Cancer Bats: Best Of 2008

01/07/09 3:45pm

by Erik Leijon (CHARTattack)

The biggest year in the history of Toronto hardcore kings Cancer Bats can be summed up in one word: touring. Bandmates Liam Cormier, Scott Middleton, Mike Peters and Jaye Schwarzer spent most of 2008 accumulating frequent flyer points and gassing up their terrestrial vehicle, serving witness to their massive spike in popularity following the release of their aggressive sophomore effort, Hail Destroyer.

Things haven't really changed much for a group used to playing anywhere and everywhere, but instead of hanging out with fans on their home turf of St. Catharines, Ont., Cancer Bats are playing house parties in Leeds, England and finding passionate fans in such unlikely locales as Portugal.

Cormier took time from his still-busy touring itinerary to look back on the band's bat-crazy year.

CHARTattack: Before releasing Hail Destroyer in April, I read the band were worried about how fans would take to your harder sound. I guess those worries were unfounded.
Liam Cormier: We were nervous at first, but once people heard the record — including those who were worried with the single "Hail Destroyer" being far heavier than anything we had done — they noticed a lot of the songs still had that groove that's more along the lines of the old record, so a lot of kids understood that it was still us and they got it.

Cancer Bats had a big year in the U.K. You guys did a lot of touring there.
We toured a ton of England this time around. We just finished up this tour with Funeral For A Friend, and we did 27 shows in 25 days.

For us, we treat the U.K. like Canada. Bands will come to Canada and only play the major cities, so for us in the U.K., we didn't just want to play London, Manchester and Leeds. We wanted to play all the small towns, too. We tried to cram in as much of England as we could.

That includes a house party in Leeds.
We played with Funeral, and afterwards we played at a friend's basement. It was probably one of the most fun shows we had played in a long time. Everyone had their shirts off, we were all sweating and the show had a great party atmosphere.

That's something we still like doing because we all grew up going to shows like that, having come up in punk rock and hardcore around southern Ontario. Sometimes those were the only kinds of places you could play. Cancer Bats have definitely played their fair share of houses, garages, kitchens, basements.

But the best place you played this year was Portugal. Why was that?
We played in a boat! The club was actually a boat that was docked in the harbour. We rolled up and loaded everything into it and played the show inside. It was hands-down the craziest show, and it blew our minds because we had never been anywhere near Portugal before. There were 200 kids there who knew all the words to every song we played. It was the most fucking incredible thing to have ever happened to us.

Just the fact that we can go so far and have that kind of response, as if we were playing back in St. Catharines, but we're on a boat in Portugal and kids are losing their minds, we kept thinking this was the fucking best show we had ever played.

Was playing in Canada any different this time around?
The last time we went out west was different. With the new album being out and the response having been as great as it was, that was our biggest tour of Canada. A lot of the places we had played before were now sold-out or we were playing bigger venues.

Just to witness all the hard work we've put into the band and to see all the sacrifices we've made paying off, to come back and have all the shows be really amazing felt great.

Cancer Bats are known for their energetic shows. Any injuries suffered on stage in 2008?
I think the worst one was when I split open my forehead in Saskatoon. It was last February. I was swinging the microphone and I caught myself in the face, and I ended up having to get six stitches because of it. We haven't had to cancel any shows yet, knock on wood.

Hail Destroyer was also nominated for album of the year at the 2008 Kerrang! Awards in the U.K. How was that experience?
I actually have a cool story about that awards show. We knew we weren't going to win, but it was flattering just to be there.

So when they were announcing the nominees and said our name, everyone started cheering really loudly. When they announced Avenged Sevenfold as the winner, you could hear people chanting "Cancer Bats" throughout the hall.

Apparently the guys from Anti-Flag started it, but the dudes from Rage Against The Machine were at the same table as them and they starting chanting our name, too. They didn't even know our band, but were cheering for us anyway. I guess they thought the name sounded cool.