Cancer Bats (05/09/2012)
We recently spoke with Liam Cormier of Cancer Bats, who will soon be making their debut Soundwave Festival appearances.
Very exciting news that CANCER BATS will be returning to Australia for Soundwave 2013, one of Australia’s favourite live bands, it seems like you’re here every year.
I wish it were true. I actually feel bad that it’s taken us so long to come back.
We’ve tried but had to shuffle things around with us coming on Soundwave, which I couldn’t be more excited about because there’s so many rad bands playing.
And it’s your first Soundwave.
Yeah, it’s our first time. We were suppose to do it actually in 2009 and we had to cancel, it sucked.
Damn! I’m sure you’ve heard lots about it from your friends who have toured with the festival before, what are you expecting from the festival?
Well basically everyone we know has done Soundwave Festival in the past and has told us that not only is it the best festival but it’s such a huge bro-down amongst all of the bands, because it’s like a tour with so many bands like travelling around. Like normally you tour with like 3 or 4 bands in a package and you all cruise around, where this is like 50 bands traveling across a country in like a huge caravan, like just hanging out and having the best time ever, it’s just like “Yeah”!
It sounds like the greatest thing ever and then it’s been re-enforced by all of our friends saying “yeah it’s the best thing, you guys totally have to do it” and it’s like “yeah we just need to get asked”!
Well finally you’ve been asked.
Did you stalk Soundwave to be asked to join the line up?
Yeah! We were like “C’mon we’d be really good, we’re really good at festivals I promise”.
So did you send them notes and flowers every day like a good stalker?
We mostly send photos of ourselves like “look how cute Mike looks, he trimmed his beard” or “Scott washed his hair, c’mon”.
As you did mention before the bro-down that Soundwave is known for I noticed your buddies Bring Me The Horizon have been announced, they seem to be Cancer Bats companion on all Australian tours.
That rules! I didn’t even know they were playing!
I mean Cancer Bats coming to Australia without Bring Me The Horizon, it just wouldn’t make any sense.
Yeah, we tour a lot with those guys and they have become good friends, so it’s defiantly going to be rad and there’s tons of other bros, like I just found out that Gallows are playing, which is going to be the best. Wade is one of my best friends. We’ve toured with those guys in Gallows SO MUCH, so I’m excited for that.
Do you have those adult moments, where now you’re in success bands and music is your career, that you guys look back at the teenage you and freak out?
Yeah! Especially for someone like Wade (McNeil- Gallows) and I. We met in Canada back when Wade was still in high school and we both just had demo cassettes or demo CDs for our bands that we were hanging out for free.
I remember the first Alexis(onfire) demo, Wade and Dallas asked if they could set up at our merch table, of a band that I was in way back in the day and just like hand out free copies of their demo because they had just started and we always laugh about those funny shows that you never think anything of and another thing we were playing Silverstein at the same time, like my band was playing with Silverstein and Alexisonfire just showed up to hand out their demos and it’s so funny to look at how things have come around from then, from like 12 years ago maybe even more, so that kind of stuff is defiantly insane.
In the same way for Mike and all the guys in Comeback Kid, those dudes all grew up together the same way and we talk about when they were touring when they were 16 years old , so young traveling around and then now we go around the world with those guys, sharing these crazy festival stages. This whole thing is so nuts looking back on things. We defiantly think we’re really lucky.
Yeah! It gives inspiration to those bands who were you guys 10 years ago.
That’s the thing that I always want to project. There’s nothing special to any of us. We’re all just dudes who play in bands and worked really hard at it and we’ve been like this our whole entire lives. There’s nothing different for any kid starting a band and has a demo, I mean your band will break up and you’ll have to start a new band and then you’ll start a new band after that and it’s going to work out as long as you just love what you’re doing and you’re a good dude.
That’s the biggest and the only thing I would say, NOT JERKS ALLOWED, not in our crew, they’re not allowed in our circle.
And that is such an important lesson to teach and to learn is to be nice to everyone.
Yeah but don’t be nice because you feel obligated, be nice because you’re nice.
Life advice from Liam!
Now I want to talk about the bands fourth studio album DEAD SET ON LIVING which is another killer album from the band that was released earlier this year. It’s not only a stand out for the band but has set the bar for the heavy music scene, where do you go after this?
Oh, hmmm, haha, that is a really good question. My plan is to tour extensively on it and to try to come up with a way that we can out do this album because right now we defiantly have no idea or plans we’re just like “we just wrote a record that was just us having fun and writing the songs we wanted to hear” so now we’re like “dude what do we do now?”.
Hopefully we can pull a Hatebreed ‘Satisfaction is the death of desire’ and we’ll just tour it for five years and people will just be content with that, because I could watch Hatebreed play that album forever and I’m not saying that this is the perfect hardcore record in the same way that satisfaction is, I don’t want people to get that impression, I’m just saying that Hatebreed new what they were doing when they toured that record for five years.
Cancer Bats have generated fans and buzz by having an incredible live show, but with rave reviews this album stands on it’s own and is introducing new fans to the band and this live energy you have on stage, have you noticed the change in the audience?
It’s defiantly been a record that people have been responding well to. Like the first time people see it live, those new songs are getting such a huge response and that’s a really cool feeling, like you said we’re a live band so when we’re touring we’re letting people know that we have a new record so it’s like “we have this album and it’s called Bears or Hail or whatever” and people are like “cool, I’ve heard that song live I’m going to go check this record out” but I feel with this it’s the first time that people are coming to the show with the album in mind, like they’ve been listening to it on Spotify or RDIO or they bought the record or they got it off iTunes, I feel like people at this point are a little bit more like ahead of what we’ve been doing and that has been taking us by surprise and it’s really exciting to play these shows the last two months and you get that response for album tracks that people already know, not only the one’s that we have videos for, that sort of thing has been crazy.
And like you said it is a different formula, in the past Cancer Bats win fans with their live show whereas this time the album has brought people to the shows, have you had to change the live set to accommodate the new songs?
We defiantly haven’t as of yet, for right now we’re still trying to keep it really balances, which has been working because we defiantly don’t want to just play new songs and bum out everyone because we’ve all had it happen when we see our favourite band and you’re just like “bummer” so we defiantly try to do a mix of all four records, so how we work out each set, we’ll do a song off each record and then start again and do each major song off each record and do them in major chunks like that to make sure that we cover all of that ground.
We’re a weird band where we’ve had more music videos than most bands get a chance to make, so we have a lot of content that’s out there as far as singles or songs that people are familiar with, so with that we have to play at least nine of those songs and those are off all of our records so I think that keeps it nice and broken up.
And why do you have so many video clips?
Because the Canadian music industry is set up to support Canadian artists, like the music channels are very supportive and they have to play 30% Canadian content, so the stations need these videos so they’ll help us to make these videos, so they can have content for their shows and because we work with really good directors we have pretty funny ideas we kind of get selected a lot in terms of being able to make the videos that we want so that’s how we were pretty much able to make all of them, of the eleven we had basically eight of them made by the main music channel. So it’s really crazy, you get to work with a real crew and have professional lighting and it’s crazy but it’s just part of being in the system so they can use it on their channel, so it’s a cool system that we’re able to take advantage of and then the fans win because we get really cool music videos all the time.
That’s so incredible!
Dead Set On Living has such a live energy to it, what changes did you make with recording this record?
That record is defiantly the closest that we’ve come to recording live and capturing how intense we are live on album and we basically recorded most of it live with drums, bass and vocals all live off the floor.
For every track of drums Jaye was playing along with bass, Scott was still playing guitar with it but we weren’t album to keep any of that guitar just due to the studio size that we were in we couldn’t isolate all those cabs, but like 50% of the vocals are from those live tracks, so I feel the whole thing has that live intensity for the real first time that we’ve ever been able to capture.
We kind of struck this idea when we were working on the last record and we ended up using live vocals for the cover we did of Beastie Boys ‘Sabotage’ and when we were listening back, the producer Eric Ratz and I were listening to the tune and were like “man the live vocals that we did for Sabotage, no one can tell that those are not sung in a static situation” and there’s more energy in that live song than those more perfect takes that we have done, so we were like why don’t we just try and get comfortable with the songs so I can just sing the whole thing live and Mike can play the whole record live and not trying to take away that context just because we’re in a studio, so this is our first record that I feel like we’ve really nailed it doing that.
Well it’s been a pleasure talking to you and I can’t wait to see Dead Set On Living on the live stage and have you back in Australia.
Thanks so much, we can’t wait to come back it’s going to be a mess.
Cassie Walker
Very exciting news that CANCER BATS will be returning to Australia for Soundwave 2013, one of Australia’s favourite live bands, it seems like you’re here every year.
I wish it were true. I actually feel bad that it’s taken us so long to come back.
We’ve tried but had to shuffle things around with us coming on Soundwave, which I couldn’t be more excited about because there’s so many rad bands playing.
And it’s your first Soundwave.
Yeah, it’s our first time. We were suppose to do it actually in 2009 and we had to cancel, it sucked.
Damn! I’m sure you’ve heard lots about it from your friends who have toured with the festival before, what are you expecting from the festival?
Well basically everyone we know has done Soundwave Festival in the past and has told us that not only is it the best festival but it’s such a huge bro-down amongst all of the bands, because it’s like a tour with so many bands like travelling around. Like normally you tour with like 3 or 4 bands in a package and you all cruise around, where this is like 50 bands traveling across a country in like a huge caravan, like just hanging out and having the best time ever, it’s just like “Yeah”!
It sounds like the greatest thing ever and then it’s been re-enforced by all of our friends saying “yeah it’s the best thing, you guys totally have to do it” and it’s like “yeah we just need to get asked”!
Well finally you’ve been asked.
Did you stalk Soundwave to be asked to join the line up?
Yeah! We were like “C’mon we’d be really good, we’re really good at festivals I promise”.
So did you send them notes and flowers every day like a good stalker?
We mostly send photos of ourselves like “look how cute Mike looks, he trimmed his beard” or “Scott washed his hair, c’mon”.
As you did mention before the bro-down that Soundwave is known for I noticed your buddies Bring Me The Horizon have been announced, they seem to be Cancer Bats companion on all Australian tours.
That rules! I didn’t even know they were playing!
I mean Cancer Bats coming to Australia without Bring Me The Horizon, it just wouldn’t make any sense.
Yeah, we tour a lot with those guys and they have become good friends, so it’s defiantly going to be rad and there’s tons of other bros, like I just found out that Gallows are playing, which is going to be the best. Wade is one of my best friends. We’ve toured with those guys in Gallows SO MUCH, so I’m excited for that.
Do you have those adult moments, where now you’re in success bands and music is your career, that you guys look back at the teenage you and freak out?
Yeah! Especially for someone like Wade (McNeil- Gallows) and I. We met in Canada back when Wade was still in high school and we both just had demo cassettes or demo CDs for our bands that we were hanging out for free.
I remember the first Alexis(onfire) demo, Wade and Dallas asked if they could set up at our merch table, of a band that I was in way back in the day and just like hand out free copies of their demo because they had just started and we always laugh about those funny shows that you never think anything of and another thing we were playing Silverstein at the same time, like my band was playing with Silverstein and Alexisonfire just showed up to hand out their demos and it’s so funny to look at how things have come around from then, from like 12 years ago maybe even more, so that kind of stuff is defiantly insane.
In the same way for Mike and all the guys in Comeback Kid, those dudes all grew up together the same way and we talk about when they were touring when they were 16 years old , so young traveling around and then now we go around the world with those guys, sharing these crazy festival stages. This whole thing is so nuts looking back on things. We defiantly think we’re really lucky.
Yeah! It gives inspiration to those bands who were you guys 10 years ago.
That’s the thing that I always want to project. There’s nothing special to any of us. We’re all just dudes who play in bands and worked really hard at it and we’ve been like this our whole entire lives. There’s nothing different for any kid starting a band and has a demo, I mean your band will break up and you’ll have to start a new band and then you’ll start a new band after that and it’s going to work out as long as you just love what you’re doing and you’re a good dude.
That’s the biggest and the only thing I would say, NOT JERKS ALLOWED, not in our crew, they’re not allowed in our circle.
And that is such an important lesson to teach and to learn is to be nice to everyone.
Yeah but don’t be nice because you feel obligated, be nice because you’re nice.
Life advice from Liam!
Now I want to talk about the bands fourth studio album DEAD SET ON LIVING which is another killer album from the band that was released earlier this year. It’s not only a stand out for the band but has set the bar for the heavy music scene, where do you go after this?
Oh, hmmm, haha, that is a really good question. My plan is to tour extensively on it and to try to come up with a way that we can out do this album because right now we defiantly have no idea or plans we’re just like “we just wrote a record that was just us having fun and writing the songs we wanted to hear” so now we’re like “dude what do we do now?”.
Hopefully we can pull a Hatebreed ‘Satisfaction is the death of desire’ and we’ll just tour it for five years and people will just be content with that, because I could watch Hatebreed play that album forever and I’m not saying that this is the perfect hardcore record in the same way that satisfaction is, I don’t want people to get that impression, I’m just saying that Hatebreed new what they were doing when they toured that record for five years.
Cancer Bats have generated fans and buzz by having an incredible live show, but with rave reviews this album stands on it’s own and is introducing new fans to the band and this live energy you have on stage, have you noticed the change in the audience?
It’s defiantly been a record that people have been responding well to. Like the first time people see it live, those new songs are getting such a huge response and that’s a really cool feeling, like you said we’re a live band so when we’re touring we’re letting people know that we have a new record so it’s like “we have this album and it’s called Bears or Hail or whatever” and people are like “cool, I’ve heard that song live I’m going to go check this record out” but I feel with this it’s the first time that people are coming to the show with the album in mind, like they’ve been listening to it on Spotify or RDIO or they bought the record or they got it off iTunes, I feel like people at this point are a little bit more like ahead of what we’ve been doing and that has been taking us by surprise and it’s really exciting to play these shows the last two months and you get that response for album tracks that people already know, not only the one’s that we have videos for, that sort of thing has been crazy.
And like you said it is a different formula, in the past Cancer Bats win fans with their live show whereas this time the album has brought people to the shows, have you had to change the live set to accommodate the new songs?
We defiantly haven’t as of yet, for right now we’re still trying to keep it really balances, which has been working because we defiantly don’t want to just play new songs and bum out everyone because we’ve all had it happen when we see our favourite band and you’re just like “bummer” so we defiantly try to do a mix of all four records, so how we work out each set, we’ll do a song off each record and then start again and do each major song off each record and do them in major chunks like that to make sure that we cover all of that ground.
We’re a weird band where we’ve had more music videos than most bands get a chance to make, so we have a lot of content that’s out there as far as singles or songs that people are familiar with, so with that we have to play at least nine of those songs and those are off all of our records so I think that keeps it nice and broken up.
And why do you have so many video clips?
Because the Canadian music industry is set up to support Canadian artists, like the music channels are very supportive and they have to play 30% Canadian content, so the stations need these videos so they’ll help us to make these videos, so they can have content for their shows and because we work with really good directors we have pretty funny ideas we kind of get selected a lot in terms of being able to make the videos that we want so that’s how we were pretty much able to make all of them, of the eleven we had basically eight of them made by the main music channel. So it’s really crazy, you get to work with a real crew and have professional lighting and it’s crazy but it’s just part of being in the system so they can use it on their channel, so it’s a cool system that we’re able to take advantage of and then the fans win because we get really cool music videos all the time.
That’s so incredible!
Dead Set On Living has such a live energy to it, what changes did you make with recording this record?
That record is defiantly the closest that we’ve come to recording live and capturing how intense we are live on album and we basically recorded most of it live with drums, bass and vocals all live off the floor.
For every track of drums Jaye was playing along with bass, Scott was still playing guitar with it but we weren’t album to keep any of that guitar just due to the studio size that we were in we couldn’t isolate all those cabs, but like 50% of the vocals are from those live tracks, so I feel the whole thing has that live intensity for the real first time that we’ve ever been able to capture.
We kind of struck this idea when we were working on the last record and we ended up using live vocals for the cover we did of Beastie Boys ‘Sabotage’ and when we were listening back, the producer Eric Ratz and I were listening to the tune and were like “man the live vocals that we did for Sabotage, no one can tell that those are not sung in a static situation” and there’s more energy in that live song than those more perfect takes that we have done, so we were like why don’t we just try and get comfortable with the songs so I can just sing the whole thing live and Mike can play the whole record live and not trying to take away that context just because we’re in a studio, so this is our first record that I feel like we’ve really nailed it doing that.
Well it’s been a pleasure talking to you and I can’t wait to see Dead Set On Living on the live stage and have you back in Australia.
Thanks so much, we can’t wait to come back it’s going to be a mess.
Cassie Walker