Interview with Travis Ryan, vocalist for Cattle Decapitation

Over the span of a decade, Cattle Decapitation has forged its not-so-humble beginnings in gore-grind into one of extreme metal’s most relentless forces, encompassing a sound as schizophrenic as their record collections but with a determined lyrical stance resolutely damning the ills of humanity.

At the moment Cattle Decapitation are in the studio working on their new album. Speaking for Vile Noise is Travis, the Director of Culinary Arts as well as the man behind the brutal vocals.

What’s the main inspiration for the lyrics on the upcoming record?

Well, it was obvious at the beginning of the writing that the guys were really going out on a limb with the material so I did the best I could to match that. What sucks is at the end of writing the songs, I was just getting started. I felt like we could keep going and write the next one, even. I have a ton of song titles I didn’t get to use that will just end up showing up on the next record. I even have the cover art for the next one and we don’t even have the art in yet for the upcoming album! So, back to the question, its safe to say that the lyrics are still very anti-human, but more cynical this time around and do a little more exploring of my thoughts on religion, survival and the human condition.

When do you expect to have the material ready for publishing? How is the recording process going?

We’ve pushed it back to January 2009. We’re deep in mixing down right now. We’re excited to see people’s reaction more so than what they actually thing of the stuff. Its very different, super brutal and our brand of spasticness, but has so many different passages in there.

I think its very unique. Haters will have nothing to say. Scene kids will have a tough time finding something to dance to. I think it destroys all the cookie cutter nonsense that’s blowing up so huge right now. Recording has been great and much less stressful this time around. We have some fucking killer guest spots on it that we’ll be revealing when we unveil all the info.

How will your upcoming record differ from Karma.Bloody.Karma?

It’s definitely somewhat of an extension of that album. Exploring areas we always wanted to but couldn’t because of certain narrow-minded people in the band that have not been an issue for quite some time now. Makes for a much more dynamic and enjoyable listen. Period. People that liked the direction we were going with on Karma will be pleased when they hear this one. We have a new drummer and that helped freshen things up a bit and he even wrote some of the material which is interesting.

What’s your take on the influence of the Internet on the music business? Did it help Cattle Decapitation reach a wider audience or diminish record sales because of illegal downloads?

The music industry is crumbling as we speak and I am very curious to see where its going. That’s a hard question. I think we definitely have gained a wider fan base from the use of the Internet and its obviously definitely working for some other bands.

It does suck to know that what people have been working their whole lives for is being achieved by little kids right out of the garage. It makes for really crappy “scenes” and styles and is more of an embarrassment to me than anything. I’m fucking sick of it. I’ve decided to try and denounce us as a death metal band since there’s so many ultra shitty bands out there claiming they are death metal when they’re CLEARLY not. I don’t want respectable metal heads and death metal purists to think we are part of that crap. I would rather us be filed under “extreme music”.

With so many monikers, labels and sub genres being created, it no longer makes sense to keep calling ourselves “death metal”. Death metal now is a form of music that lasted from the late 80s to the late 90s and everything since, including us, that lends traits from the death metal bands we grew up loving just doesn’t stand up to the old stuff and is too much of a morph to keep calling it “death metal”.

What’s the most appalling thing that’s ever happened to you while playing on stage?

Playing every night with a turd for a fill in drummer like we had in 2006. That was appalling. One night specifically he fucked up the ending of the actual song he recorded himself playing and sent to us months earlier and plenty of shows since. We had to stop, the crowd was going apeshit for us because it was San Antonio and was a killer show, and I turned around and saw Josh flipping him off, looked to my right and saw Troy spit on him, looked back and saw like 500 people screaming “YEAH!!!!” and at that moment I felt so ripped off and like we were ripping off these people with this shitty performance that I threw the mic as hard as I could at his face. The cable must’ve been under my foot or something because it totally missed his zitty ass face and went through his bass drum head. One big appalling let down.

You play ferocious music, but what do you listen to? Any unexpected bands we should know about?

I listen to so much different stuff that I just can’t really answer this question. I can tell you that I don’t listen to much stuff like ours anymore. There just hasn’t been much in the way of death metal or whatever that I have given a shit about in the last 10 years. Just too much other stuff to listen to.

I’m 33 and I’ve been into metal since I was 9, as well as tons of other types of music. I worked in a record store for almost 10 years so I guess you could consider me one of those snobs I guess. Let’s see… today I picked up a Death In June bonus disc I don’t have, the new Leviathan on LP, the new Agalloch and I had to get the last County Medical Examiners disc. I love that band. The most perfectly executed ideas I think I’ve ever seen. I also really love Indian film music and American song poems and found sound collages.

What has been your most insane experience while on the road?

Seeing Glen Benton whip out his dick and show a bunch of chicks his piercing? We had a merch guy that made us pull over so he could take a shit right on the side of the highway. I could have swore that when we pulled away I saw a cigarrette butt in his poop. I woke up once while we were driving and I honestly thought we were being abducted by aliens! We were driving through a bad storm and all the lightning outside looked like lights from a UFO and the van was shaking… Naw, I’d have to say it was when we almost got in a wreck. We were driving through Lincoln, Nebraska at 8am and I awoke to hear our merch guy/driver yell “OH FUCK!!!” All I remember seeing was the hood of a car shooting past right in front of us. They went over the median and flipped on our side of the freeway behind us. We went to go help them and the driver looked like he couldn’t tell what was going on, his mother in the back seat crying and a kid in the front seat looked like he was 9 yrs old or so with his face completely smashed in. Everyone had blood coming out of their ears.

Thrash metal is experiencing a rebirth, are death metal and grindcore next?

Old school death metal is a little bit. I think thrash always had its own fashion sense but it was always out of necessity, not so much to look cool. Really not that different than from what early death metal bands were like, but that’s what attracts people first it seems, unfortunately.

I am very skeptical of music’s relationship with fashion and I really don’t approve of “revivals”. Its so lame. White Reebok high tops were lame in 1987, they’re lamer now dudes. Grindcore has, to me anyways, never really had a noticeable face. It as a genre in itself is a crossover so its hard to say. I hear kids say that Job for a Cowboy is “grindcore”. That’s the biggest bunch of bullshit I’ve ever heard. Listen to some Terrorizer idiots.

Besides touring, what are your plans for the future? Any exciting developments?

We hope to finally do a video. Have some good ideas been brewing for like the last fuckin 5 albums goddammit. That’s about it. Gonna do some touring and hopefully get to some countries we’ve never been before. We REALLY want to play Australia, Japan and Russa/Eastern European block.