Interview: Cancer Bats
Cancer Bats “French Immersion”
By Bushman
So who really hates Canada? I hear people make fake jokes about hating Canada, and of course there is the South Park ‘Blame Canada’ song. But seriously, when has a Canadian done you harm? Most people in the South have never seen one. Please refrain from all Brian Adams and Celine Dion jokes please. I grew up in Wisconsin and we were too busy hating on Chicago and Illinois in general to worry about our upstairs neighbors. They’ve got the killer health care, don’t start shit with the world and know how to get totally fucked up without killing each other. Canadians have a great sense of humor and if you haven’t seen the Trailer Park Boys yet, you are doing yourself a
comedic disservice.
Plus, their rock and roll, metal and indie rock bands usually range from pretty fucking good to downright awesome. They hide up there in the cold in their basements and hone their craft tightly before pushing it on the world. A lesson many of our country’s over-privileged and under-aged fashionistas of rock should study.
If they need a tutor, I recommend the Cancer Bats. They have a lethal rock and roll explosion that fuses punk, hardcore and metal. Underneath that molten rage is a Southern metal vibe (the band claim Phil Anselmo’s side project Down as an influence). It’s a large rolling metal rock sound with jackknife tempos and snarling vocals. Keeping that rock streak alive within the aggression proves to be an antagonist factor that provides the tension and anger ample fuel to burn.
Its rock and roll metal with flames painted up the side.
And just so it’s clear, all ‘Mutha Fuckin’ answers are by Liam ‘Mutha Fuckin’ Cormier of The ‘Mutha Fuckin’ Cancer Bats
Calling Toronto home, where does the Southern metal influence in Cancer Bats sound come from?
Liam ‘Mutha Fuckin’ Cormier: We all grew up listening to a lot of Southern rock and metal. My Dad would play Alman Brothers and stuff like that when I was a little kid. Our guitar player Scott got into stuff like Pantera, Down and Corrosion of Conformity at a young age, so that is just what we grew up listening to. Scott was busy learning how to shred like DimeBag instead of doing his math homework in the 8th grade. He can’t add or subtract for shit, but man can he rip a guitar.
“Birthing the Giant” is your first full length. Story behind the title?
The title comes from the idea of how long our first record took to come out. We kept having set backs and schedule changes for recording and re-writing songs. The whole endeavor ended up taking nine months to get the record finished. So it was like incubating this big, dirty, rockn’roll baby.
What was the inspiration/motivation for the center spread (pun intended) artwork for the CD booklet?
On the inside of the CD we have a woman in the ocean giving birth to a huge steam ship. It sounds gross, but we had our friend Alex Snelgrove draw the whole thing up and she made it look really classy and beautiful. The idea behind the drawing was to go along with the whole “epic birth” idea we had for the record. The fact that we finally put a record out is an insane feat, much like a woman pushing a boat out of her vagina.
In “Grenades” you refer to the ‘freshest kids’ who have the ‘Heart Guts shirts’ and ‘the patched-up backs’. What kids are you referring to and what significance do they hold in the song?
The song is about all of my friends and how they inspire me to kick ass at life because they themselves are out kicking ass on a daily basis. “Heart Guts” is a shout out to a friends clothing company and also when I talk about “Villains&Crooks” that is another friends t-shirt line (now just called Villains). Seeing my friends working hard and doing well makes me want to do the same with my band. I use the term “kids” when referring to anyone young or old i.e. “punk rock kids” or “hardcore kids”. I still call myself a “kid” even though I just turned 27. In the song, when I’m talking about girls with “stiched tight slacks” or kids with “patched up backs”, I’m talking about people wanting to look good and spend time sewing their pants to be tighter or putting a patch on the back of a jacket or hoodie. The DIY approach to looking radical and being a sweltering babe is very inspiring to me.
For being a relatively newer band (formed in 2004), you’ve played a significant amount of live shows.
We started the band late 2004 and started playing shows in 2005 after recording a 4 song demo. In ‘05 we played less than 100 shows that year, doing small tours in Canada and a handful of stuff in America-land. Then ‘06 hit and we cranked that fucker up, playing just shy of 200 shows that year. The first part of the year was spent getting the songs for the record ready and recording. Most of the touring happened after the release was out in June. This year, I want to play as many shows as possible, I love going on tour. I think playing live is a huge factor in being a band. Anyone can record and sound tight and heavy or whatever. But if you can’t pull it off live, you’re fucked. When you’re playing a small community center in the middle of nowhere with a shitty PA and you’re on the floor with a pack of crazed 14-year-olds in Metallica shirts and they are all head banging… no computer in the world can fake that. It’s do or die.
How funny is The Trailer Park Boys?
Holy Fuck! Trailer Park boys is one of the funniest shows I’ve come across in a long time. If you’ve never seen the show you need to get your Google on and check that shit out. What’s even funnier is when you go on tour to that part of Canada where the television show is based, and you meet a ton of people who are just like the characters on the show. Like dudes who don’t have their Grade 10 because they were in jail the day they were supposed to write their final exams. We met this one kid who went and got STAY GOLD tattooed on his knuckles instead of showing up to write his High School Equivalence test. If that’s not “staying gold” I don’t know what is.
Please start a fight with America and say something bad about us. We apparently don’t like Canada, but I asked around and no one can tell me why. (Personally, I think we hate everyone that isn’t ‘us’).
Yeah I don’t know where that rumor came from. I’ve never met Americans that hate us for being Canuks. I’m not one to talk shit so I don’t really know what I’d say? I kind of hate American money. It all looks the same, so I think I’m balling out of control with a thick wad of 1’s and get my wallet out and realize I’m still the same broke loser I was in Canada, just now I don’t have a sock full of change (all of our money is coins). So there it is America, fuck you and your dollar bills. Fuck them in your stupid fucking asses.
Now be nice and say something about America that’s good, since everyone I personally know seems to think you guys are all right.
I’m sorry America, I didn’t mean any of that stuff about dollar bills. You know I love you, sometimes I just get crazy baby. I’ll tell you something I love about USA is Jack In The Box. That place has everything! Cheap prices, breakfast all day and night, egg rolls! Jack In The Box is an unstoppable force that has yet to make its way North, but if Jack and his huge Snowman Brain ever come up here, all of our fast food chains are in a ton of fucking trouble. God Bless you Jack.
2006 Birthing The Giant (Abacus)
