Paul Mazurkiewicz will not pretend that climbing into a tour bus at 58 feels like 1988. The Cannibal Corpse drummer, who turned 58 this month, was asked by “Reckless” Rexx Ruger of “Pod Scum” how life on the road has changed after four decades, and answered without mincing words: “We’d be lying if we said it was as exciting. But it’s part of our job and we want to be out there, playing for the world.”
What keeps him going is routine. “I have to watch my food, my hydration, my sleep. I walk every day, to keep moving and clear my head,” he said, explaining that the hard part is not so much the stage as ten people living together on a bus. He himself has lived in Florida for about thirty years, after moving from New York — and winter tours, he says, are the worst part. “When it’s sunny you can go out, get some air, escape from everyone.”
In August he had spoken on “Laughing Monkey With Shawn Ratches” about how his body holds up after nearly forty years of playing at those speeds. “I have to rehearse more than ever, just to maintain it. I’m not 30 years old, I don’t have that adrenaline,” he had said. His benchmark is always “Hammer Smashed Face”, from 1992’s “Tomb Of The Mutilated”: “Will I be able to play it at 68, at 70, with pain and soul — without dying? I don’t know, time will tell.” In 2023, three years earlier, he said the opposite: that he plays better than ever.
Cannibal Corpse formed in Buffalo in 1988 and moved to Florida in the mid-90s. Mazurkiewicz and bassist Alex Webster are the two founding members who remain, while their album “Chaos Horrific” came out on 22 September 2023, recorded at Mana Studio with producer Erik Rutan, who has helmed six of their works since 2006’s “Kill” and became a member of the band in 2020.
See also: Cannibal Corpse – Tomb of the Mutilated | Scordatura – Led Into Oblivion
