Chris Barnes (musician)

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Chris Barnes (musician) bigraphy, stories - Singer

Chris Barnes (musician) : biography

December 29, 1966 –

Chris Barnes (born December 29, 1966) is an American musician mainly noted for his guttural death growled vocals and explicitly violent lyrics. He was the founding vocalist and lyricist of the death metal band Cannibal Corpse (from 1988–1995), later working as part of Six Feet Under, and was appeared on the Finnish death metal band Torture Killer’s second album Swarm!. Barnes designed the original Cannibal Corpse logo, the Six Feet Under logo and also created the artwork for Warpath, released in 1997.

Musical tastes

Barnes is a big fan of the metal pioneers Black Sabbath, which is why Cannibal Corpse did a cover of "Zero the Hero" (one of Barnes’ favorite Black Sabbath songs) on the Hammer Smashed Face EP.

When asked about George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher, his vocal replacement for Cannibal Corpse, he said, "I know George is a good singer, though he wouldn’t have been my choice personally. I kind of like it though because he was never able to sing my songs better than me; that’s always made me feel proud, that I was able to write songs that couldn’t be imitated. I think he does a great job though, and he’s a real nice guy."

He lists Grateful Dead as his favorite band on Six Feet Under’s official website.

Death metal

Vocal styles

Barnes is known for his rather extreme vocal style, which consists of low and snarled death growls that have been described by as "thunderous" and "like Satan on a diet of razor blades and paint thinner".Allmusic.com He has also been praised because his growls have never been manipulated or enhanced by a recording studio. He also seems skilled at raspy screams, exemplified in the songs "Hammer Smashed Face", "I Cum Blood", "Post Mortal Ejaculation", "Pulverized", "Fucked with a Knife" and "Stripped, Raped and Strangled".

Barnes’ vocals on Tomb of the Mutilated were so inhumanly guttural, that inside the booklet of the album there is a message that states "Electronic Harmonizer was not used to create any vocals on Tomb of the Mutilated."

In an interview, he said the following about his early singing aspirations:

"I was really enamored with Gene Simmons from Kiss and the whole visual idea of a demon being a singer in a band, which kind of stuck with me in a way. When I saw Kiss in 1978, 1979 for the first time as an eleven or twelve-year-old kid, I was really enthralled. I felt “Wow! This is a live performance,” and I really loved Simmons and what he was doing. At another level I kept listening to music and it got more and more heavy, and then at one point as a teenager I said “Well I love this music so much, so I think maybe I could do that also.” At that point, I started singing along to my favorite albums by Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Motörhead, Venom and so on. I’d sing along to the tape, and I’d try to sing like those guys would in those bands. It just progressed from there really. When I was in my first year at college in the university, I was in a band at that point writing original music. It was the most fun in my life, and being in school I didn’t really know what I wanted to do so I wasn’t really sure of my place. I just thought to myself one day when I was in school, I said “I don’t want to be here.” As a result, I got up, walked out, got in my car, and then cranked it up. I drove up to rehearsal and said “This is what I want to do.”"

Feud with Seth Putnam

There had been friction between Barnes and Anal Cunt’s former vocalist Seth Putnam. According to Putnam’s now-defunct website (due to his death in 2011), Putnam heckled Barnes during a Six Feet Under set, leading to an altercation between the two ending with Six Feet Under’s roadies ganging up on Putnam while Barnes fled to his tour bus. Putnam released the song, "Chris Barnes Is a Pussy" as retaliation to the incident.

Despite the feud, Putnam stated that "Murdered in the Basement" was his favorite song by Six Feet Under.