In a Cameo video message requested by one of his fans, former CANNIBAL CORPSE and current SIX FEET UNDER frontman Chris Barnes commented on the fan’s selection of CANNIBAL CORPSE‘s “The Bleeding” (1994) and SIX FEET UNDER‘s “Maximum Violence” (1999) as his two favorite death metal albums of all time. Chris said in part: “Yeah, this is interesting. Those two albums, ‘The Bleeding’ and ‘Maximum Violence’, to me, are… Everything I do, I find important — I guess otherwise I wouldn’t release it or work on it — but those albums, they’re anchored in a different place for me, because both albums kind of marked a new beginning for two bands. ‘The Bleeding’ being the first (CANNIBAL CORPSE) album after (guitarist) Bob Rusay, and ‘Maximum Violence’ being the first (SIX FEET UNDER) album after (guitarist) Allen West. They’re really inspired albums, and you find that happens when you bring someone new into a band. And that’s always been something that I’ve kind of noted myself. I put that in the back of my head, like, whenever a band I’m working with picks up a new member, a main songwriter, like Steve Swanson was (in SIX FEET UNDER), it just changes gears and brings a new dynamic into the music itself, which is something I thrive to hunt for in the music of SIX FEET UNDER specifically.”

Chris continued: “In CANNIBAL CORPSE, with ‘The Bleeding’, those guys as musicians were really wanting to progress the band musically in a way. I could kind of say why — I think they were wanting to, in a way, prove themselves as well-skilled musicians. And I thought they always were, because it was always very interesting music, the arrangements and stuff in CANNIBAL CORPSE on the first three albums. But I think they wanted to really hyper focus their skills and weren’t able to do that. And I just was along for the ride, man. I can write to anything. It was really challenging to me. And I really liked ‘The Bleeding’ too. I liked what we were doing with Bob. I didn’t want Bob to leave the band, and I didn’t want him to be forced out of the band, and neither did Jack (Owen, then-CANNIBAL CORPSE guitarist). So it kind of was a strange thing with that whole situation, but it did bring about a good album with ‘The Bleeding’. And ‘Stripped, Raped And Strangled’ is probably my favorite song that I’ve written. And ‘Hammer Smashed Face’ is probably the most successful song that I’ve written. But something about ‘Stripped, Raped And Strangled’, to me, it showed something with the band that never appeared again with any of their albums after that, even ‘Created To Kill’. (Editor’s note: ‘Created To Kill’ was the original title of CANNIBAL CORPSE‘s 1996 album ‘Vile’, which was partly completed before Barnes was dismissed from the band due to creative differences.) But that is a purposeful thing. I was told by one of the members I will never write another song like that, which I thought was a big mistake. So it’s a special song to me in that way, and I love that song. I’ll play that song forever.

“You picked two great albums to be your favorites,” Barnes added. “I mean, probably pretty close for me too. I kind of tend to really like (CANNIBAL CORPSE‘s) ‘Butchered At Birth’ ’cause that’s what really brought us out of the woodwork, so to speak, and caused a lot of controversy and also gave us really our first real step up. And the music and everything on that — the band was just hitting on all cylinders. There was not too much tension in the band, although there was some. There was always tension on a personal level in that band when I was in the band, and probably mostly my fault (laughs), so I’ll be the first to admit it. But, yeah, those are great albums that you picked there. I’m glad you like those a lot. They’re important, important, important albums to me, too.”