Chris Barnes, the original vocalist of Cannibal Corpse, has been openly critical of George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher and the modern incarnation of Cannibal Corpse in multiple interviews.
While he is not a "well liked" artist by any stretch of the imagination - recent footage of a Cannibal Corpse show with chants of "F--- Chris Barnes" has emerged - Chris Barnes was still the original vocalist for the first four albums of the band.
This, of course, leads to situations where songs originally written by Barnes - allegedly - are played by the "modern crew" of Cannibal Corpse, including George Fisher. Notable examples include fan favourite "Hammer Smashed Face".
This is something that has always rubbed Chris Barnes, who is currently relegated to being the vocalist of the deathcore joke band Six Feet Under, "the wrong way".
Chris Barnes - "To me, George Fisher is just a Karaoke Singer!"
In a recent interview with Antoine Grand for the book "The Death Metal Bible" (you should check it out), Chris Barnes pulls no punches against his former band... and George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher in particular, whom he calls a "karaoke singer".
Chris Barnes: He [George Fisher] is a karaoke singer when it comes to my songs. He is. Those aren't his songs. He says they're his songs because he's sung them more times than I have or something. Yeah? He didn't write 'em. He doesn't get publishing checks from 'em. Those are my songs. Those lyrics are from my brain [sic]. And for him to insult me that way, I take that really serious. And I think that that's so ignorant and just so - just wrong. I think it's wrong that he even signs the CDs or the album covers that he didn't perform on. I don't sign [CANNIBAL CORPSE's 1998 album] "Gallery Of Suicide". Why would I? I wasn't on it.
This sort of mirrors Abbath's attacks on Demonaz where he called modern Immortal a "cover band". Except, in this case, Chris Barnes is just making a fool of himself as he did, in the late nineties, try to take credit for albums like "Gallery of Suicide" by claiming he "wrote most of the riffs" - something every other band member denied.
"Cannibal Corpse just don't like me..."
Even with his new band Six Feet Under, Chris Barnes still occasionally plays old (and new) Cannibal Corpse songs. This has led some members of the original death metal band of calling Barnes a fraud, a poser, and a shill.
Mostly, fans of death metal see him as a hypocrite, for feuding against Cannibal Corpse with one hand, and copying their "best hits" with the other.
Also Read: The Top Five Most Brutal Death Metal Vocalists!
This has led Chris Barnes to respond that he "doesn't know" why the current members of Cannibal Corpse hate him.
Chris Barnes: I don't know what grudge they're holding against me, but they [CANNIBAL CORPSE] just don't like me. So, it's okay. Like I said, I'm happier, and I've been happier in SIX FEET UNDER than with those guys. I mean, those songs that I wrote with them, they are really important to me. That's why we still do a couple of 'em.
Live shows of Cannibal Corpse are often accompanied by impromptu chants of "F--- Chris Barnes" every time the band attempts to play songs from their early, back catalog, which has led the band to tone down on their early repertoire in recent years, favouring more recent material to avoid controversy.
The addition of George "Corpsegrinder" Fischer, who has a much more guttural style of death metal vocals, to the band Cannibal Corpse was generally well-viewed by the death metal underground, who believed that "old school" Cannibal Corpse was headed in the "wrong direction" with Barnes... and indeed, it didn't take long for Chris Barnes' new band Six Feet Under to turn into brain dead commercial deathcore of the worst variety (their most recent album "Killing for Revenge" was called "nu metal" despite the efforts of Jack Owens, ex-Cannibal Corpse, to steer Six Feet Under back to death metal).
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