Cannibal Corpse guitarist Pat O'Brien was arrested on December 10, 2018 for burglary and assaulting a police officer. Upon inspection of O'Brien's home, police found a cache weapons, rounds of ammunition, and potentially explosive devices. O'Brien was since been released from Hillsborough County jail and is facing charges of burglary of an occupied dwelling with assault and aggravated assault of a law enforcement officer. Cannibal Corpse has since recruited guitarist Erik Rutan (Hate Eternal, ex-Morbid Angel) as O'Brien's live fill-in.
Cannibal Corpse vocalist George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher recently sat down with Jamey Jasta of The Jasta Show to discuss the situation. Fisher says the news handled the coverage pretty well and that fans have been supportive.
"When people were seeing [TV reports about] it — I think on the Tampa news, they were pretty good with him. They just said he was one of the best guitar players in death metal in America, and in the world, and he's highly respected. And they didn't really trash him at all. And they showed him on TV."
"In the metal world, I think in general, everyone was, like, 'Get well soon. I didn't spend too much time reading stuff online, because that's when you get people who just wanna say nasty stuff just to be nasty."
Fisher also discusses seeing his bandmate in court, and how much it emotionally hurt.
"We love him. We want him back. But when I saw him in the court with the vest, dude, I cried. Because we just got home from tour… We wish the best for him, and we're just waiting to see [what happens]. He's got a road ahead of him still with legal issues, and that's out of our hands. We support him 100 percent; we're behind him 100 percent."
