Cancer Bats
Cancer Bats might not exactly be the first band you think of when you wonder who will be supporting Funeral For A Friend on their UK tour but as their new album Hail Destroyer hit the shelves earlier this year I thought I’d give them a spin.I caught up with the gorgeous Liam Cormier, mysterious Jaye R. Schwarzer, friendly Scott Middleton and semi-naked, yes girls, N-A-K-E-D Mike Peters backstage in Manchester to find out how these guys from Canada (which is not in America!) roll.
Hello boys, how are you all?
All: We’re all good. We’re fantastic, super, great, spectacular.Liam: It’s been awesome. The guys are all super cool considering the fact that there are a lot of kids who don’t know where we are but are really getting into it.Scott: That’s the whole point of a tour like this; to get new kids into us.Liam: And blow people’s minds!I thought you were incredible tonight! What have you been up to lately, except of course this fabulous tour?
Liam: Just playing shows really and eating lots of breakfast.
I make the best English Breakfast ever.
Liam: That’s easy to say when there’s no breakfast here. It’s a pretty bold statement. You should see me hanglide then Mike cruises around in his helicopter.
Jaye: And I test rollercoasters to make sure nothing’s wrong with them. [FF: What if you die?] That’s all part of the fun.
Don’t try and trick me with your lies you little scamps, I know your game! To get back to business; What has been your favourite show of all time?
Liam: Probably a show we did in Leeds a few nights ago because we played a house party after the show with a band called DeRail and it was amazing.
Jaye: We have proof that this happened too!
Liam: Not like your cooking skills.
(At this point Mike joins the group dressed in just a towel much to my amusement)
Liam: That’s what happens here in the locker room!
Wow, I’m coming here again; so to anyone who has been living under a rock for the past few years and haven’t heard of you; how would you describe your sound?
Jaye: [Makes some indescribable music sounds.]
Liam: I’d say to someone… “Who are you two favourite bands?” and then they’d tell me and I’d be like; “Yeah we sound like them with a bit more distortion.”
Well mine is Biffy Clyro but you don’t sound like them. Nightwish are my ultimate favourite though.
Liam: Well we sound like a mix of those two but with distortion and beards. We like Biffy though… they’re dudes.
Tell me a bit about your latest album; Hail Destroyer
Liam: It sucks.
Funny that; that’s what Fightstar said too.
Scott: We were being sarcastic though
Jaye: ooh.
Scott: That’s just me being facetious though. I’ve met them though; they’re nice dudes.
Yeah they’re pretty cool but Charlie was sticking pins through his dry skin and that scared me a bit.
Liam: No no, it doesn’t hurt. You should try it.
No way, I can’t even get a splinter out of my finger. Sticking needles in me and spiders are the worst things in the whole world!
Jaye: Ha-ha, spiders. We stayed at our friends house the other day and there were three spiders in the bathroom and Scott wouldn’t go in!
Scott: No: I didn’t want to take a shower in there. I went to the bathroom when we first got there and I didn’t see them but they must have come out as the night progressed and we made more and more noise or our crusty merch guy brought them in in his pocket.
Eww… enough! Do you have a certain process which you go through when writing songs?
Liam: Yes and no. I think we just try and bang out ideas without a specific agenda.
Scott: I think the inspiration is being out on the road for a year and a half and just taking all those experiences and what we have learned as a band and forcing it into a small room with four sweaty dudes to see what comes out.
So what’s the inspiration behind the title; Hail Destroyer?
Liam: The idea behind Hail Destroyer was looking at how, when you have everything taken away from you and put yourself in a position where you have nothing; only at that point do you really appreciate what you really need in life. So as this band started from nothing other than ourselves; when you play an amazing show you end up so psyched because everything has come along and you are so appreciative of it.
We didn’t make a lot of money at the start and having to rely on the kindness of other people a lot of the time and having to rely on other people to take us in and give us somewhere to sleep but if you had money you wouldn’t have had this experience or met all these awesome people. So for us it’s look t how we’re all better people for going through that.
When we first started touring in England we had no money and sometimes we had to make so many friends out of necessity and now they are some of our best friends in the whole world.
Mike: Many people can get bummed out on tour because you stay in a hotel every night but we go on tour and are like “Yeah we’re going back to England to see our friends again!”
Jaye: We stay at out friend’s house every night in Leeds and its awesome!
What else can we expect from you in the next few months are you going to be bringing out a new album?
Liam: Nope we’re breaking up after tonight.
No you can’t! Across Five Aprils are breaking up and I’ll just cry forever if you break up too… Everything is ending!
Liam: Across Five Aprils are breaking up? I didn’t know that.
Jaye: Pantera are reforming and Scott is going to play guitar for them.
Okay, so I assume that means you’re just going to carry on as normal then! Anyway; loads of kids look up to you guys, but who do you look up to?
Liam: For me I look up to bands who have taken control of their own career; someone like Converge who are stayed true to themselves and been around for ages and really stuck to what they love and their work ethic. They are an older band who are successful on their own terms.
Mike: I look up to a band like Radiohead who doesn’t take the safe route with what they do; they keep challenging themselves with what they do.
Jaye: We like one’s who do something different. I agree with Mike, they don’t change who they are to market themselves to a bigger audience.
Is there anyone you don’t like?
Liam: I don’t really care. I’m not going to waste my time being bummed out.
Mike: We’d rather listen to a band we like.
Scott: Alexisonfire bum me out. I wish they’d record some new stuff already! I wish they would just record a new album and take us out on tour with them.
Liam: We can sit here and talk shit about bands all day but nothing constructive can ever come from that. We have never had any serious problems with any of the bands we’ve toured with so there’s nothing we can say about that.
Scott: I don’t like racist black metal, white power or homophobic bands. That stuff sucks.
All: Agreed.
Liam: I don’t think it’s cool that hipsters are getting into racist black metal at the moment; that’s a pet peeve of mine.
Where would you like to be in ten years time?
Liam: still touring with out homies and doing what we love. I don’t think we have any specific goals. I think the fact that we can all just live off the music and not have to do ‘real’ jobs.
Mike: Yeah, I’d like to be at that stage where you can never worry or work at Tesco.
You’re not at that stage any more are you? You don’t go home and get a job?
Liam: No, we haven’t worked in a long time. And we don’t really have a lot of time when we go home because we’re not at home a lot so we spend time with out friends and family.
Jaye: I would say that in ten years time I would like to still be a relevant band and if we’re still making records I wouldn’t like to think we were just copying our successful stuff.
Liam: I would like to think that if in ten years we have though that Cancer Bats has run its course I would hope that we’re all still working in music in some form whether it be one of our side projects which we work on equally as hard.
Who would you put in your super group?
Jaye: Ice Cube, Ice Tea, Vanilla Ice and Snow.
Liam: Call them The Shivers.
I see a pattern there; Finally, we ask every musician we interview to come up with a question for the next person we interview and Neil and Ryan from Attack! Attack! Want to know if you understand a word the Welsh are saying to you?Want to know if you understand a word the Welsh are saying to you
All: No,
Jaye: Not a God Damn thing. I just nod and go “Yeah… lets party!”
Scott; the thing that I notice most is that they end all their sentences with “Like.”
Jaye: When we were on tour with Bullet For My Valentine I didn’t understand a word Matt said to me the entire time apart from whiskey… it was like… “Blah Blah Blah whiskey”
They also want to know what it’s like being on tour with an ex member of Green Day AKA Ryan Day?
Scott: If you Google search Green Day - 2001- Reading Festival - Knowledge you see Ryan from Attack! Attack! Get pulled out of the crowd and onto stage with Green Day. He crowd surfs to the front, gets pulled on stage, runs over and hugs Billie Joe who grabs him and kisses him!
I need to get some of that action maybe I’ll jump on stage next time I see him!
Scott: It’s funny because you watch this video of him when he’s like 16 and he still rocks out in exactly the same way. He just sings a little better now and his hair got longer.
So can you come up with a question for the next person I interview please?
Ask them if they prefer the new Metallica album or the new AC/DC album
Ooh, hard choice. Well have fun on the rest of the tour guys. See ya.
FemaleFirst - Ruth Harrison
Check out how we got on with their tour buddies;