Undeath’s Alex Jones On Chris Barnes’ Modern Death Metal Hate: “I Need To Send Him A Gift Basket Or Something”

By no direct action of his own, Undeath vocalist Alex Jones found himself experiencing the disdain of Six Feet Under frontman Chris Barnes last month. Barnes, who served as the original singer for pioneering death metal outfit Cannibal Corpse until departing in 1995, vented on the current state of death metal and his distaste for it on social media late last month. Upon watching a ‘Death Metal Round Table’ conducted by Knotfest, Barnes tweeted:

The vocalists of several prominent modern death metal bands appeared in that aforementioned round table, including Barnes‘ replacement in Cannibal Corpse, George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher. In addition to The Black Dahlia Murder‘s Trevor Strnad and Gatecreeper‘s Chase Mason, Undeath‘s Alex Jones also took part.

Since making his comments, Barnes has stuck to his guns on his views, while also making his views further known via a series of retweets of Twitter users that agree with him. Barnes also shutdown several established metal musicians who trolled him for his comments, including members of Lamb Of God and Trivium in the days that followed his initial comments.

As it turns out, Jones himself is somewhat thankful for the attention Barnes‘ derision has brought towards his band. Speaking recently on the ‘Everflowing Stream‘ (see below,) Jones offered:

“Man, you know I just think it’s sad. I guess… I’ll try not to be too dismissive, here because I want to provide a serious answer to that question. But I think… you know, the guy’s a legend. He was an instrumental member on some of the most important death metal albums in history. I think if he had just stayed in his lane, so to speak, and not become like you know, a right-wing anti-vaxxer ghoul, then he could be a very well respected, loved, beloved character in the metal scene.

But I think he just made some very bad calls with the things that he chose to align himself with. I think he has kind of exposed some very obnoxious and kind of gross and frustrating beliefs over recent years. All in all, I knew all of that about him going into him saying what he said on Twitter, so I wasn’t surprised.

I wasn’t really expecting somebody like Chris Barnes at his current state to view that Knotfest video and say ‘wow, death metal is in great hands. I’m so proud of all these guys.’ Like, I know he’s he’s turned into a curmudgeon over the past 15-20 years, but it is what it is. I’m unbothered by it, and the rest of the guys in the band, we just kind of think it’s funny. And honestly, I need to send him a gift basket or something, because he’s given the new record a lot of free press over the past couple days.”

Undeath‘s sophomore album “It’s Time… To Rise From The Grave” is headed for an April 22nd release date.