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Amusement arcades and fun centres are all about variety, and they tend to attract a vibrant and diverse group of people to spend some time and have a lot of fun, whether they choose to play laser tag together, race go-karts or play a range of different games.
However, the last person one would expect to be a master of the ever-popular crane game is a heavy metal musician who has dedicated 37 years of his life to performing some of the most brutal music imaginable and spends his day job going by the name “Corpsegrinder”.
George Fisher could not be more different from this stage persona, however, and the best way to understand this is to compare his day job to the exceptionally wholesome quest he undertakes in his downtime.
George Fisher is the frontman for the band Cannibal Corpse, a band so infamous for its violent lyrics that it often transcends parody, and Mr Fisher himself, with his gigantic neck, exceptionally gruff and growling singing voice and long hair often whipping around as he headbangs, is a hugely popular, influential and feared figure on stage.
Off stage, he could not be more opposite to the “Corpsegrinder” name he has on stage and spends his time between concerts on tour largely playing games and particularly enjoys playing crane games, as he would admit in an interview for the magazine Metal Hammer.
Some of the interview is about his latest album, other parts are about his family, but the biggest chunk is about his love of crane games, known in the United States as claw machines.
He can tell from the moment it reacts whether he has a chance of winning, and gets particularly annoyed at people who cheat to win or have a system that could get them kicked out of an arcade, describing it as like stacking the deck when playing a card game.
He also gets really annoyed at people who talk whilst the claw is in motion, snapping at a child who talked whilst he was trying to pick up a collectable car. Given that he has quite a menacing voice, that was presumably quite the fright for the boy.
However, that particular frustration belies the fact that he is exceptionally good at claw games, at one point winning four on a single credit. This is an incredible achievement, given that claw games are infamously difficult to win consecutive games on.
Ultimately he does all of this for the love of the game and anything he wins outside of some that his two daughters might want is given to local children’s charities or to children nearby who didn’t win the game.
Whenever a Cannibal Corpse album is released, as well as in early 2021, pictures of Corpsegrinder with his gigantic plush winnings will often resurface and be shared widely, often in contrast to other members of the heavy metal community who have far less wholesome personal lives.
Being good at crane games is an immense power, and it is heartwarming to see it used for good.
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