Cancer Bats: Interview

E-mail interview with Liam Cormier of Cancer Bats

By Aniruddh "Andrew" Bansal

August 9th 2010, Los Angeles CA

Andrew: How did the Cool Tour go for you guys?
Liam: Cool tour was a lot of fun. All the bands on it were super rad and really fun to hang out with everyday and the whole thing was pretty laid back, it was just one big summer bro down.

Andrew: How many songs from the latest album "Bears, Mayors, Scraps & Bones" did you get to play and how did those work out live?
Liam: We would only play a couple of new songs every night. We only had 25 mins to play so we tried to play songs off all our records in our set. Keep it short and sweet.

Andrew: What can you tell me about the footage on the bonus DVD that came with the pre-ordered version of the album?
Liam: We all really like when bands have footage of the making of their album. I just think its really interesting to see how other bands work and you can get a sense of what they're like when not just making music. Tegan&Sara had a really good one that came with their album The Con and Mastodon had a really cool one that came with Crack the Skye, so we kind of looked to those for a similar vibe. We asked a good friend of ours to come and film us for the month and she put together this awesome DVD at the end of it, I was really happy with how the whole thing turned out.

Andrew: Where does that album title come from?
Liam: The title is a reference to the 4 of us in the band. This was the first record we wrote and recorded as a four piece and we finally have a solid line up in the band so I wanted a title to reflect that. Each of the names in the title comes from one of our nicknames.

Andrew: Besides this album, you also released the Sabotage EP this year and you played Sabotage on this tour. The Beastie Boys must be really special to you?
Liam: Were all huge Beastie Boys fans and have all grown up on that band. We had started doing the cover of Sabotage live the summer we were writing the new album. The cover was going over so well everywhere we played it that we figured we might as well record it too while we had extra time in the studio.

Andrew: What's the hardcore punk scene like in Toronto? Has it changed at all in the six years since you started out?
Liam: Toronto's scene has always been really strong. Because its right in between Detroit and Buffalo we always get tons of tours coming through, there's always been a really huge live music scene in the city. Even more so there's a really strong DIY scene in all of the suburbs around the city with kids doing shows in halls and church basements so there's lots of places for young bands to play without having to travel that far. Toronto rules.

Andrew: 'Fake Gold', a song on the new album, is supposed to be about there being no good new music. Do you strongly think there's no good music out there today?
Liam: Its not that I don't think there's any good new bands right now. I think there's so many rad new bands like Nails, Black Breath, Congress, Baptist, Spirals, Barn Burner, Bison BC I could go on forever. That song's more about when I look at what kids are into and what's popular and it makes me shake my head in confusion. I'm pretty over the trend of kids with bad voices singing through computers. It sounds like The Black Eyed Peas with break downs. That's more what that song's about.

Andrew: You've said in the past that people have a misunderstanding about metal and hardcore. Why do you think "metal kids" and "hardcore kids" are judged merely by the way they look?
Liam: I think its always one of those things where people have preconceived notions about someone based on how they look. I spent an hour yesterday at the bank trying to explain that I ran a legitimate business and that's why I had so much cash to deposite, but I think she just thought I was a drug dealer or that all my money was counterfeit. I think its just because I wasn't someone that she was used to dealing with and she couldn't get past the fact that I didn't fit the description of a normal business person in her mind. Understandable but very frustrating at the time.

Andrew: You've played major festivals like Download, Rock Am Ring and Rock Im Park. How do you compare those to a festival tour like the Cool Tour?
Liam: Those European festivals are a lot different than Cool Tour. All those other festivals are huge with 100,000 people camping for a weekend to watch ACDC, Ramstein, Rage Against The Machine Them Crooked Vultures, and tons of different bands. As I Lay Dying played all those same festivals as us, just on different days. Cool tour is more of a mini traveling festival with 8 bands playing in clubs. Both are cool but like comparing grapes and watermelons.

Andrew: What are some of your favorite bands from the Cool Tour line-up and why?
Liam: My 2 favorite bands on Cool Tour were UnderOath and BTBAM. I would make a point of watching both of their sets every night of the tour. BTBAM play so tight and their show always sounds so awesome, it would just blow my mind watching them every night. UnderOath are an amazing live band. They all rock out so hard and on top of that they had the best light show I've ever seen. Both bands just blew my mind everyday.

Andrew: You have a funny and unique sort of relationship going with the members of Alexisonfire, where you appear in each other's music videos. How did that start in the first place?
Liam: We've known those guys for a super long time and grew up going to shows with them. Scott and I both played in bands before CB that played with Alexis when they were starting out and we became tight friends from that. Once we started this band they were all super into our band and brought us on tons of tours with them. Love those dudes.

Andrew: What other tours are you looking forward to?
Liam: We have a bunch of stuff coming up that I'm really excited about. We're going to Japan and Australia with Bullet For My Valentine and Bring Me The Horizon which should be really cool. Then we head to England with Bring Me The Horizon for a few weeks and right after that we tour all of Europe with Dillinger Escape Plan which should be amazing and right after that we do a headline tour of the UK with Trash Talk. I can't wait for all of those tours to happen.

Andrew: Are you planning on doing a full headline run across the States to play this new album any time soon?
Liam: We don't have any headline stuff planned but we have some cool support tours we're figuring out for America at the end of this year and early 2011. Keep your eyes peeled for that.

Andrew: Last year in November you were a guest on Bruce Dickinson's radio show. What was that like?
Liam: It was pretty fun, Bruce wasn't even on the show its was just the singer of Saxon, myself and the singer of a UK band Rise to Remain. We just hung out for a bit, I played a Manowar song. The whole show was for a big festival show in England that didn't even happen, kind of funny in hindsight.

Andrew: List your five favorite albums of all time.
Liam: 1. Led Zeppelin III
2. NOFX - Punk in Drublic
3. Hatebreed - Satisfaction Is The Death of Desire
4. Botch - We Are The Romans
5. Dead Meadow - Shivering Kings

Andrew: When you were picking between Cancer Bats and Pneumonia Hawk for the band name, what made you decide on Cancer Bats?
Liam: I used to work at a call centre and one night I had narrowed it down to those two names, so I got everyone to get off the phones (I was the manager) and I asked all 30 of them which name they liked. Everyone liked Cancer Bats best so I decided to go with that one. That and I figured Pneumonia was too hard to spell and or pronounce.

Check out Cancer Bats' official website.

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