Cancer Bats Interview & Photos for Front Magazine.

Published HERE

With perhaps the sweetest name in the business and more facial hairs than we’d care to count, Mike and Jaye from Cancer Bats stopped to chat about Sting, trannys and ‘weird hangy bits’...

The name Cancer Bats was thought up by putting a disease and an animal together. If Cancer Bats was taken, what would you have gone for? You can’t say Eczema Mackerels or Gout Weasels. They’re our suggestions.
Mike: We had to choose between our name and ‘Pneumonia Hawk’, which we later decided to call one of our songs instead.
Jaye: There’s this band in Montréal called AIDS Wolf; I thought that was a pretty abrasive name. Liam [lead vocals] nicked their idea. They’re like weird, arty, indie rock stuff.

The next album is going to be called Bears, Mayors, Scraps and Bones. Was there some formula for picking that name too?
Mike: Ah, that’s a secret.

Really?
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 'Scoeb 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 you manage that?
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 yea, 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.

So what’s with the beards? Who started the cornflake catcher revolution? Even Sting is looking like an extra out of some Jesus-based movie...
Jaye: 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 I hear about a Beastie Boys cover?
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 anything 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.

Cancer Bats new ball-rocking album ‘Bears, Mayors, Scraps and Bones’ will be available in March 2010.

Words and pictures: Chris Sayer

Cancer Bats: Hail Destroyer

-ENDS-
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SKINDRED AT PRINCESS PAVILIONS

Published HERE

Skindred are different. Very different. In fact, there’s nobody else out there like them. Their reggae-come-dance-come-metal-come-rap could easily have been a case of ‘bitten off more than you can chew’. Maybe for us mere mortals, but for Benji Webbe and his crew the sound is as brilliant as it is distinct.

YouTube videos reveal their recent Sonisphere festival slot to have been little short of epic. If Falmouth could match even a slice of that, then this gig was going to be electric.

Karnivool, blending a twist of A Perfect Circle and Sense Field, were first to play. Like an extra from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Lead singer Ian Kenny’s dorky and dumb stage presence was irritating to begin with, but slowly fitted into the eerie melodies and catchy riffs that also makes his sideline band Birds of Tokyo so popular. With an album definitely worth a listen set for release in the UK soon, the Aussies’ really set the standards from the off.

However, the second support slot fell to Dead By April. Frankly, if there is a book on how to be a whiney, wet emo band then this lot have read it. Several times. Maybe even listened to the audio books. Nevertheless the masses of black-clad adolescents seemed to love the Scandinavian group, and that’s who they were there to play to.

Finally, and luckily, it was Skindred’s turn to boss the stage. And boss it they did. Benji Webbe, the only Welsh-Rastafarian lead singer in the business, instantly charged the audience with his spiky machine-gun reggae rap, skewed with the booming jaws of a metal growl. This Jekyll/Hyde effect stirred up the near sold out audience with everyone bouncing unanimously to every beat of every song.

Even his philosophical fillers on unity, brotherhood and music downloads kept the crowd hanging on to his every word. When he commanded everyone dance, dance everyone did. When he commanded everyone to calm down, calm down they did.

Songs such as ‘Rat Race’, ‘Pressure’ and ‘Nobody’ were crowd favourites, as well as the cover of Eddie Grant’s ‘Electric Avenue’ which the front-man seemed to take particular pleasure in reciting.

Unfortunately, the encore was cut short after bouncers struggled to restrain one martyr/fool, who went against everything Benji had said during the evening. With a simple “Right, thank you, goodnight” they were off the stage and the lights were up.

That aside, it’s a wonder why this band isn’t a huge British sensation. The only similarities that can be drawn with other bands are in The Prodigy and Pendulum, who also cross genres and appeal to huge numbers with enormous success.

Maybe it’s a good thing that Skindred aren’t radio regulars for now. Falmouth could do with more nights like this on a regular basis. And there is only one band that can do it. (Chris Sayer)

Skindred’s new album, Shark Bites and Dog Fights, is available now on Bieler Bros Records.