CATTLE DECAPITATION (TRAVIS)

HI! HOW ARE YOU? WHERE ARE YOU? I’m alright. I’m at my disgusting house in San Diego, California. I say disgusting because I hate it. It’s a piece of shit house and it costs way too much. Cost of living is very high now in San Diego. „HUMANURE“ IS OUT AND STRIKING THE SHELVES. ARE YOU CONTENT WITH EVERYTHING? HOW ARE YOUR FEELINGS NOW AFTER WORK IS DONE? Yeah, I listen to it every now and again just to make sure I like it still. We had a longer period of time to work on it than the last piece of shit To Serve Man. This is a much better record. In all areas. There are always little things you’ll hear that you may have been able to do better, but there’s less on this record. AS I AM ADMITTEDLY NOT EXPERIENCED WITH YOUR BAND HISTORY COULD YOU PLEASE INTRODUCE YOURSELF TO OUR READERS?! Well, I’m Travis and I do vocals. I also write the lyrics and pretty much come up with most of the imagery and “auxillary” band crap. DO YOU SOMEHOW FEEL HONOURED TO BELONG TO THE METAL BLADE BAND CAMPAIGN? Yeah. It’s starting to wear off though. I mean, not the label, but everything in general. Like dealing with cocksucker promoters and other idiots (mainly when on the road) that take this business way too seriously and handle it unprofessionally. Metal Blade are all great people. They are a business. They help us get to new plateaus that we would not be able to reach otherwise. It’s a great label. THE ARTWORK OF YOUR ALBUM IS VERY STRONG AND OFFENSIVE. HAVE YOU EVER HAD ANY CENSORSHIP PROBLEMS? DO YOU THINK THIS KIND OF EXPLICIT STUFF IS NEEDED TO OPEN THE EYES OF SOCIETY? It takes too long to “open the eyes of society”. I think that’s more of a long and involved process rather than being something that can be remedied by a quick glance at a disgusting image. Most people don’t understand our imagery and concepts. Which is so stupid because it’s laid all out there for you. It’s obvious we have a message and there are still some dumbshits out there that think we’re into killing animals or something! Nobody gets irony and they seem perplexed when they find out we’re vegetarians! Not even an “oh… I get it!”…. people are stupid sometimes. But, yeah, we’ve had problems in Europe with the covers. SPV will not take the album, which sucks because we lose out on a lot of potential fans with this. YOUR LYRICAL CONCEPT IS OBVIOUS: MEAT IS MURDER. WHEN DID YOU FIRST REALIZE YOUR STRONG OPPRESSIVE FEELINGS TOWARDS MEAT INDUSTRY? SINCE WHEN DO YOU LIVE VEGAN/ VEGETARIAN? I’ve always been a music lover but sometime through high school I really became more sympathetic to animals. They’re helpless beings, all of them, when such a shitty thing such as humans come to rule due to having the highest intelligence on the planet, you have to root for the underdog, no pun intended, nature. I’ve been vegetarian for about 9 years or so. WHAT IS YOUR PERFECT PERSONAL MEAL? I make it all the time. 4 cheese tortellini with red sauce and garlic bread. With an obscene amount of garlic in the sauce. And a merlot or cabernet with the meal. DO YOU BELIEF THAT YOU HAVE CHANGED THE ATTITUDE OF AT LEAST SOME OF YOUR FANS BY YOUR SONIC CAMPAIGN? If you mean whatever message we have to offer in the lyrics, then yes, I do believe we have. I have kids tell me they went vegan and shit because of our lyrics. There’s this one kid I know of, this really huge fan of ours that went vegetarian because of our lyrics and he showed his mother our albums. She thought it was totally disgusting and went VEGAN! And so did her daughter! So that’s 3 people in one family that supposedly changed their diet and outlook because of our disgusting ass lyrics. That’s pretty crazy. Cool, but kind of crazy. DO YOU CONSIDER CANNIBALISM AS HEALTHY REGARDING THE FACT THAT IT DECIMATES MANKIND? 🙂 Well, why not? I doubt it’s healthy, unless the person you’re eating was healthy. But if you can eat animals, why not people? There are people that die that have no loved ones to protest the harvesting of their bodies for human consumption. Flesh is flesh. Morals are the only thing that really stands in the way I guess. BUSH, KERRY OR NADER – WHO IS BEST FOR PROTECTING ANIMALS? OR ARE THEY ALL ANIMALS, TOO? Probably Nader. He’s part of the Green party. I don’t pay attention to what’s going on in politics. I’m aware it directly affects all of us, but I just can’t deal with it. It seems so out of my hands. I’m too hands on. COULD YOU TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT THE PRODUCTION PROCESS? DOES THE SOUND FIT YOUR EXPECTATIONS? HOW WAS WORK WITH BILL METOYER LIKE? Bill Metoyer is the shit. I love that guy. He was extremely easy to work with. He’s cool, collected and there wasn’t a sour moment. Honestly. We could do every other record with him and we’re down with that! We’re very happy with the production and as I said before there’s always stuff one could change, but it’s such a vast improvement and I think Bill helped with this for sure. “MEN BEFORE SWINE” IS ONE OF MY FAVOURITE TRACKS AS IT NEARLY FITS THE AMBIENT GENRE. ANY COMMENTS ON THAT TRACK? Well you’re the first one to say that!!! Thanks! I love all sorts of ambient stuff. I’ve done a lot of that in my day. That track’s source material is strictly that of a Massachusetts slaughterhouse. The only other thing on there that isn’t a slaughterhouse are these electronics done by the guy that I replaced, actually, in Cattle in the very beginning. We met up with him and I asked him to do it. I love that track, though I understand it is a test to get through. An endurance test. I would think that most people would not make it through. Fuck em. “LIPS AND ASSHOLES” IS INTERESTING FOR A PART OF JUST DRUM AND BASS – DO YOU LIKE TO BREAK OUT OF CONVENTIONAL METAL SONGWRITING? I know what part you’re talking about. I remember saying “are you going to do overdubs on that?” to our guitarist and they said no, and they thought they’d keep it out so the next part would have more punch. It worked! There are all sorts of dynamics and nuances on this record that we’ve never had the time to explore until now. SOME MELODY LINES ARE LIKE CHILDREN’S SONGS, IN WHICH MACABRE ARE FAMOUS FOR, DO YOU KNOW THEM? DO YOU LIKE THEM? WOULD BE A NICE TOUR COMBINATION… Ha. That’s interesting. I’ve met one or two of them before, but we’re really good friends with their manager. He comes out every time we’re in Chicago and this past time we talked about working together. We’ve been kicking this idea around for a while. He always mentions us doing a tour with Macabre. We really need a manager. I’ve done a lot of it and Troy has helped out since we started touring, but I don’t think that’s a good thing for the band to do themselves. It only ends in problems. We’ll see how that turns out. IS THERE ANY VIDEO PLANNED FOR A “HUMANURE”-TRACK AND WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO PORTRAY? We might do one with The Earthling. We’ll see how people like the album and work from there… We’ve already talked to a director and he wants to do some “War Of The Worlds” kind of vibe with it. Sounds cool. We’ll see if we can pull off such a thing.

IS THERE SOME KIND OF VEGETARIAN EXTREME METAL SCENE IN THE STATES OR ARE YOU THE ONLY ONE OF YOUR KIND? Nope. We’re it. There have always been one or two bands though. Like Earth Crisis, Dystopia, Carcinogen, and numerous hardcore bands, but none of that is metal at all. I think we’re the only one that is obviously vegetarian of some sort. DO YOU LIKE THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE-MOVIES WHO SOMEHOW FIT YOUR MESSAGE I BELIEVE… OR MAYBE ANIMAL FARM? hahaha. Sounds like a bestiality porno. Yes, I love those movies. They’re hilarious. That’s what I’m talking about. I love that weird reality feeling that the first one captured. Very frantic, unsettling and disturbing. That’s what we try to achieve through our music and lyrics. Tony from Soilent Green kept telling us that our music reminded him of Leather Face. Not the way we look, but our sound. I thought that was cool. He mentioned our music reminded him of the part where Leather Face drags that person into the room and then turns around and slams the door. Perfect. That’s exactly what I want to achieve. I think I hugged him when he told me that. YOU DID A CARCASS COVER FOR A TRIBUTE SAMPLER – WHAT DOES THIS BAND MEAN TO YOU PERSONALLY? It’s my favourite band ever. They had a HUGE impact on me. Probably the first time I ever actually realized I had fallen in love with an album. Symphonies Of Sickness. She still brings a tear to my eye. A beautiful, beautiful album. WHAT ARE YOUR OTHER INTERESTS BESIDES MUSIC? Right now, not much. Everything I do is music related to some degree. It’s kind of sad, really. HOW WAS TOURING WITH LABEL MATES BLACK DAHLIA MURDER LIKE? ANY INTERESTING STORY? ANY CATASTROPHE? They’re cool. No catastrophes, the whole tour was kind of crazy actually. We both got strongarmed into giving this one piece of shit promoter in Providence, RI a shirt. Even Glen Benton was like “fuck this guy, just give him a shirt, be done with it and get the fuck out of here. You don’t need any trouble”. This fucker had 4 big guys ready to kick whoever’s ass didn’t give this bitch a shirt. Like he’s in the mafia or something! Like I said, people are fuckin stupid. HAVE YOU EVER PLAYED LIVE IN EUROPE/ GERMANY? ARE THERE PLANS FOR TOURING HERE? No! We’re dying to come over there! We will soon, I hope! I’m trying to get us over there this year. IS THERE ANY KIND OF EXPLICIT STAGE SHOW TO STRENGTHEN YOUR MESSAGE OR DO YOU “JUST” PLAY? We just play. We’ve done some weird shit in the past, but very sporadically, so much that you can’t really pay attention to those things we’ve done. Check out our website, you’ll see what I mean. OF WHICH MATERIAL IS THE BEEF JERKY MASK MADE OF? Beef jerky wired to a ski mask. It’s disgusting and I haven’t done it in a long time. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN CHARGED FOR DOING YOUR YOGURT ATTACKS? 🙂 no, but I think that would be really neat. WHAT IS MORE IMPORTANT FOR YOU: MUSIC OR MESSAGE? MUSIC, of course. The message is only there because there are lyrics. And as long as words are involved, they might as well mean something. ANY LAST – VEGAN – WORDS? Stay gore! Not very “vegan” but it always does the trick. THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR SHARING YOUR TIME AND GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR STRONG EFFORT. Thanks!