Bill Steer

Bill Steer — born in Liverpool, England, in 1969 — is Carcass's founding guitarist and one of the few musicians present at the creation of two distinct extreme genres. Still a teenager, he was part of Napalm Death during the phase in which the Birmingham band invented grindcore — he played on part of Scum (1987) and on From Enslavement to Obliteration (1988), records of ultra-short tracks, maximum speed and complete refusal of conventional structure. At the same time he put Carcass together, and there he made the most improbable journey in extreme metal. Reek of Putrefaction (1988) is practically inaudible in its rawness, with lyrics built from the terminology of medical pathology — it founded what would be called goregrind. Five years later Heartwork (1993) offered melodic riffs, harmonies in thirds and structured solos: it is the record that served as the model for the Gothenburg scene and for all the melodic death metal that came after. To leave one extreme and reach the other in five albums is rare. Steer is the thread running through that transformation, and his guitar is what makes it audible. He left Carcass in 1996 and spent years playing blues rock in Firebird, a project with practically nothing to do with metal. He returned with the band's reunion and recorded Surgical Steel (2013) and Torn Arteries (2021).