Carnifex Vocalist Scott Lewis Speaks on Modern Day Media Consumption and Technology
Carnifex’s newest album, World War X (which came out on August 2), is themed around a modern-day apocalypse. I imagine some Mad Max shit in my head.
Talk of a modern-day apocalypse begs the question: how the fuck will it happen? Will global warming be the death of us? Nuclear weapons? Technology? They all sound like viable occurrences, but technology would probably be the most silent killer. When we sat down with Carnifex vocalist Scott Lewis in last week’s episode of The MetalSucks Podcast and asked about his thoughts on modern media, our consumption of it, and the impact of it all, here’s what he had to say:
Do you think that modern times and how we consume news, media and culture brings paranoia to you as a performer or just anybody traveling?
“It doesn’t bring paranoia to me. The reality is, statistically, the world has never been safer. Violent crime has never been lower in every city across the world, more people are being born than dying at a rate that is absolutely completely unprecedented for humankind, so I guess we’re safer than ever. If you turn on Twitter or any kind of news outlet and blast yourself in the face with pop-ups 24/7 if you choose to, that’s only channeling [negativity], so that’s all you’re going to get there, but that’s not the full spectrum of what’s actually out in the world. I would just say, realize that those are companies whose goal is to have eyeballs to generate revenue. Maybe use your own eyes away from the screen to see what’s what.”
Corey Taylor recently said something in a similar quote: ‘It’s harder to be an individual these days for young people than it was while we were growing up.’ Do you think being an individual is much harder in this day and age?
“It certainly seems like everybody has a much more clear expectation than when I was growing up pre-social media. The only expectation I really was aware of was the kids I went to school with, which is something, but I’m not really seeing beyond that as a 5th grader or a 6th grader, you know? My world is pretty limited. Now you can see everything, so maybe what’s in front of you, what you think you need to be, is something that’s not even real life and might not even be around you in real life but it’s in your hand and it’s part of our culture in a way that is forming our real lives. I didn’t have that, and I’m 34, so I didn’t have that growing up and I’m thankful for it because man, you know what? I couldn’t fit in. I was an outsider from day one to begin with, so if social media was in the mix, it probably wouldn’t have been great.”
If you still haven’t gotten your hands on World War X, you can do so here, and if you so desire you can catch Carnifex on their remaining tour dates with Summer Slaughter. In the meantime, listen to the podcast below.
