Cardiac Arrest - There’s No Escaping the Vortex Part II
By: Mike Sloan
We continue the chat with Tom Knizner, guitarist for Chicago-based Cardiac Arrest. To read the first installment, click here.
Blistering.com: If Cardiac Arrest never alters their sound at all and essentially becomes the AC/DC of death metal, you know the media and fans will start to gripe and nitpick about your approach. I’m willing to assume that all the members of the band lay awake at night worrying about that.
Tom Knizner: [laughs] Oh yeah, for sure. Actually, that’s been happening already. Oh, I don’t care; we don’t care. Number one, it’s all about ad space that gives you good reviews, if you even get reviews. That’s the nature of it all. I didn’t understand it years ago but I’ve opened my eyes over the years. But when it comes to reviews, they’re just opinions and nobody’s ever going to please everybody. It’s the whole, “we like what we’re doing so that’s what matters” mindset. If people like it, that’s awesome. But if they don’t like it, well, thanks for checking it out, I guess. You can’t dwell on any negative review or whatever. If you think it’s going to pick up steam because you didn’t like it or something, well, that’s not going to happen.
Blistering.com: Cianide has been on a roll lately and Bones has been getting some good press lately. Nachtmystium has been gaining plenty of accolades over the years and now you guys are finally starting to get some notoriety. Macabre always kicks ass, too. It seems like the Chicago metal scene is starting to really get stronger recently. What changes have you seen over the past five or so years in the scene and is it as strong as it seems on the outside?
Knizner: The Chicago scene has always been here but for whatever reason, people didn’t pay attention to it. [Paul] Speckmann has been here forever with Warcry, Funeral Bitch, Abomination and of course, Master. He moved away and then moved again, then all of a sudden there’s this resurgence of Master and whatnot. Then everybody’s talking about how the Chicago scene is back and whatever, but he never got the recognition a long time ago. We’ve always had Cianide and Macabre and a lot of other great bands, but nobody seemed to bother.
The scene’s cool, I guess, but it depends on what you mean by “scene.” Is it going to shows? Is it the local bands? Is the amount of bands from other parts of the world that come through? It all depends on what you mean by it. As far as bands, Chicago’s always had good bands. On the South Side you’ve always had Cianide and now us, and Macabre, like you said, have always been here. Macabre are the kings here, and well-deserved. They’ve always been great. Bones, too. You can go over to Scott from Cianide’s house and you’ll have all the bands there. There’ll be us, Cianide, Bones, the Kommandant guys… we’re all friends. There are a lot of other bands, too. There’s competition between us all but it’s never like we’re going to go punch them or try to sabotage their shit or anything like that.
Each band has its own unique sound, too, and that’s maybe why the Chicago scene has largely been ignored because there isn’t a true “Chicago Sound.” You had the New York sound, the Florida sound, the Bay Area sound. We didn’t have that; we are all very different, even in the early days. There was always something different about every band. There is no Chicago sound but all those other scenes borrowed heavily from Chicago, no doubt. Bands always respected Chicago everywhere. I mean, read some of those early thanks lists from a long time ago from Entombed, Napalm Death, a lot of those bands. Chicago bands have always been respected but the fans always wanted to hear something like Deicide or someone else form Florida. Everything Florida-related was always great to everybody.
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