Michael

Raymond Westland of Ghost Cult magazine recently conducted an interview with bassist/vocalist Jeff Walker of reactivated British extreme metal pioneers CARCASS. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below. Ghost Cult: Can you talk us through the point CARCASS reformed to the moment you actually started to work on the new album? Walker: We got together in 2007 when Bill [Steer; guitar] finally agreed on doing a couple of gigs. We didn't play any gigs that year, because I walked away from the whole thing, due to certain business arrangements I wasn't happy about. In 2008, the whole reunion thing came about. It was never meant as a long-term thing. Then 2009 came about and we got more and better offers coming in. Same thing in 2010, including a couple of events and venues we hadn't played before. Last gig we did as CARCASSwas in August 2010 with Michael Amott and Daniel Erlandsson of ARCH ENEMY. That was the closure on the whole reunion thing, becauseMichael made it explicitly clear he'd be too busy with his own bands to even consider doing anything in the future with CARCASS. At that point, we hadn't discussed doing anything beyond the whole reunion thing, so that was quite a relief. At some point, Bill contacted me about whether I'd fancy doing anything with Dan Wilding, who was a member ofABORTED when they toured the U.S. Bill has a thing with drummers and he wanted to do something musically with Dan. As for me, I was really prepared and willing to do more music with CARCASS back in 2009. When you're in a band with Bill Steer, Michael Amott and Daniel Erlandsson, it would be wasting a great opportunity not to. Daniel would have made himself available if we would continue doing music with CARCASS, but when push came to shove, he had to make a decision and he decided to stay with ARCH ENEMY. It wasn't really a matter of choosing for him. If he stuck around for longer, a CARCASS album would have been around sooner perhaps.