The day of pre-social media meant reading magazines and digging through the liner notes to find out about your favorite bands. And then maybe, just maybe, you'll get to see 'em live and have a quick chat. Now you can find out what their drummer ate for lunch and what they think about current affairs in about three seconds, comment on it, and probably start an argument.
Cannibal Corpse drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz recently dove into the topic in an interview with the Nothing Shocking podcast, saying his feelings on the matter are a little complicated. On one hand, Mazurkiewicz certainly appreciates the connectivity with fans and being able to find out more about great bands, but on the other hand knows that social media can be a bit of a ruiner for some things.
"It's a tough one. It is a tough one, because, obviously, I love what the Internet and technology has brought us, where you've got everything at your fingertips, bands being able to do so much and know so much. It is cool, but I guess my old-school mentality or being from the generation prior to that, you kind of do miss the mystique of the old days where you didn't know much about bands and you had to get your information from going to buy a magazine, what little info you did get from that or what have you, or it's word-of-mouth kind of stuff. So I kind of miss the old mystique of the metal back in the old days like that because of not knowing and not having everything at your fingertips.
"It's a tough one, because on the other hand, it's good to stay connected with the fans and so many people can… We wouldn't be doing this right now if it wasn't for that technology. So it's a tough one. But I would have to say, just looking back at how I grew up and all this, it had that certain mystique. Now maybe when I was younger, I would have liked it to be like it is now, because you can think back, what I would have known or could have known or this and that, which you don't know any better because you just don't even think of that, of course, when that's all coming up in the future and you're just living in the now.
"But I look back at how I grew up, and it was fun going to record stores and finding new bands that way and that's how you got into a lot of the bands, or reading about 'em in a magazine. If not, you'd go into a record store and go, 'Oh, look at this record. Wow. That looks cool. Let's put it on. Wow. This is awesome.' And that's how you found out new music and how you got into bands. Now, of course, who's gonna do that? It's never gonna happen. So I miss that mystique and that way of how it used to be. But that's a thing of the past, I guess. I guess I'm just happy to be a part of that."
"I always tell people I'm just happy… I got lucky, I suppose. Everyone's gotta be born when they're born and I just happened to be born in that whole transitional era with metal… Being a teenager right then at that time in the early '80s and then growing with the music and the changing of the scene daily. Look how much change happened in the metal scene from '80 to '90. It's unbelievable. Or from '82 to '85, or '85 to '88. And we were a part of that as a hungry teenager that's not even sure what… You're getting into your bands and not even sure what you're fully into yet, because you're still getting molded and all.
"So I feel very lucky that I'm part of all that and having those transitions and being a part of the movement, so to say. It was a great era to be growing up in. And if it wasn't for that, Cannibal wouldn't be what they are, and obviously I wouldn't be the drummer I am and the musician I am. So everything happened for a reason and that's the way it goes. But, yeah, exciting times. Definitely."
