Dead Rhetoric: As you get older, do you find that the touring experience has changed since when you are out on the road compared to the beginnings?
Mazurkiewicz: Of course. Everything changes, and you change as a human. It’s just the way that you go about life. We are in our 40s now. Some of us are married or family men with children. So that whole dynamic has changed. Then the whole newness and excitement about being out on the road – a lot of times we are going to places we have been many, many times. We’ve done this before so that sense of newness is gone. But that’s what you have to look for now – hey, we are going to this country or this city that we haven’t been to before. Everything starts to become the same ole, same ole. Playing the same places all of the time. But that’s part of it. You learn to accept that – we are there to do our job and there is nothing wrong with that. I’m there to play the drums and that’s what I have to focus on. I think we are more focused than ever because of those aspects. We are not in our 20s anymore – if we are now married with children, everyone is pretty relaxed and mellow. There’s not that much crazy stuff going on. Not that the old days were crazy, but when you are single and in your 20s and you are out on tour – you are going to have a good time. So things have changed a little bit, but they’ve stayed the same as well.
Dead Rhetoric: I know the band hit some new places on tour this year – are there still places you’d like to get to?
Mazurkiewicz: Not me in particular. I know Alex [Webster] is big into that. It would be great to play some places but I’m not going to freak out about it if it doesn’t happen. Or look at it in terms of losing out on something. I’ve seen so much with this band – more so than I ever dreamed I would see in my lifetime. We’ve been on every continent now besides Antarctica now, so it’s pretty cool to be able to say that. If the band takes us to places that we haven’t been to – so be it. If it ended tomorrow and I could chalk up just the places I’ve been to, it’s not a bad list at all so I can’t complain.
Dead Rhetoric: You’ve reached past the twenty-five year mark now. Do you feel the band is just as strong as ever?
Mazurkiewicz: Totally, if not the strongest we’ve ever been. I think that we have aged well. We’ve matured. We’ve kind of aged like a fine wine. Everyone is more on top of their game than ever and we are just having a good time playing the music. I think the older we have gotten, the better we’ve gotten. That’s not a bad thing!
Dead Rhetoric: I read a piece that you did about Ace Ventura earlier this year. How much of a lasting impact do you think it was that you had that little piece in the movie?
Mazurkiewicz: Really when you look back, it was huge. It was a very big deal, and it was a big cultural deal – in pop culture and music. For a death metal band back then, to be in this comedy movie – it just didn’t make sense in that way right there. But the movie did so well, that millions and millions of people were subjected to seeing Cannibal Corpse whether they wanted to or not. Ever since the movie came out, so many people have come up to us and said they saw us for the first time in Ace Ventura that had never heard of us or death metal and that’s what got them into it. Already we had been doing fairly well to ourselves, but there you go – the power of more people getting privy/subject to it than any way we could have done it at the time. It was groundbreaking. I think as time goes on, people are going to realize that more and more – how huge this was for death metal and Cannibal Corpse.
Dead Rhetoric: Would you ever consider doing something like that again if asked?
Mazurkiewicz: I’m sure we would. We were asked to do it the one time there. We did it and it was a lot of fun – a great experience. And it did well. The opportunity would have to be right of course, but why not? We would definitely look into it, and if it all made sense, it wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Dead Rhetoric: Do you feel the itch yet to write more material or are you happy with just getting out on the road for now?
Mazurkiewicz: It depends on who you ask I guess. Myself, personally, in the mode of touring it’s tough to deal with new material. That’s my opinion. I’m sure that some of the guys might be working on the stuff – that’s what we need. They are probably going to be writing most of the record anyways: Pat, Alex, and Rob are who I’m talking about. If they can get a little bit of a jump, I’m sure they are already thinking about some ideas which is great. Then as soon as this touring is done we can work some stuff out and maybe be a little ahead of the game. But for the most part, the way this band has always worked is that when the touring is done we focus 100% on the writing. Everything commences at that point. But if we can get a few ideas and half a song here and there before the touring is done, that would be a pretty cool thing.
Dead Rhetoric: Being more established, do you feel that at this point in your career you can take your time. If you are happy with A Skeletal Domain, you can go off that one for a few years?
Mazurkiewicz: I think that’s the whole thing. We are still at that point that we are a very successful band, but when it comes to the finance part of it, we don’t have those liberties. I think we would all love to really take our time and spend another year on something. But at the same time, we do a big turnaround. We don’t like being out of the public eye. Having an album every three years, that’s kind of crucial at most. Financially, it’s not feasible for us to wait much longer [than we do], and being in that public eye and not waiting too long between releases. It could be detrimental. I’m sure that we will be on track, once we finish the touring cycle we will probably just end up having our allotted, normal time we have. We usually have 6-8 months of writing and then we’ll record. Before you know it, the album’s out. We’ll probably stick to the lines that have been working for us for our entire career.
Dead Rhetoric: What will we see from Cannibal Corpse next after this tour?
Mazurkiewicz: We finish that tour in November and we pretty much go right to South America to do some shows with Testament. A good two and a half weeks down there, and that will take us to the holiday break. I believe that we will have some tours coming up at the beginning of next year but things are being worked out, and there’s not too much to say about it. Maybe another US tour and a European tour before we end the touring cycle.