Muen Magazine

July 13, 2010

THE COOL TOUR

CANCER BATS

Liam Cormier (Vocals)

Toronto, Ontario

Myspace.com/cancerbats

By: Shauna O”Donnell

HI LIAM, THANKS FOR DOING THE INTERVIEW. IT HAS BEEN A WHILE SINCE WE LAST TALKED, SO I THOUGHT WE WOULD GET CAUGHT UP WITH WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH THE BAND.

MUEN: CURRENTLY YOU ARE OUT THERE ON THE COOL TOUR. ALTHOUGH IT IS STILL EARLY IN THE TOUR, HOW ARE THINGS GOING SO FAR?

So far the tour’s been pretty rad.  The whole thing is just one big hang out everyday. We roll up at noon for a big parking lot party where all the bands are just chilling and getting ready for the show. We all find the nearest Starbucks throughout the day. Play a show and then start it all again the next day. Pretty sweet!

MUEN: HAVE YOU TOURED WITH THE OTHER BANDS ON THE TOUR BEFORE?

We haven’t toured with any of the bands before this run. We had met the guys in Acacia Strain, Under Oath,  and Architects so we knew there were going to be good dudes on the tour. But we had no idea that everyone was going to be so awesome.

MUEN: ARE YOU DOING ANY MEET AND GREETS ON THE TOUR?

I’m doing our merch on this whole tour so I’m hanging out with kids all night. Its cool because lots of the bands will come and hang out with kids at  merch. Vincent and Tony Diaz from Acacia Strain and all the Bless The Fall guys come and hang out. Same with War of Ages and Architects so its a huge merch bro down most nights.

MUEN: HOW ARE THE FANS RESPONDING TO THE NEW SONGS?

I feel like there’s lots of people who we’re playing to on the tour who’ve
never heard of us before, and so all the songs are new to them, but the
whole thing has been going down pretty well every night. We figured since
it’s such a metal tour we’ve been playing all of our heaviest songs. It’s nice
to not be the heaviest band on tour for once.

MUEN: AFTER THE COOL TOUR YOU ARE HEADING OVERSEAS, ACTUALLY BY THE LOOKS OF YOUR SCHEDULE, YOU MAY NEVER GO HOME. HOW DO YOU COPE WITH BEING ON THE ROAD SO LONG? WHAT DO YOU DO TO KEEP YOUR SANITY?

We love being on tour and especially in the UK and Europe. We’ve toured there so many times now that we have lots of friends all over that we’re stoked to see. For us England is like our second home so we love touring over there.  The only downside is missing girlfriends for us. It helps that they’re all super supportive about what we do and understand that we’ve got to tour as much as we do now that things are going good for us.

MUEN: ARE YOU STAYING OUT THERE SO YOU CAN AVOID THIS YEARS CANADIAN WINTER? I HEAR IT GETS MIGHTY COLD UP THERE.

I think this year were going to try and tour Canada as much as we can when its really cold. In the dead of winter no one else wants to tour the country so the shows are awesome because there’s nothing else going on. We’ve done it before and its always amazing. The only thing is convincing bands that aren’t from Canada to come out with us. Everyone’s usually too scared to do the drives.

MUEN: YOU’LL BE IN JAPAN NEXT YEAR WITH BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE. IS THIS YOUR FIRST TRIP TO JAPAN?

We’ve been to Japan once before for Summer Sonic festival. That place blew our minds it was so awesome. The music scene there is crazy too. We had no idea there would be so many kids going off and singing along for our set. I’m really excited to go back with Bullet, I think those shows will be crazy.

MUEN: YOU ARE ALSO GOING BACK TO AUSTRALIA. YOU HAVE PRETTY MUCH BEEN ALL OVER THE WORLD. IS THERE ANY ONE PLACE THAT YOU LOVE MORE THAN THE OTHERS?

It’s tough to say, there are so many amazing places that we’ve played. Ill be able to give a more honest answer once we’ve played South America, India, Mexico, South East Asia and so many other places we still haven’t been yet. Still lots of world left for Cancer Bats to conquer!

MUEN: WHERE WOULD YOU SAY THE BEST FOOD IS?

I’m a huge Mexican food fan so I would say the best food is in Austin. They have some of the best burritos I have ever had in my life. I can’t wait to go and eat there on this tour. We’re making a detour just for the food!

MUEN: WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU ABSOLUTELY CANNOT GO ON THE ROAD WITHOUT?

I’d say my best friends. The fact that I get to travel to all of these amazing places with my best friends makes it all worth while. I know that where ever we go were always going to have the best time.

MUEN: WHAT DO YOU FIND TO BE THE HARDEST PART ABOUT BEING ON THE ROAD SO LONG?

I would say missing girlfriends and friends back home. To be gone for so long and miss out on lots of things going on back home is really tough. You can be really far away sometimes when you want to be there for a friend who’s going through some rough shit and there’s nothing you can do other than be on the phone and sometimes not even that. That’s the only downside to tour.

MUEN: YOU JUST RELEASED YOUR THIRD STUDIO ALBUM TITLED BEARS, MAYORS, SCRAPS & BONES. I HAVE TO KNOW HOW YOU CAME UP WITH THAT TITLE.

I came up with the title as a way to talk about how Cancer Bats now has a full and solid line up.  The 4 names are a reference to nicknames that each of us have.  Before this on our last two records we had different members and wrote songs with different line ups, but now that Jaye is in the band this is the final line up of the band and I couldn’t be happier. So the title was my way of saying Cancer Bats is these 4 people and this is what we can do together.

MUEN: YOU HAD GUEST VOCALISTS ON HAIL DESTROYER. WHAT ABOUT THIS ALBUM?

We have guests on the record for gang vocals but no specific guest parts. Now that Jaye is in the band and does all of the back ups live I really want to make a point of only having him be the other voice on the album. Jaye’s always been the one who sings all of the guest vocal spots live anyways so now its his time to shine and not just sing other people stuff.

MUEN: IS THERE ANYONE YOU WOULD LOVE TO HAVE DO GUEST VOCALS ON AN ALBUM?

We have so many bros that I would love to have everyone sing on our record.
I might just do a hip hop album so we can have multiple guests on every song. Get every band we’ve ever toured with to be on it.

MUEN: DIDN’T YOU LEND YOUR VOCALS FOR A SILVERSTEIN ALBUM? WHAT SONG?

Yeah I got asked to sing on the song “Vices” on their last record. I’ve known
those dudes forever, we all grew up going to the same shows around Toronto.
I was really stoked when they asked me to sing on the album, that they thought my voice suited one of the songs was cool.

MUEN: WHO ASSISTED IN PRODUCTION OF THE ALBUM?

We worked with the same guys on this album that we did on the last one Eric Ratz and Kenny Luong. They’re the best dudes ever and know the secrets to making everything awesome.

MUEN: WHAT IN YOUR OPINION IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HAIL DESTROYER AND THE NEW ALBUM MUSICALLY? HOW HAS IT EVOLVED?

I think the biggest difference is that we’ve all become better players from all the touring that we’ve done. I think there were a lot of cool ideas that we started working on with Hail Destroyer but we really had to step our game as a band to nail those ideas in the way we have with this record. I just think in a lot of ways we just weren’t there yet as a band. We didn’t have a bass player, my voice wasn’t as strong and Mikey and Scott’s playing have only gotten better in the last two years, so I think it just took time to get
to this point as a band.

MUEN: YOU DECIDED TO ALSO PUT IT OUT ON RED VINYL. IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE CD AND THE VINYL BESIDES THE FACT THAT ONE IS A CD AND THE OTHER IS VINYL?

The two are pretty much the same except vinyl is way sweeter and sounds better. We’re all huge vinyl fans so we really wanted to press the new album because for us that’s all we buy these days.  The art work is bigger and the records on a cool color and it’ll never wear out. I’m already at the point where some of my CDs from the mid 90s don’t work anymore, which is a total bum out. With vinyl I’ll be able to listen to it for the rest of my life! Long live vinyl!

MUEN: YOU GUYS WERE NOMINATED FOR BEST VIDEO AT THE KERRANG AWARDS. THAT IS SO AWESOME! IT WAS FOR “SABOTAGE” WHICH IS ACTUALLY A COVER SONG. GIVE US THE DETAILS ON THAT.

Yeah we were really stoked when we found out about the nomination. Were up against bands like 30 Seconds To Mars and Paramore which is crazy because I think of those bands as being so huge, but I think Mark Riciardeli did an amazing job on the video and it stands up next to any of those other bands, so maybe its not that crazy. He’s an incredible director. We’ve worked him on all of our videos but he’s done tons for Alexisonfire, ComeBack Kid, Bedouin Soundclash, Silverstien, Boys Night Out and a bunch of others. Go check him out on the interweb! Also if you want our video is up for votes so go to kerrang.com to see more on that.

MUEN: THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE INTERVIEW.

Thanks for doing the interview!