Tom Hanks Could Be a Carcass Fan, According to Jeff Walker

Tom Hanks — death metal listener? Jeff Walker, the bassist and lead vocalist in English extreme metal pioneers Carcass, recently suggested the Hollywood actor may be a fan of his band.

One could guess it's not out of the realm of possibility that the 65-year old Cast Away and Forrest Gump star might have spun some classic Carcass records at some point in his life. After all, plenty of celebrities double as metalheads. But where did Walker hear that Hanks was into Carcass?

Reminiscing with Metal Hammer in an interview from Monday (Sept. 20), the death metal veteran tossed out Hanks' name when asked for the most unlikely Carcass fan he'd ever known.

"I remember years ago reading in a magazine that Tom Hanks used to have parties in Beverly Hills," Walker remembered, "and that he used to play Reek of Putrefaction to his friends. Maybe some softarse got it wrong and they meant [reputed death metal fan] Jim Carrey. Or maybe my memory has just made it up."

Not that the musician is especially proud of Reek of Putrefaction, Carcass' 1988 debut album. And he doesn't mince words when addressing it. "It's a sonic abortion," Walker says of the effort now.

"The production is shit," he continues. "I'd like to re-record it, just to prove that it could be a really killer album 'cos there's some good riffs on it. With [1989's] Symphonies of Sickness, we were basically remaking that first album, 'cos it was such a disappointment."

But by the time they made 1991's Necroticism – Descanting the Insalubrious, Walker says, they "were no longer seen as this crusty grind band, we were seen as a metal band. I remember our old manager saying, 'Yeah, my favorite period was before you were this lame metal band.' Maybe he was right."

Building on that humility, the musician adds, "We never thought we were the next Metallica."

Carcass' Torn Arteries, their first full-length LP since 2013's Surgical Steel, just arrived last week. Between albums, the band issued the Surgical Remission/Surplus Steel (2014) and Despicable (2020) EPs.