Chris Barnes (born December 29, 1967) is an American death metal vocalist, lyricist and producer who currently serves as the frontman of Six Feet Under. Artistically, he is noted for his low guttural vocals and explicitly violent lyrics.
Barnes was the co-founder and original lead vocalist and lyricist of Cannibal Corpse, staying with the band from 1988 to 1995 and recording four studio albums, including Tomb of the Mutilated (1992). He later founded the Florida death metal band Six Feet Under, for whom he also provides lead vocals and songwriting. In addition, he has also appeared on Torture Killer's second album Swarm! Barnes designed the original Cannibal Corpse logo, the Six Feet Under logo and the artwork for the band's 1997 album Warpath.
Barnes is considered to be among the most influential extreme metal vocalists of all time. His vocal style on early Cannibal Corpse releases is frequently emulated by practitioners of the slam and brutal death metal subgenres.
Early life and education Barnes began smoking marijuana at an early age. His father grew and sold the drug, and he recalled feeling like his "world opened up" upon smoking it for the first time, smoking roach clips lifted from his father's ash trays. He recalled feeling lucky growing up in a progressive household where his dad grew and sold cannabis, and he said "I remember the original Acapulco Gold strains, and Panama Red, the real Red, that were eradicated."
Barnes first met bandmate Paul Mazurkiewicz when the former moved to the neighborhood with his mother. According to Barnes, the two were not friends at first. Barnes recalled being struck in the groin by Mazurkeiwicz during an altercation between the two while playing street football. The two began smoking marijuana and listening to heavy metal together soon thereafter.
Barnes graduated high school in 1986. He found employment at a warehouse after entering the workforce. A friend of his during this time had drug problems, and he claims to have spent time in underprivileged neighborhoods to see how people lived there. According to Barnes in the book Precious Metal: "I put myself in weird situations just to get something out of it."
Musical career Cannibal Corpse
Barnes started his career at the age of 19. His first band was a death/thrash band called Tirant Sin, which was formed in 1986 in his hometown of Buffalo, New York. Other members of Tirant Sin included Paul Mazurkiewicz (drums), Bob Rusay, Cam V and Joe Morelli (guitars) and Rich Ziegler (bass guitar). In 1986, Barnes left Tirant Sin to join another New York-based death/thrash metal band named Leviathan that recorded the four-track demo "Legions of the Undead" in 1987, re-released on the 2005 Six Feet Under box set A Decade in the Grave.
Tirant Sin recorded three demos, all privately released: "Desecration of the Graves" in February 1987, "Chaotic Destruction" in fall 1987 with Dennis John on vocals, and "Mutant Supremacy" in 1988. Barnes appeared only on the third demo, when he re-joined Tirant Sin in January 1988.
After Tirant Sin, Barnes co-founded Cannibal Corpse. Barnes wrote all of the lyrics on the albums Butchered at Birth, Tomb of the Mutilated, and The Bleeding and wrote the lyrics on Eaten Back to Life with the rest of the band helping. The band relocated to Tampa, Florida in 1995. Barnes stated in a 2025 interview that the move was ratified without his knowledge, and he was not given a say in the decision.
Barnes became notorious for his explicitly violent lyrics. He professed to being interested in horror, gore, and serial killings.
Barnes was fired from Cannibal Corpse in 1995 during the recording sessions for Vile due to creative and personal differences with the rest of the band. He attributed his leave to being ridiculed by the others, as well as personal differences that could not be worked out. His final vocal recordings with the band were for the "Created to Kill" sessions which were later re-recorded by his replacement George Fisher for the Vile album. The "Created to Kill" demo featuring Barnes was eventually released as part of the 15 Year Killing Spree box set released in 2003. Barnes later commented in 2008 that being fired was "pretty memorable but in a good way", as he was previously not able to write the way he wanted.
Six Feet Under
Barnes' departure from Cannibal Corpse allowed him to devote his full attention to the band Six Feet Under, which had been his side project since 1993. The group initially featured members from Obituary. The group's first album Haunted was released in 1995. The group's second album Warpath was released in 1997. The group's third album Maximum Violence was released in 1999. The group's fourth album Graveyard Classics was released in 2000. They released True Carnage in 2001. They released Double Dead in 2002. Bringer of Blood was released in 2003. In 2005, Six Feet Under released 13, their sixth full-length album, produced by Barnes. In the same year, Six Feet Under released A Decade in the Grave, a box set highlighting the previous ten years of Six Feet Under.
Six Feet Under released the album Commandment on April 17, 2007.
On November 11, 2008, Six Feet Under released another album, Death Rituals. It saw the band returning to Morrisound Studios in Tampa, Florida, with Chris Carroll producing and mixing by Toby Wright (Slayer, Korn, In Flames, Fear Factory, etc.) and the return of old friend Bill Metoyer, who recorded the band's album Warpath, who helped out with recording of the drums.
In November 2011, Rob Arnold and Matt DeVries posted statements saying they had left Chimaira to play in Six Feet Under full-time. However, in 2012, DeVries moved on to Fear Factory, replacing longtime bass guitarist Byron Stroud. The vacant position was subsequently filled by the ex-Brain Drill 7-string bass guitarist, Jeff Hughell.
The band's ninth studio album, Undead, was released on May 22, 2012. Rob Arnold was later replaced by Ola Englund. The band stated that Arnold would remain a central writing partner and collaborator on future Six Feet Under releases.
Six Feet Under's tenth album Unborn was released on March 19, 2013, and their eleventh record Crypt of the Devil was released May 5, 2015. Nightmares of the Decomposed followed in 2020. Killing for Revenge followed in 2024.
On March 11, 2026, the band announced their fifteenth album, Next to Die, set for release on April 24. They also released the lead single from the album, "Unmistakable Smell of Death". This was followed on April 6 by the release of the second single, "Mutilated Corpse In The Woods".
Artistry
Vocal styles
Will Hodgkinson of The Times said that Barnes "took metal vocals from the scary to the ridiculous," and his tone has been favorably described as "hideous." On early Cannibal Corpse releases, he employed a thrash metal vocal style, which Alex Webster called "a different type of death metal singing," and compared it to the likes of Kreator and The Accused. By the band's second album Butchered at Birth, his vocals were drastically lower. Barnes has stated that he developed his guttural vocal style as an attempt to blend into the music, or "become another instrument", as the band composed increasingly darker and more aggressive songs. Many within the death metal scene believe Barnes to be among the first to employ the deeper guttural style in their growls, along with Chuck Schuldiner.
Though his vocals on Butchered and Tomb of the Mutilated were characterized as an indecipherable "gurgle," beginning with The Bleeding, publications noted an increase in clarity in his enunciation. He recalled feeling like he wanted to enunciate more clearly on The Bleeding because the music was more clearly pronounced. At the time, he wanted to prove to himself that he could still do heavy singing, but he also wanted people to understand his lyrics and storylines, which were important to him. Following his tenure with Cannibal Corpse, Barnes became widely known for his "eee" squeal on Six Feet Under releases, which would become his trademark. According to Will Hodgkinson of The Times, Barnes' squeal "brings to mind pigs in slaughterhouses awaiting their fate."
Although his vocal performances on later Six Feet Under releases have been called "a shell of his Corpse glory," Barnes has defended the evolution in vocal styles throughout his career as simply due to stylistic choice and personal preference. Rather than sticking to one style on every album, he prefers to adjust his vocals to fit the nuances of each song and explore new approaches. His gutturals started when hearing aspects of the riffs such as the syncopation, and he wanted his vocals to be "melted together" with the music. He compared his vocal changes to an actor, loved by a fan for a particular role, who changes their technique or feeling in their next role. According to Barnes, the way he writes his vocals comes from the work presented to him, and the difference in vocal sound on each album is intentional.
Lyrics
Publications have called Barnes a "deranged lyrical genius," and Dark Angel drummer Gene Hoglan has credited Barnes as one of the "progenitors of the gore style." Graham Hartmann of Loudwire said, "lyrically, he was a deranged, murderous savage with a vivid imagination for extinguishing life, possessing an unquenchable bloodlust." Barnes' lyrics generally follow a fictional, narrative format, heavily drawing influence from horror fiction and true crime. On his lyrical content on the first four Cannibal Corpse albums, he said: "It wasn't meaningless jargon written down to fast music", as he always took pride in writing storylines.
Barnes assessed his emotional approach to writing lyrics that pertain to the topic of death. He described people forcing themselves to not think of death because "it's the most horrifying experience in life" and it makes them do more with life. On two or three people who asked if his lyrics were metaphors, he said "I find this to be about lifestyle, more than it is about death." He said he writes from the standpoint of sitting in the darkness by oneself alone at night, thinking about what the last moment of being alive is like.
According to Barnes, he did not write for shock value, as he felt that shock alone did not work, but instead wrote to evoke emotions like fear. He explained that he felt that it was exciting, interesting and matched the band's extreme music.Dick, Chris. Precious Metal: Decibel Presents the Stories Behind 25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces. Da Capo Press. p. 150. "Entrails Ripped From a Virgin's Cunt" from Tomb of the Mutilated is considered one of his more extreme lyrical pieces, with Metal Hammer calling the line "mutilated with a machete" one of the song's "more upbeat, uplifting moments."
Barnes said the controversy surrounding his lyrics on early Cannibal Corpse releases nearly got him shot and killed before a 1994 concert in Los Angeles. He recalled gang members storming the band's tour bus, one of whom had just gotten out of San Quentin and had a .38 caliber stuffed into his belt lining. The gang member said "We're gonna kill you if you keep writing about this stuff", and Barnes tried to talk to him calmly and said "Hey, I respect your opinion" before their tour manager got the gang members off the bus.
Impact
Legacy and influence Barnes is recognized by some as "one of the first real guttural death metal vocalists." In 2024, Will Hodgkinson of The Times named Barnes as one of the best voices in heavy metal, and noted that there exist "entire YouTube compilations dedicated to [his] signature “eee” squeal." Previously in 2015, Joe Davita of Loudwire joked: "We never claimed that Chris Barnes was a well-adjusted man." Barnes himself expressed pride in everything he did, and he thought the first Cannibal Corpse records he was involved with "will continue to be thought of as one of the purest moments of death metal history".