Travis Ryan of CATTLE DECAPITATION Interview Page 2
By Greg Nalbandian

SW: You have a good sense of humor as evidenced by your band name and your lyrics. It seems you don't take yourselves too seriously.
TR: Well, it's really tongue and cheek. You can take it how you want it pretty much; there is a lot of humor in there. We're kinda funny guys I guess. Mainly I write the lyrics so it's just kinda sick mind; sick twisted Saturday Night Live type of humor. You know, kinda dark and mixed with reality.

SW: Would you consider yourself to be a normal person, mentally?
TR: Fairly normal, yeah...Yeah, definitely. We're middle-class background and the whole nine yards you know. I had a great childhood, good family and everything so, yeah...Definitely. I'm a normal person; I've just got a sick mind and a good imagination I guess.

SW: How did you get the name, "Cattle Decapitation"?
TR: We started like, back in 1996...Um, I'm not too sure why. We never really talked about it much. I just know that they were vegetarians. When I came into the band I didn't really think too much about whether it was vegetarian or not. I think it also had a lot to do with the fact that we were big Carcass fans. I really don't know how they came up with it. I'm sure it had something to do with that kind of mindset at the time.

SW: Do you think that lyrics can determine the success or failure of a band--because it's pretty hard to understand the vocalist [in this type of music]? I think a lot of people are too lazy or indifferent to carefully read the lyrics. What are your thoughts on that? Are people really looking at what you're saying?
TR: I think so. Yeah, definitely. I think more so than I thought they even would. A lot of people talk to me about the lyrics and mention that almost first. They always mention the music first, of course, but a lot of the interviews I've done or the people I talk to, they want to talk about the lyrics or what we stand for or whatever. But I think you can't expect to get too far talkin' about stuff like this. Like mainstream media doesn't really want to accept it. Except lately it's been getting kinda crazy. There's all this reality t.v. and everything's getting more extreme. People are starting to pay a little bit more attention to extreme music.

SW: Getting back to your mindset. Are you often thinking about the kinds of things you write about in your songs? Or do you just do this when you sit down to write lyrics?
TR: I get this stuff off the top of my head. The music is very blunt and to the point, in your face and very immediate. I write the same way. I think of one liners, stuff off the top of my head. I create the name of the song first and then...Like I have a whole list of names for the next album you know, just the song titles. And then I go from there as far as the ideas and I just elaborate. You can kinda tell if you read some of the song titles and then read the lyrics.

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