CARCASS’s JEFF WALKER: ‘We’ve Been Written Off So Many Times’

In a recent interview with Neuborn Open Air Festival, CARCASS vocalist/bassist Jeff Walker and guitarist James “Nip” Blackford spoke about the band’s musical evolution. Walker said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “We did this, and then we grew up a bit, and then we did that, and we grew up a bit. And we keep growing up, and we keep… It’s not a deliberate, cynical maneuver. We just play the music we like… But it’s not like a cynical maneuver. You get better as a musician and you have different influences and you just try different things… Stylistically we’re all over the place. That’s the problem.”Blackford, who replaced former CARCASS guitarist Tom Draper in 2021, weighed in: “I would say as a fan of CARCASS primarily — I’ve been a fan for most of my life, and now I get to play with the band — I think that’s a great thing about the band, that each album has been different. And it seems from the outside, that was where they were in that year, in that time, and then they evolved a bit and they got like that. You kind of see them maturing and growing up. And some bands do just do the same thing over and over again and that’s great. It really works well for some bands. In fact, who would want AC/DC to do something different?”Added Jeff: “That’s also the handicap with CARCASS, ’cause someone that heard CARCASS in 1988 would think, ‘That’s shit.’ And they wouldn’t understand what we sound like now. And maybe if they heard us in 1990, they didn’t like what we were playing then. But we’ve moved on. And we get that; I understand that. We’ve been written off so many times. ‘That’s CARCASS. They sound noisy. They sound shit.’ But we’re all right, I think.”CARCASS’s latest album, “Torn Arteries”, was released in September 2021 via Nuclear Blast Records. Drummer Daniel Wilding did session work in Sweden at Studio Gröndahl with David Castillo while guitars were recorded at The Stationhouse with James Atkinson in Leeds, England. Eventually needing some form of residential location to finalize vocals, bass, and other guitarwork, the band headed back to Studio Gröndahl in Sweden to continue work in a very relaxed atmosphere with Castillo.The “Torn Arteries” album title references an old demo created by original drummer Ken Owen back in the 1980s. The album artwork also rings reminiscent of the grotesque photography that appears on classic CARCASS album covers like “Reek Of Putrefaction” and “Symphonies Of Sickness”. Artist Zbigniew Bielak traveled outside his normal wheelhouse to bring forth a time lapsed set of photos showing vegetables shaped like a heart, rotting over time upon a white plate. This form of artwork was influenced by Japanese Kusôzu, meaning: “painting of the nine stages of a decaying corpse.”[embedded content]