As the man responsible for the guttural vocals at the centre of Cannibal Corpse’s musical extremism, George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher knows a thing or two about the art of delivering a death growl. The Baltimore native is one of the death metal world’s most recognisable singers but, in an interview with Metal Hammer last year, he said that perfecting that brutal vocal delivery takes time. “Nobody can pick up a mic and expect to be immediately amazing – it doesn’t work that way,” he said. “Especially in death metal, I had to punish my vocals constantly.”
Fisher hadn’t even turned 18 when his first band Corpsegrinder started in 1988, but even in those early days people would come up to him to compliment his remarkable singing technique. “We were a shitty little band from Baltimore, Maryland doing Cro-Mags and Sacrifice covers,” he recalled. “But I knew I always wanted more – more songs, faster songs; all of it.” Their first gig was opening for Exmortis and Deceased, he remembers. “I was so nervous before I got up i couldn't even speak. But afterwards the Exmortis drummer Aantar [Lee Coates], who has since played with Diabolic, came up and was like ‘dude, your voice is amazing!’”
