Paul Mazurkiewicz has been the drummer in CANNIBAL CORPSE since 1988, which means he has toured for almost four decades. Asked by "Reckless" Rexx Ruger of Pod Scum whether the road still feels the way it used to, he refused the polite answer.
"It's definitely different," he said. "We'd be lying if we said, 'Oh, it's just as exciting and gung-ho as it was in the early days.' Of course. But it's what we have to do. It's part of our job, and we wanna be out there, of course, still playing to the fans and all that. But the older we get, the harder it is — the harder it is to be away and to live on a bus with everybody."
What has changed is not the playing so much as the living. "We've been doing it our whole lives, so I guess we have that experience of how to do it and how to live out there as opposed to being home." The practical answer is unglamorous and deliberate: eat well, stay hydrated, sleep, and get off the bus. "I go on walks every day, just to kind of get some good exercise. And being able to get away to keep your sanity, because it gets a little tough when you're on the bus with, say, ten guys."
He is also candid that the tours themselves have thinned out, and that this suits him. "Maybe the tours aren't happening as frequently as they did, which is fine as well. If we can maximize in that regard, I think we're all happy." The friction is in the switch. "You get home, you're used to being home and being by yourself or with your family, then you gotta go out on the road and live like the old days. It's tough. But we make it work."
Thirty-odd years in Florida have made him picky about weather, too. A winter run where it is snowing or raining removes the one thing that keeps him level: "I love to be able to get outside, enjoy the fresh air, get away from people and take walks."
On the drumming itself, he told Laughing Monkey With Shawn Ratches in August that he has no interest in coasting. "I don't wanna fool myself or feel like I'm just gonna go up and go through the motions. I wanna feel good up there. And I do." The cost of that is practice, more of it than ever. "I gotta practice probably way more than I've ever had just to sustain and maintain."
The reason is blunt enough. "I'm not thirty years old anymore. You don't have that natural adrenaline flowing. I still have it, but it's waning, and I really gotta work on it to sustain that. Because if I don't, then it's gonna be really quick where I'm gonna turn around and go, 'Wow, I can't do this.' It's harder to come back to it."
CANNIBAL CORPSE's sixteenth album, "Chaos Horrific", arrived in September 2023 via Metal Blade Records, recorded at guitarist Erik Rutan's Mana Studio in Florida. It was Rutan's sixth production for the band and his second as a full member.