A CHINWAG WITH… CANCER BATS
With more facial hairs than we’d care (or need to) to count, Mike and Jaye from Toronto shout-mongers Cancer Bats popped over to talk music, Sting and trannies.
Their new tit-shaking album, ‘Bears, Mayors, Scraps and Bones’ is out in March next year, and Mike from the band tells FRONT it will ‘rock your balls.’ And that’s the kind of rocking we like. See what else they had to say after the jumpy-poos…
Alright boys, the next album is going to be called Bears, Mayors, Scraps and Bones. What’s the formula for picking your frightfully bizarre names?
Mike: Put it this way, I am the bear; Jaye is the bone, Jaye-Bone Malone; Liam is Scrappy or Le Scrap; and Scott [hairy guitarist] is the Mayor of Scope City, so, yea. It came to Liam in a dream.
Jaye: Yea, it came to him when we were all trying to figure out what to call it, and he came to us saying “What if it’s just all our nicknames?”. It kinda just flows. It’s totally ridiculous at the same time.
In the video for Hail Destroyer you have some gnarly looking wolves trotting around all over the set. Did anyone get bitten/maimed/digested?
Mike: One of the camera guys got jumped by a wolf. It didn’t bite him, but it cracked him in the face and he started bleeding so he had to go to the hospital. He was back in the afternoon after some stitches though. Later in the video one seems to want to eat Liam’s face, and gets pretty close…
Mike: Yea, erm, there’s some camera magic going on there. That wolf that jumped hated this other wolf, and the handlers brought them close together and they got insanely vicious.
You all appear in Bring Me The Horizon’s video for Chelsea Smile. How did that come about?
Mike: We were just in town and BMTH said they’d love us to be in their video. We just said “fuck it”; it was only a two hour drive and we went down for the morning, hoping for some sweet catering. And yeah, there was no catering.
Jaye: And we look like the most boring dudes in that video too. They shot our part early on because we had to sound-check our show in London, so we didn’t get to be in the party parts. But by like 11.30am I was like, “I’m drunk”. It was real early.
You guys are notorious beardy types, but is it a bit off-putting now that Sting has a big bushy face bastard?
Jaye: Not at all. We love beards. Scott has had a beard since he was like, ten. And I hate shaving, which is good because we get a lot of compliments about them from people.
Mike: In hockey during the play-offs everyone grows their beards, it’s just a thing the players do, and we all wanted play-off beards. But Liam’s, his was so gross. He gets weird hangy bits. So gross.
What’s this we hear about a Beastie Boys cover in the bag?
Mike: Yea, that is recorded. But it won’t be on the new album. Hopefully it’s gonna come out as a seven-inch before the record, but don’t hold me to that.
Did you guys get up to owt spesh on Halloween?
Jaye: We played a special show in Nottingham, at Rock City. Mike dressed up as some sort of tranny.
Mike: Nah, I was a zombie-tranny. Scott went as a Viking but I don’t really count that as dressing up. He just put on the clothes that he should normally wear.
Finally, why should everyone buy your new album next year?
Jaye: Because it rules.
Mike: It’ll rock your balls off.
Words and pictures: Chris Sayer
GazCam Says:
Cancer Bats are the business
November 12th, 2009 at 12:22 pm