Sep. 17, 2008 - Issue #674: Edmonton International Print 2008

Cancer Bats

Cancer Bats hails its punk brethren

For Toronto’s Cancer Bats, the road to the group’s privileged place in the Canadian music scene was one helped along by close friends in other bands. Forming a community with other bands from the Big Smoke such as Alexisonfire and Billy Talent, everyone worked together to spur each other onto bigger and bigger stages. After wearing each other’s T-shirts during interviews on MuchMusic and MTV, appearing in each other’s videos and dropping each other’s names whenever the chance arose, all three bands find themselves at the top of the heap when it comes to Canadian punk rock.

 

And Cancer Bats’ lead singer Liam Cormier is grateful for the legs up his band received at the hands of others, so much so that he spent much of our interview “big upping” other Canadian bands that he is excited about—bands like Montreal’s Barn Burner and Black Ships and Toronto’s Fucked Up all got mentions as Cormier neglected to talk about himself much.

 

“That’s just a huge part of being bros—wanting to help each other out and rep each other’s stuff. People always ask us what to check out from Canada, and we always try to big up our friends’ stuff,” he says over the phone from Toronto as he prepares to head out on another gruelling tour that will see the band well into 2009. “We’ve definitely had a leg up from bands helping us out, so we want to help out as much as we can.”
 


 

The desire to pay it forward certainly makes Cancer Bats endearing, but what makes it an especially interesting band in its own right is the way the members have always pushed themselves to be a better band. As Cormier explains, there was a lot of pressure when they went in to make their newest album Hail Destroyer after their first full length, Birthing the Giant, was so successful, but the pressure came mostly from the band’s desire to make a record that blew its last one out of the water and never from any outside sources.

 

“Everybody was super stoked on the record and how the songs were sounding so that worry was out of our heads, so it was just everyone wanting to step up to the plate and just crush the old album. It was so comforting that Greg [Below, founder of  the band’s record label] was so supportive about what we were doing and we didn’t have any of that nervousness, any of that sophomore, ‘Oh, I hope this’ll be good enough.’ It was those guys being really supportive and going, ‘These songs rule, lets make them fucking kick ass in terms of how they sound,’” Cormier enthuses. “Every single day we would say, ‘Let’s step this up, let’s make this gnarlier, let’s crush what we were doing before.’”

 

Along the same lines of not forgetting which bands gave Cancer Bats a leg up over the years, Cormier also hasn’t forgotten about the legions of kids that helped the band become what it is. The underage brigade is the backbone of a lot of successful punk bands, but when money and fame seep into the picture, they often get pushed to the margins. Not so with Cancer Bats who will be playing an all ages show and a licensed show on the same day.

“One thing I’m stoked on is we were able to work it out to have an all-ages show—we’re into having bar shows and that’s cool, but we love playing all-ages shows,” he says. “Getting the young kids that don’t give a shit and just wanna party the hardest—that rules!” V 

Sat, Sep 20 (5 pm & 9 pm)

Cancer Bats

With Black Lungs, Johnny Truant

Starlite Room, $17 (5 pm is All Ages)

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