Mad Child, of Canadian rap superstars the Swollen Members is loving life clean and sober.

“I don’t like that word sober. Sober sounds like you’re old and washed up and missing life. I consider myself normal,” said Madchild, or Shane Bunting in the real world, who has been “normal” for the past 11 months, is back on the road with the Swollen Members and hot on the heels of a brand new album “Dagger Mouth.”

They will be playing the Stone, May 27 with special guest Moka Only who will be joining the Swollen Members on stage for the first time in about seven years.

Music promoter James Nishima, aka DJ Booda, thought it would be a cool idea to get a reunion together with Moka Only for Lethbridge. Both parties jumped at the opportunity.

“It will be a one off show. He’s a professional and we’re professionals, so we know the songs. We didn’t rehearse. We don’t choreograph anything because you never know where we will end up — on a speaker, or in the crowd. There’s a few little things like crouching down on “Bring it  Home,’ and getting the crowd to jump up and  yelling “opa’ after ‘Watch This.’ This is the real thing. There’s no fakeness,” Madchild continued.

“There is going to be a little of everything. We’ll be doing songs from Dagger Mouth and some of the old singles. Moka will do the parts of his songs. And we’ll probably throw several of his songs in,” he said.
 It will be a mix of old and new music.

“Everyone coming to the show should expect to have a good time, because that is what people are going to have,” he continued.

 

He is pleased with the new CD, describing it as a return to form for the Swollen Members, so in addition to a lot of songs about the gangster life, there is a lot of pop culture references about movies, superheroes, comic books and the like.
“ If you listen to it, a lot of it is about walking away from the gangster life. There are not a lot of old gangsters. People are being sold a lie. You make a lot of bad decisions when you are on drugs. It’s all the Devil’s work,” he said.
“On ‘Armed to the Teeth’ we were glorifying negativity. But being on drugs, you make bad decisions. People say it’s like a family, but you have to do this drug or shoot this person. It‘s peer pressure,” he said adding the new music is more classic Swollen Members, with poetic stories and pop culture references.

“That’s just who we are,” he said adding he considers himself lucky to still be able to have a career making music after getting off drugs and alcohol.

“I like the love and respect of a family without having all of the peer pressure. You can be part of something cool, and just hang out with friends and listen to music.
“ A lot of guys who come off the stuff like I did, have to like get a job moving furniture for $15 an hour. I thank God every day that I can make music,” he said adding he is glad his friends, family and fans have stood by him during his struggles. He doesn’t like preaching to people, but he will tell his story if people ask why he is now refusing drink and drugs after a show.

“I can rock a show. And after the show I can go an hang out with the crowd and take some pictures, or go back to the hotel and write song or watch a movie with my girlfriend,” he said.

“And no hangover in the morning instead of getting drunk and belligerent. It’s pretty rewarding,” he said adding instead of being addicted to drugs, he is addicted to the songwriting process.

“ I used to only be able to write a verse a day, now, I can write three verses, a hook and record a song in a day,” he said noting the tour is going great.

“ We were just in Kamloops and we just killed it. There were people with bloody noses. One guy was bleeding from the eye, but they were smiling. Everyone was having a good time. They weren’t fighting, there was just a mosh pit. You usually don’t get mosh pits at hip hop shows, but you do at Swollen Members shows,” he said.
“I was overwhelmed. It was really, really cool.”

 He is also pleased with the response to the new music.
 The radio station Shade 45 was playing a leaked track “In Expectation,” but it was pulled as it ended up using the same sample used in Dr. Dre’s new single.

He hopes the new CD “Dagger Mouth,” which took four months to record, will have longevity.
“People have such short attention spans now. When I was young I’d get the new Beastie Boys album and I’d listen to it  for the whole summer. Now, if kids, especially in the hop hop scene, listen to something for 10 days, that’s a long time. I want people to get ‘Dagger Mouth’ and listen to it for the whole summer,” he said.