to do a Carcass rip off band! Ahahaha. I never thought they really sounded like that though.
		I don’t know exactly how popular you are in Europe but please do come over to Europe a.s.a.p. The last words are yours, make them count… Thanks! We hope to come disembowel you soon!
		(Roy van den Brink)