Undeath Frontman Alexander Jones Responds to Chris Barnes’ Insults: “I Had a Good Laugh”
The past few days have seen founding Cannibal Corpse frontman Chris Barnes publicly stick his dick in the mashed potatoes by declaring that modern death metal makes him “physically ill,” claiming his former bandmates are ripping off their fans, and then blocking hundreds of people from Twitter. Now, Undeath frontman Alexander Jones, one of the death metal musicians included in the round-table video that upset Barnes so much, has offered his two cents on the incident, and like any of us who haven’t released Graveyard Classics 2, he just thinks it’s funny.
Jones traded e-mails with Loudwire about the incident, and was appropriately chill about the whole thing:
“I opened up twitter and saw that people were mad at Chris Barnes again, which wasn’t a huge surprise to me, but then I saw it was about the round table I was a part of and had a good laugh to myself about it. It didn’t sting – I would have been way more surprised if he had enjoyed it to be perfectly honest.”
Jones went on to talk pretty thoughtfully about the genre and his appreciation for it:
“Personally speaking, I was exposed to modern bands and the more classic stuff right around the same time, so I developed a pretty healthy appreciation for both [styles] early on. The mentality that a genre such as death metal somehow ‘died’ (pun intended) 20 years ago is the same bullshit line or thinking that old hardcore guys employ when they say that hardcore died in ‘84 or something. There’s tons of exciting bands making more viable death metal than ever before. If you can’t see that then you’re making a choice not to look.”
The interviewer then said that Undeath’s new album It’s Time…to Rise From The Grave sounds influenced by Cannibal Corpse’s The Bleeding, which features Barnes. Jones just owned it:
“We love The Bleeding so I’m sure that influence is in there subconsciously, but Kyle [Beam, guitars] and I have always been more drawn to the Corpsegrinder [era of] Cannibal material. Kill, Evisceration Plague, Vile, etc. – that’s more our wheelhouse.
“We were also listening to a ton of Judas Priest around the writing of this record so that’s probably in there too.”
Alex, we salute you. Thank you for letting this roll off your back and not taking this opportunity to Chris Barnes-out for everyone.
Undeath’s It’s Time… To Rise From The Grave comes out via Prosthetic Records on April 22nd and is available for preorder. Check out the album’s ripping new single below:
