Alex Webster Now With SWR!
Neck looks straight to us: Cannibal Corpse bassist Alex Webster.
Photo Courtesy Alex Webster
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Death metal heroes Cannibal Corpse are getting ready to hit the road this spring and summer. And when they do, fleet-fingered bassist and founding member Alex Webster—now officially a member of the SWR artist family—will be toting a formidable SWR-senal (see what we did there?)—a pair of SM-1500™ amps paired with two Megoliath™ 8x10 cabs. Yikes.
Over more than 20 years and nearly a dozen albums, Cannibal Corpse has traveled the globe and sold well over a million albums since forming in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1988. Despite many lineup changes over two decades, Webster has been in every incarnation of the band and, as a songwriter, is a major contributor to the band’s catalog.
Webster, certainly one of metaldom’s most well-spoken bassists, graciously checked in with SWR mere days before Cannibal’s spring 2009 North American tour got under way to talk about the latest on Cannibal, his other band, prog metal outfit Blotted Science, and how to knock people over and annoy guitarists with his volcanic new SWR rig …
SWR: You’ve been in every Cannibal Corpse lineup for more than 20 years now …
AW: Yep. I’m an original member. I’m actually the guy who named the band.
SWR: And you do a lot of writing for the band.
AW: I do an awful lot of it, yeah—probably over 50 percent of every album for the past, maybe, eight out of the 11 albums. The first two or three were a bit more collaborative, and then by the fourth one I started writing a lot on my own. Lately it’s been a little over half of every album; the last one (2009’s Evisceration Plague) was more, actually—I wrote seven and a half songs out of the twelve on that record.
SWR: Do you write on bass?
AW: Yes. I’ll write on bass, and then also I’ll take down stuff on a tab program. Like, if there are guitar parts that might be a little bit difficult for me to show, on bass, to the guitar players, I’ll write ’em on the tab program to show to those guys.
SWR: What amp gear are you using, and what brought you to SWR?
AW: Well, I’m using SM-1500 heads—I have two of those.
SWR: Massive.
AW: Yeah! I’m actually looking at it right now, because I’m still at our band practice room; we finished up about half an hour ago. And I’m just looking at the stuff, and it looks awesome. And sounds awesome. Our first tour using this gear starts on April 2, so we’re just about ready to get going. That’s a headlining tour of North America, so I’ll probably be able to have both rigs up onstage, stage size permitting. They look and sound pretty devastating.
SWR: Using what cabinets?
AW: Two Megoliaths. Two 8x10s.
SWR: Formidable …
AW: Yeah, it is. It’s definitely loud enough to annoy any guitar player (laughs). But, fortunately, our guys are pretty cool about me being loud up there.
SWR: Well, part of your recent Bass Player magazine interview (December 2008) concerned how to cut through the wall of guitars in your particular genre.
AW: Yeah. It’s a lot of things. Like, first of all, you just try to write some parts that are gonna pop through. But beyond that you dial your sound in, and that’s one of the really great things about the SWR stuff—I’ve been able to cut through great, up here practicing.
My first tour using SWR was actually last month—we opened for Children of Bodom in Europe, for a month-long tour. Over there, I used rental gear, which was two Goliath™ cabinets and a 750X™ head. That cut through amazing, but what I have here is pretty much twice that as far as power goes, so it’s that much better.
And one thing I really love about the SWR stuff is that it’s a very “true” amplifier—what you’re hearing is what you’re playing. I play clean and our band is low-tuned; we do all kinds of down-tuned stuff, where sometimes it’s a half step below tuning on five-string bass, and then sometimes it’s one and a half steps. So I have to have clarity when I’m dealing with a low A-flat—that’s way, way down there, and it (the SM-1500) holds it and it holds it tight.
Webster onstage in Europe, February 2009.
Photo by Piero Paravidino
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SWR: That’s no small feat.
AW: Yeah, it is. It really sounds clear, and it did not sound clear on the gear I used to use. It’s made a big difference. These amps can keep up with the speed and the lowness and deliver it with clarity, because I’m playing a lot of fast stuff on super-heavy-gauge strings. Like, my low B string is a 130, and I’ll play a lot of pretty fast-tempo stuff on it, so to be able to really hear those notes instead of having it turn into mush—it’s awesome to have an amp that can do that. I mean, it is the clearest, most true-sounding amp I’ve played.
SWR: Wow, we like to hear that …
AW: Yeah, it’s awesome. I love it. I really can’t wait until the tour starts. I’m always excited to go on tour, but I just can’t wait to get out there and just knock some people over with this gear (laughs).
SWR: How long is the North American tour?
AW: It’s a 22-show tour; basically the whole month of April, with a couple days off in there. It’s a bunch of cities that we don’t normally get to in the United States—places like Asheville, N.C.; Tulsa, Okla.; we’re playing Boise, Idaho. A bunch of what they call “secondary markets” in that they’re not huge cities like L.A. or New York, but still places where there are a lot of metal fans. And then we’re going up to Canada and doing a whole bunch of shows up there, going pretty much from one end of Canada to the other, starting with Vancouver and, I think the farthest east we get is Quebec City.
It’s gonna be a really good one, and people will hear me playing, that’s for sure (laughs). They’re not going to have to strain …
SWR: And what’s new with Blotted Science?
AW: We’re currently working on a creative direction for the next record. Blotted Science is the kind of band where there’s going to be a concept for each album, and so we’re working on a concept for the next album. I’ve started writing a little bit of material, and I think Ron is getting ready to write some material, too. That band is definitely led by Ron Jarzombek. He’s a great, great guitarist and a great musician all the way around.
It’s been a really great experience for me, because I get to stretch out a little bit and go beyond some of the stuff I’ve done before. You know, there are certain things I can do in that band that wouldn’t really fit with Cannibal Corpse.
SWR: You can take a different approach and have some more creative leeway.
AW: Definitely. There’s definitely a lot of different stuff going on. It’s not high power from start to finish; there are a lot more peaks and valleys. For Cannibal Corpse, we have some slight peaks and valleys, but it’s mostly peaks—a lot of those songs are just full bore from start to finish, where Blotted Science has a lot more ups and downs and a lot more dynamics in the music. And, definitely, the SWR amps I have can handle that, too.
SWR: They fit well into Blotted Science, too?
AW: Yeah, I think they’ll fit in there great.
SWR: What else is happening this year with Cannibal Corpse?
AW: Well, one more thing I should mention—because this is some pretty huge news for us as far as our plans this year—is that we’re going to be headlining the Hot Topic stage at the Rockstar™ Energy Drink Mayhem Festival this summer. The main stage is Marilyn Manson, Slayer, Killswitch Engage and Bullet for My Valentine. Our stage is us headlining, and while it’s not considered the main stage—definitely, Slayer and those bands are a lot bigger than us—but still, we’re proud to be headlining a stage.
There are three stages on that tour; I believe Trivium is headlining the other one. We’re headlining the Hot Topic® stage, and that’s us, Behemoth, Job For a Cowboy, Whitechapel and Black Dahlia Murder. So we’re pretty excited about that.
SWR: Very cool. And an SM-1500 ought to be able to handle that nicely …
AW: Well, I was like, “Man, I should just go ahead and get two of these rigs right now,” because for the smaller clubs one would be more than enough. That’s plenty loud—a 1,500-watt head with an 8x10 cabinet is gonna do the job in the clubs.
Nothing wrong with having two, though. I really wanted two so that I would have something that looked and sounded amazing and could really do the job on those big stages we’ll be playing this summer. For a club, though, there’s nothing wrong with overkill (laughs)—nothing wrong with having more firepower than you need.
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