Unlike many other bands out there who would think twice about recording something live and dealing with the sound and what have you, Cannibal Corpse jumped at the opportunity to do one. "I think we truly captured the live experience of seeing Cannibal Corpse with _Live Cannibalism_. There are no overdubs on this record. If there are mistakes on this record, then they are there. I think it represents us in a live capacity extremely well. Everyone who seems to hear it thinks it is a good live disc. We're flattered people feel that way about _Live Cannibalism_. This is a real live record. I think the success of this record comes from the fact that we took this live recording for what it was. We didn't go back and fix stuff. I think we played fairly decent, but nobody is perfect and there will be mistakes. I like that whole feeling of the record, of us being recorded at a certain time and just playing the music the best that we could."

Seeing that reviews and feedback of the new disc have been rather strong, would the band -- rounded out by bassist Alex Webster, guitarists Jack Owen and Pat O'Brien and drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz -- ever consider doing another one? "You never know. We'd just have to do a whole lot of different songs on the next one to make it different from what you got here. We wouldn't rule out doing another live recording."

A lot of people have been fans of the band since their inception more than a decade ago, rabidly following the band through such classic records as _Eaten Back to Life_ (1990), _Butchered at Birth_ (1991) and _Tomb of the Mutilated_ (1992), as well as embracing both original singer Chris Barnes (who now fronts Six Feet Under) and Fisher, who replaced him. Why the live record now? Why did it take so long? "Metal Blade has been talking about it for a long time and many fans were asking us at the shows about possibly doing one. I think fans are seeing Deicide and Morbid Angel putting out live records and they wanted us to do one. We thought about it and heard the feedback from fans and we took it into consideration. The main reason we did it was because the fan feedback stated that they wanted one. So we did. You have to listen to the fans. That is the main reason why we are here. We are here because we love to play music and to play death metal and they support us. Why not give them what they want?"

And about the live record experience, was the process fun? "Playing death metal live is hard to capture. Contrary to some people's beliefs, it is an extremely challenging form of music. You can easily capture simple riffs <he hums a few riffs at a slow pace>, but when you have a song like "Dead Human Collection" with the complicated riffs, you really have to pay attention to making it all come together. I don't care what anyone says, I think we captured a good flow of what a Cannibal Corpse show is like. We knew we were recording, but you put that in the back of you head and let the adrenaline take over and let the rush of things just take charge. The crowd just gets really into it all and you just go for it. It was all like a real show, except I had to do some sound checks, which I never do because I like to keep my voice raw, but I had to get all their sounds levels set. Plus they had cameras also following us around [for the live video/DVD of the same name] and that was just in your face all the time. They were filming me shaving and it was fucking nuts. They had all this behind the scenes stuff of talking to fans and sound checks and that was just bizarre. That was hard to get used to. Once the tapes were rolling and the cameras were on, we just did our thing."

And in closing, I ask, "Any favorite live albums, George?" "Oh yeah. _Unleashed in the East_ by Judas Priest is probably one of the all-time greatest live records ever put out. I also like the Sodom live disc they put out a while ago, and of course Iron Maiden's classic _Live After Death_. I also think the live Decide disc [_When Satan Lives_, from 1998] is great too. Glen Benton's vocals are so fucking powerful. He fucking rules."