Toronto born metal/ punk band the Cancer Bats have spread their wings all over the country and in the process earned a Juno nomination for their seventh album “ Psychic Jailbreak.”
They will be playing the Slice, Tuesday, March 7 with Calgary band Trench.
Frontman Liam Cormier is excited about the new iteration of the Bats, who have undergone a line up change and said farewell to founding guitarist Scott Middleton while welcoming KT Lamond to the the fold .
“ I’m doing great. I’m out in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The weather is beautiful today. It’s like 12 degrees. I was just riding my skateboard and came off to do this interview,” enthused Cormier, taking a quick break from skateboarding in his new hometown of Halifax, where he has been living since 2019.
“ I live live out here now. I moved here in 2019. Just hanging out a lot on the east coast and it being really chill. Then I met a really cool girl that lived out here. And I was like, you know what I’m going to stay out here,” he said, adding the band members are scattered all over the country, so they just meet to tour.
“Our drummer lives in Winnipeg, the guitar player still lives in Toronto and now, our new guitar player actually lives in Halifax — a friend of mine KT Lamond, who actually plays in Like a Motorcycle. The Cancer Bats have played together and she and I skateboard together. I was like you should come on tour with the Bats and the rest is history,” he enthused.
Scott Middleton decided to quit the Cancer Bats to focus on his love for recording and to spend more time with his family.
“ He’s super into recording. It is kind of his passion. He is also married and has a kid. He was just doing more studio stuff and was kind of like you know what, I kind of prefer this, like being at home and being able to be with his fam a bit more. And we’re like for sure man,” he said.
“We just wrote the new album as a three piece, so it’ s just Jaye (Schwarzer, bass and guitar ), Mike (Peters, drums) and I, the three core members who are left,” he said adding the new album stays the course as they know what they and their their fans like to hear — loud, riff heavy, groove laden, upbeat skate punk and metal.
“We all love being in the Cancer Bats and know what type of tunes we want to play. So it was kind of heading down that path and then Scott left basically while we were writing so we were already going down that route. And then we were just waiting for him to fill in maybe some of his extra guitar and then he was like I’m going to leave the band, and we were like okay cool, we’ve already written three quarters of an album, so we’ll just write the last bit and put it out,” he said.
“ I love it. I think for me definitely like having six albums to set the blueprint helps. I feel like we have a really close relationship with all our fans too and really listen to what a lot of them really like about our band,” he said.
“So for us, a lot of it is just fine tuning what we love about the band, what people love about our band , and going from there,” he said.
The lyrics of this album explore a lot of the changes they band has been undergoing, and of course there are some songs that are just pure fun.
“I think a big thing for me with this record was the whole idea of a psychic jailbreak is like a mental shift. So it’s how the world perceives things, how we perceive things. I was thinking a lot about how things have shifted, obviously like our guitar player leaving. I feel like a lot of the ways that over the pandemic and people having a lot of time to think about things. I feel like the consciousness of people in general has shifted. So there is a lot of that I was thinking on and drawing on lyrically. But then also there’s a lot of fun songs on the record like “the Hoof.” That song’s just about me getting back into skateboarding,” he laughed.
“And songs like ‘Lonely Bong.’ That song’s just about me missing my band mates and kind of missing tour. So it’s everything from contemplating the universe to just ripping on my skateboard,” he continued, describing the album in three words “super freaking fun.”.
He is pleased about getting a Juno nomination for the new album.
“It feels pretty amazing actually. We’ve been fortunate to be nominated for a lot of records so to have a nomination again on our seventh album just feels like we’re doing something right, you know what I mean , to be recognized like that. So it feel great,” he said.
The Cancer Bats are touring their way out to Edmonton for the Juno Awards
“ There’s a Juno fest show in Edmonton. We’re also playing in Calgary, Medicine Hat, Banff and Red Deer. But I’m excited . We haven’t actually been to Lethbridge in a while,” he said, noting their last Lethbridge show was several years ago.
“2015 or 2016 may have been the last time so we’re excited. People are buying tickets and stuff. So it’ll be really good. I think it’s going to be a really good night,” he predicted.
“ We like to play all the hits, we play stuff off of every record. We definitely have our favourites and we know what people are looking for. So we try to play everything,” he said.
“ We‘re going to be touring with a band called Trench from Calgary who are really good friends of ours, and super heavy band and also on New Damage Records with us. So we were like for sure, we definitely want to rip with these guys. And I’m actually not sure who else is opening the Lethbridge show. It’s us and Trench everywhere and then it’s different bands at every stop,” he said.
Covid didn’t stop the Cancer Bats from touring.
“ We toured a fair bit off this record, nothing too crazy. We did some awesome tours across Canada with Comeback Kid which were actually some of the biggest shows we played headlining as a band. So it felt pretty great. People were really hungry for loud music after Covid, he said adding they enjoyed touring with Comeback Kid
“ It was awesome. We’ve known those guys forever. And Mike and the singer Andrew and the guitar player Jeremy used to play in a band together. They were in Figure Four together. So those guys grew up together so it’s really like family when we tour with them,” he said, adding they have a fun year of touring this year.
“We have a huge run of festival shows that we’re going to be doing this summer. So that feels really good to get back over to Europe and to play some of the spots we haven’t been yet and then just trying to fill in the rest of the year. We’d love to just kind of keep rolling for the rest of 2023 on this album, he said.
Cormier has a lot to be stoked about from playing music to riding skateboards to being back on the road.
“My other passion is riding motorcycles. So I’m always trying to fit in just riding dirt bikes and riding every motorcycle I can. I ’m excited for a another year of ripping bikes,” he said.
The Cancer Bats are starting their own record label “Bat Spell Records” to help out some of their favourite bands.
“ Originally we were just putting out Cancer Bats stuff. But I think we’re going to start putting some other bands. For me especially there’s a lot of amazing bands that I see out on the east coast that I feel the rest of Canada doesn’t know about yet. So it would be cool to get Bat Spell Records going and actually help some of these bands. For Cancer Bats fans, it will be bands that we‘ve played with before and bands that we’re excited about,” he said.
“ I’m really excited abut that. There‘s this really cool band from Moncton, New Brunswick called Diner Drugs that kind of sound like Bronx kind of style punk or Red Fang, sludgy rock and roll sort of stuff, really fun dudes. That’s one band I’m really excited about. There’s another really awesome heavy band from Halifax called Thousand Knives that sort of sounds like Year of the Knife or at times like Vein F.M. that kind of new really intense metal core with like a female singer and super ripping guitar. Rad songs all across the board. So those are the two bands we‘re looking to put out,” he said.
“ But that’s going to be in the future, hopefully sooner than later,” he said.
In the meantime they are looking forward to this tour, especially the Lethbridge show.
“We’re ready to cut loose and let it all hang out. I think that show’s going to be nuts. We’re really excited too. It’s just like a week of tour. So I think for us the whole thing is to smash these shows and have a blast ,” he said.
The Cancer Bats, Trench and Guests play the Slice, Tuesday, March 7 at 8 p.m.
Tickets for the show are $27.96.
—By Richard Amery, L.A. beat Editor
